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South Korea will send 400,000 tons of rice to North Korea starting in late May, negotiators from the two sides agreed on Sunday after five days of economic cooperation talks in the North¡¯s capital. South Korea's chief delegate Chin Dong-soo stressed that the South had stated clearly through its keynote speech and contact with North Korean officials that the rice shipments were contingent on whether North Korea implements a nuclear disarmament deal reached in February.
Before the talks even started last Thursday, North Korea demanded the text of South Korea¡¯s keynote speech, a draft of a written agreement on the South's provision of rice aid, as well as a draft of the joint press statement to be issued at the end of the four-day talks. Those unreasonable demands led to a more than seven-hour delay in the start of the talks. And when South Korea demanded in its keynote speech that North Korea should abide by the Feb. 13 agreement, its officials stormed out of the negotiating room, complaining that such topics should not be a part of economic talks.
The Chosun Sinbo, the mouthpiece of the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan or Chongryon, said rice should be given according to the principles of ¡°brotherly love¡± and that ¡°creating obstacles by citing the Feb. 13 agreement only pours cold water on economic cooperation projects and worsens North-South relations.¡± They are saying that the North Korean nuclear issue involves the North and the U.S., while rice aid involves the two Koreas, therefore South Korea should just hand over the rice without talking about other things. It appears North Korea now views South Korea as a vending machine, through which it can get the rice and fertilizer it needs at any time by simply pushing a button.
The joint statement itself shows an agreement over the rice aid with no strings attached. The South Korean government says two sides have a verbal agreement to link rice aid and North Korea¡¯s adherence to the Feb. 13 agreement. Yet even as a donor of 400,000 tons of rice to the North, South Korea wasn¡¯t able to get it put in writing that the communist country must abide by the Feb. 13 agreement in return.
This administration wasted W3.6 billion (US$1=W928) in taxpayers¡¯ money on an oil tanker contract and heavy oil storage, just because it couldn¡¯t wait and see whether the North was abiding by the agreement before rushing to provide the 50,000 tons of heavy oil in reward. What kind of an agreement were we expecting in a relationship where South Korea is invariably pushed around by North Korea? And how can we trust any agreement we make?
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