N. Korea Seeks to Renew Talks With the South

North Korea made what amounted to a policy reversal Sunday by announcing its desire to immediately reopen stalled talks with South Korea aimed at improving relations on the most heavily fortified peninsula in the world.

The move came a day before Chinese President Jiang Zemin was due to arrive in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, and a day before a key vote in South Korea involving North-South policy.

The South’s ruling party expressed cautious optimism that the overture might help restore momentum after six months without official contact between the Cold War foes.

“We welcome North Korea’s belated intention to resume talks,” the Millennium Democratic Party said in a statement. “We will have to analyze why North Korea requested a resumption in dialogue at this point.”

The MDP wasn’t alone in wondering about the timing. In fact, the South’s political opposition and many ordinary South Koreans found the whole thing a bit fishy. The timing suggested that the North sees the South Korean government as “nothing but a toy,” said opposition spokesman Chang Kwang Keun.

Specifically, the surprise announcement arrived on the eve of today’s National Assembly vote to impeach Unification Minister Lim Dong Won, a key architect of President Kim Dae Jung’s so-called sunshine policy of rapprochement with the North.

Lim is under political fire for approving an unofficial visit to North Korea two weeks ago by those in favor of improved ties, during which some of the delegates openly praised the isolated country. Many South Koreans these days believe that the Kim administration has given away too much and gained too little from its policy toward the North.

Ordinary people want progress, but the timing is bad, said Lee Sang Min, a professor of political science at Chungang University in Seoul, the South Korean capital.

“It’s created a very confusing dynamic,” Lee said.

North Korea’s second apparent motivation, tied to the opening of today’s three-day visit by Jiang, analysts added, is to show the world that the Marxist state is not beholden to any power, including its principal ally, China. Jiang is expected to urge North Korea to resume contact with the South, and Pyongyang may want to appear to have initiated the shift.

Analysts say North Korea’s move has a good chance of backfiring on both counts. They say that few who pay attention to such matters will miss the pressure coming from China and elsewhere, while the apparent attempt to influence politics in the South is so obvious and clumsy that it shows little understanding of other political systems.

“In fact, North Korea is very immature in issues related to domestic South Korean politics,” said Park Jae Chang, a political science professor with Sook Myong Women’s University. “So many times, North Korea plays a losing game. They just don’t seem to understand it.”

In a further rather obvious move, Pyongyang addressed its statement, carried over its official Korea Central News Agency, directly to beleaguered Unification Minister Lim. Analysts say Lim is one of the few officials the North feels it can trust.

“The North Korean side, representing the will of all the countrymen, proposes an immediate resumption of North-South dialogue between authorities,” the statement said.

Relations between North and South Korea thawed significantly last year after half a century of enmity. This warming of ties peaked in June 2000, when President Kim visited North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang.

Over the past 14 months, however, relations have sharply deteriorated, reportedly because of North Korean anger at the Bush administration’s decision to put U.S.-North Korean relations on hold.

Today’s vote in the South is seen by many as marking a critical political juncture. The government will try to find some face-saving compromise to avoid the humiliating departure of Lim. But if it doesn’t, the damage to its already weak credibility could be severe.

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Chi Jung Nam of The Times’ Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.