[Despite an almost daily drumbeat of belligerent statements from
the North, including warnings of a nuclear war on the peninsula, people here in
Seoul have shown few signs of outward anxiety. They believe that North Korea
will not be reckless or suicidal enough to start a full-scale war against the
South and its American ally, whose mutual defense treaty with South Korea
obligates it to fight for the South in a new Korean war.]
 |
David Guttenfelder/Associated Press
A dance held in Pyongyang on Thursday to mark the anniversary of the first
of many titles of power given to the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un
after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, in 2011.
|
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea appeared to ease its
stance on North Korea on Thursday by calling for dialogue to help defuse
tensions, as its president moved to calm foreign investors whose confidence the
North has tried to shake with increasingly belligerent maneuvers.
“We hope the North Korean authorities come out to the dialogue
table,” Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae, South Korea’s point man on the
North, said in a nationally televised statement that deplored the North’s
recent decision to suspend the operation of an industrial park the two Koreas
have run together for eight years in the North Korean town of Kaesong. “We
strongly urge North Korea not to stoke the crisis on the Korean Peninsula any
further.”
Mr. Ryoo stopped short of calling his statement an official
proposal for dialogue. But it was a considerable softening in tone by President
Park Geun-hye's government.
Until now, South Korea has categorically rejected any early
dialogue with the North, believing that doing so amid a torrent of North Korean
threats to attack the South would amount to capitulation and would only
embolden the North’s brinkmanship. On Monday, Mr. Ryoo said the South had no
intention of talking with North Korea anytime soon because it was unlikely to
bring about "concrete results." On Tuesday, Ms. Park vowed to end a
"vicious cycle" of South Korea's answering North Korea's hostilities
with compromise.
“Rather than being an offer for dialogue, this is a public
declaration that the problem of the Kaesong industrial complex and the North’s
escalating belligerent acts should be resolved through dialogue,” Mr. Ryoo said
on Thursday after reading his statement.
Hours earlier, President Park invited a group of foreign
investors, including members of the American Chamber of Commerce in South
Korea, to a luncheon in her presidential Blue House, assuring them that it was
safe to invest in her country.
“Some of you may be worried because North Korea has been
escalating tensions,” she said. “But South Korea has achieved a dramatic economic
growth and democratization in the past 60 years despite the provocations and
threats from North Korea.”
She said a joint South Korean-American military deterrent against
the North and international diplomacy involving regional powers, including
China, would help prevent the crisis from getting out of control. She said
South Koreans “understand the motives behind the North Korean threats and
remain calm” despite repeated crises on the peninsula that so often looked
“shocking to the outside world.”
In London, foreign ministers from the Group of 8 developed nations
issued a toughly worded statement in which they condemned “in the strongest
possible terms” North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and ballistic
missile technology.
The rising tension in the region featured prominently during the
meeting, which concluded with a communiqué condemning North Korea’s “current
aggressive rhetoric,” appealing to the country to abandon its nuclear weapons
program and calling on it to “refrain from further provocative acts.”
Its rocket launchings last April and December “seriously undermine
regional stability, jeopardize the prospects for lasting peace on the Korean
Peninsula and threaten international peace and security,” said the declaration
from the foreign ministers of the United States, Britain, France, Germany,
Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia.
At a news conference after the meeting, William Hague, Britain’s
foreign secretary, who headed the talks, highlighted a pledge by the ministers
“to strengthen the current sanctions regime and take further significant
measures in the event of a further launch or nuclear test” by the North. He
added that the ministers were trying not to stoke tensions or feed the
“paranoid rhetoric” from North Korea.
Despite an almost daily drumbeat of belligerent statements from
the North, including warnings of a nuclear war on the peninsula, people here in
Seoul have shown few signs of outward anxiety. They believe that North Korea
will not be reckless or suicidal enough to start a full-scale war against the
South and its American ally, whose mutual defense treaty with South Korea
obligates it to fight for the South in a new Korean war.
Instead, South Koreans, while expecting their leaders to be firm
against North Korean provocations, oppose overreacting to North Korean
statements because they believe it would hurt their top priority, economic
stability, analysts said.
That delicate challenge for Ms. Park was highlighted by signs that
investor confidence in South Korea had been rattled by recent events.
General Motors said last week that further increases in tensions
would prompt it to consider eventually relocating its production out of South
Korea. The country’s main stock index slipped to its lowest point since
November last week, although it has inched up for a third straight day on
Thursday.
North Korea on Tuesday tried to add to the tension by warning
foreigners in South Korea that they should consider evacuating because the
peninsula was moving toward a nuclear war. No foreign embassy in South Korea
has followed upon the warning, said Cho Tae-young, spokesman of the South
Korean Foreign Ministry, on Thursday.
But jitters remained in South Korea amid concerns about possible
North Korean missile tests that South Korean officials said could come as early
as this week.
South Korea will try to shoot down North Korean missiles with its
Patriot antimissile battery should they threaten to hit its territory, said Kim
Min-seok, spokesman of its Defense Ministry, on Thursday. Mr. Kim said that the
North could launch missiles around Monday, the anniversary of the birth of Kim
Il-sung, the late founder of North Korea and grandfather of the current leader,
Kim Jong-un.
North Korea appeared to be moving several missiles repeatedly on
its east coast in an apparent effort to confuse South Korean and American
intelligence, the South Korean national news agency Yonhap quoted anonymous
government sources as saying.
Stephen Castle
contributed reporting from London.
