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(News Focus) S. Korea in confusion over PSI participation
By Lee Chi-dong
SEOUL, April 19 (Yonhap) -- Doubts are growing over South Korea's plan to join a U.S.-led anti-proliferation campaign, as North Korea strongly protests the move and Seoul's related ministries are reportedly locked in a power struggle over the ideologically sensitive issue.
South Korea's foreign ministry claims the government stands firm on the plan to take part in the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), saying the decision is only a matter of timing.
But many observers have questioned the ministry's stance after repeated delays in formally announcing the plan, saying it is fumbling the issue.
The ministry had planned to make public Seoul's full participation in the PSI last week, and then postponed it until 2 p.m. Sunday.
It pushed back the announcement again, however, after North Korea -- in a rare move -- called for an inter-Korean government meeting, which has been scheduled for this Tuesday.
Proposing the talks last Thursday, the North said it wishes to discuss the joint Kaesong industrial park, the only remaining inter-Korean joint venture.
North Korea also plans to give an unspecified "important notice" during the meeting, according to a government source here.
"It was an entire government-level decision, which took into account various factors including the South-North dialogue," foreign ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young said of the postponement.
His comments contradict the ministry's official position that South Korea's move towards joining the PSI is unrelated to North Korea. The government has maintained that its participation in the drive is part of Seoul's effort to play a larger role in global affairs.
Critics say the ministry's claim is absurd, given that North Korea, a leading exporter of missiles, is a primary target of the international campaign to halt the trafficking of weapons of mass destruction and related materials.
Controversy over Seoul's role in the PSI was rekindled as Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan told reporters last month that if North Korea fires a long-range rocket it would provide a good chance for South Korea to review whether to join the initiative.
Ministry officials initially pushed to make the PSI announcement shortly after the April 5 launch.
But hours after the rocket was fired, a senior Seoul official said, "We don't want to give an impression of a knee-jerk reaction to the North's move. We will wait until the U.N. Security Council's response."
The ministry then gave a notice to reporters that the announcement would be made on April 16, one of the communist neighbor's biggest holidays, the 97th birthday of its late founder, Kim Il-sung.
Media reports said the South Korean unification ministry, which oversees Seoul's policy on North Korea, put the brakes on the plan, citing worries over deteriorating inter-Korean relations at a sensitive time.
Some local newspapers said South Korean President Lee Myung-bak had accepted a request by Unification Minister Hyun In-taek, also a key foreign policy advisor during Lee's presidential campaign, to override the foreign ministry and postpone the announcement.
The move appears similar to what unfolded after North Korea tested a nuclear bomb in 2006. Then President Roh Moo-hyun rejected an offer from the United States to join the PSI, on the advice of the unification ministry.
Experts say the Lee administration has missed an opportunity to walk into the PSI with minimal negative impact, and warn the North may now attempt to link the PSI issue with the fate of the Kaesong industrial complex.
"North Korea is expected to use this week's inter-Korean talks to threaten that South Korea's participation in the PSI would damage the Kaesong industrial complex," said Professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.
Such a threat would put the South Korean government in a major dilemma and trigger a heated dispute here over how to move forward, he added.
The North also has another card it can play -- a South Korean worker at the Kaesong site who has been detained in North Korea for nearly three weeks.
The man, only identified by his surname Yu, was detained by the North Korean authorities on March 30 on charges of slandering its political system and seeking to lure a North Korean female to the South.
In a fresh warning, the North Korean military said Sunday that South Korea fully joining the PSI would be regarded a declaration of a war.
"The problem is that the government, especially the foreign ministry, has pushed to join the PSI without prudent consideration of the unique geopolitical situation on the Korean Peninsula," said Moon Chung-in, a Yonsei University Professor. "The government should retract the plan."
lcd@yna.co.kr
(END)
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