Pyongyang is sidelining the government in South Korea as it wants to be recognized as the equal of the US in order to force Washington into direct talks and, ultimately, a peace treaty. Julian Ryall reports.
Image: picture alliance / Ahn Young-Joon/AP/dpa
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South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Tuesday called on North Korea to sit down for talks about the security situation on the peninsula in an effort to ease some of the tensions that divide the neighbors and have spread into the surrounding region.
The timing of Moon's request was significant, coming on the 10th anniversary of the final day of the second summit between North and South in Pyongyang in October 2007, when then-South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun and the late North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, released a joint declaration in which they pledged to seek a peace treaty and improve bilateral cooperation and exchanges.
Speaking in Seoul at an event to mark the anniversary, Moon emphasized that the opportunity to talk remains open to the North - and should be seized at a time of unprecedented anxiety.
"As I have stressed numerous times, the door to dialogue and negotiations is always open if North Korea stops making reckless choices," Moon said.
Pyongyang's response to this latest plea for diplomacy over military posturing was precisely the same as it has been to every other olive branch that Moon has extended since he was elected president in May: utter silence.
"For decades, the North's aim has been to conclude a peace treaty with the United States to supersede the armistice that was signed in 1953 to halt the Korean War," said Ahn Yin-hay, a professor of international relations at Korea University.
"They also want to be recognized as a nuclear power, to have parity with the US and other great powers and for the US to withdraw its forces from the Korean Peninsula," she told DW.
Through repeated nuclear tests - six to date - and 15 missile launches this year alone, the regime has now demonstrated that it does have a viable nuclear capability, and that has changed the equation, Ahn said.
"Kim Jong Un's era is completely different to that of his father," she said. "He knows how to negotiate and that the US is not going to use military force against him. So he is trying to force the US to negotiate directly with him. And as he considers South Korea to be an occupied state, he has no interest in negotiations with whoever is in Seoul."
In less than five months in power, Moon has proposed talks between representatives of the two nations' Red Cross organizations, between government officials on possible economic and humanitarian aid to the North, and among defense officials to help prevent an accidental clash on the border escalating into a far more serious incident.
All have been studiously ignored by Pyongyang.
Even efforts to engage the North on the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games, which are scheduled to open in the South Korean mountain city on February 9, 2018, have come to naught. It is not clear whether North Korea will be sending athletes to the event.
"It is very clear that Pyongyang has no intention of opening a dialogue with the South at the moment, but the next few months should tell us more about their intentions as the Winter Olympics are coming up and there will need to be discussions on that," Daniel Pinkston, a professor of international relations at the Seoul campus of Troy University, told DW.
"They have two options; they can be confrontational towards the South and the rest of the world and try to disrupt the Games, or they can decide to participate, as they did in the Asian Games in 2014," Pinkston added.
"We will have to see whether they are willing to separate politics from sport, but Pyongyang does not see any benefit in talking to the South," he said. "That might be because the things that the South wants to talk about - denuclearization of the peninsula, humanitarian issues, the resumption of reunions of families kept apart since the end of the war - are issues that the North does not want to talk about."
The Kim family has ruled North Korea for the last seven decades, with state-run propaganda praising Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and Kim Jong Un as godlike figures. DW looks at the rulers behind the myths.
Image: picture alliance / dpa
A young leader
Kim Il Sung, the first and "eternal" president of North Korea, took power in 1948 with the support of the Soviet Union. The official calendar in North Korea begins with his birth year, 1912, designating it "Juche 1" after the state's Juche ideology. He was 41 when, as shown here, he signed the 1953 armistice that effectively ended the Korean War.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Hero worship
In the years and decades after the war, Pyongyang's propaganda machine worked hard to weave a mythical narrative around Kim Il Sung. His childhood and the time he spent fighting Japanese troops in the 1930s were embellished to portray him as an unrivaled military and political genius.
At the 1980 party congress, Kim announced he would be succeeded by his son, Kim Jong Il.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo
Ruling to the end
In 1992, Kim Il Sung started writing and publishing his memoirs, entitled "Reminiscences: With the Century." Describing his childhood, the North Korean leader claims that he first joined an anti-Japanese rally at 6 years old and became involved with the independence struggle at 8.
The memoirs remained unfinished at Kim Il Sung's death in 1994.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/JIJI Press
In his father's footsteps
After spending years in the top tiers of the regime, Kim Jong Il took power after his father's death. Kim Jong Il's 16-year rule was marked by famine and economic crisis in an already impoverished country. However, the cult of personality surrounding him and his father, Kim Il Sung, grew even stronger.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/KCNA via Korean News Service
Rising star
Historians outside North Korea believe Kim Jong Il was born in a military camp in eastern Russia, most likely in 1941. However, the leader's official biography claims it happened on the sacred Korean mountain Paektu, exactly 30 years after his father, on April 15, 1942. A North Korean legend says the birth was blessed by a new star and a double rainbow.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo
Family trouble
Kim Jong Il had three sons and two daughters with three different women. This 1981 photo shows Kim Jong Il sitting besides his son Kim Jong Nam, with his sister-in-law and her two children in the background. Kim Jong Nam was eventually assassinated in 2017.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Grooming a successor
In 2009, Western media reported that Kim Jong Il had picked his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, to take over as the head of the regime. The two appeared together at a military parade on 2010, a year before Kim Jong Il passed away.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/V. Yu
Together
According to Pyongyang, the death of Kim Jong Il in 2011 was marked by a series of mysterious events. State media reported that ice snapped loudly at a lake on the Paektu mountain during a sudden snowstorm, with a glowing message appearing on the rocks.
After Kim Jong Il's death, a 22-meter (72-foot) statue of him was erected next to the one of his father (l.) in Pyongyang.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Mysterious past
Kim Jong Un mostly stayed out of the spotlight before his ascent to power. His exact age is disputed, but he is believed to have been born between 1982 and 1984. He was reportedly educated in Switzerland. In 2013, he surprised the world by meeting with former NBA star Dennis Rodman in Pyongyang.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
A new cult
Like the leaders before him, Kim Jong Un is hallowed by the state's totalitarian regime. In 2015, South Korean media reported about a new teacher's manual in the North that claimed Kim Jong Un could drive at the age of 3. In 2017, state media said that a monument to the young leader would be build on Mount Paektu.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/Kctv
A Kim with a hydrogen bomb
Altough Kim took power at a younger age and with less of a public profile than his father and grandfather, he has managed to maintain his grip on power. The assassination of his half-brother Kim Jong Nam in 2017 served to cement his reputation abroad as a merciless dictator. The North Korean leader has also vastly expanded the country's nuclear arsenal.
Image: picture-alliance/AP/A. Young-joon
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Loss of face
There is also the possibility of loss of face before a domestic audience, Pinkston points out, something that Kim Jong Un would be determined to avoid.
"It is likely that if the North agreed to talks at this point that it would be perceived that they had been forced to the negotiating table due to the weight of international sanctions," he said. "Any attempt to discuss economic cooperation with the South could be seen as a signal of weakness that they are buckling under the weight of those sanctions, and Kim could not permit that to happen."
After more than four months of having his offers of detente ignored, it is clear that Moon has reached the conclusion that he is making no headway.
"Since he came to power, Moon has put all the emphasis on dialogue to improve the relationship with the North," said Ahn. "He had to at least try that approach because it was what he had promised in opposition. But he has made no progress."
"He gave another speech this week in which he said that now is not the right time to send a presidential envoy to the North, which some of the opposition parties have been suggesting, because nothing would come of it. I think he has realized that the only way forward now is more pressure."
The parents of US tourist Otto Warmbier, who died after being imprisoned in North Korea, say he was tortured. His case is an extreme example when compared to other US citizens who have been held captive by Pyongyang.
Image: picture-alliance/Photoshot
'Crimes against the state'
In 2016, US student Otto Warmbier was arrested for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster as a "trophy." He was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for "crimes against the state." In June 2017, he was returned by North Korea to the US in a coma and died a week later. What happened to him in captivity is a mystery. His death prompted a ban on US citizens traveling to North Korea.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/MAXPPP
'Subversion and espionage'
Kim Dong Chul, a South Korea-born US citizen, was sentenced in 2015 to 10 years hard labor for "subversion and espionage" after North Korean officials said he received a USB stick containing nuclear-linked and military secrets from a South Korean source in North Korea. Chul was arrested while visiting the special economic zone of Rason. He remains imprisoned and his condition is unknown.
Image: Reuters/KCNA
'Trying to overthrow the regime'
In 2013, North Korea sentenced US citizen Kenneth Bae to 15 years hard labor for "crimes against the state." He was arrested while on a tour group in the port city of Rason. A North Korean court described Bae as a militant Christian evangelist. He was allowed to talk to the media once, and said he was forced to work eight hours a day and was in poor health. Bae was released in November 2014.
Image: Reuters/KCNA
'Rash behavior' and 'hostile acts'
In 2013, US citizen Matthew Miller was arrested when he arrived in Pyongyang and reportedly tore up his US passport, demanding asylum in North Korea. He was later sentenced to six years of hard labor on charges of espionage. The court said Miller had a "wild ambition" to experience prison life so that he could secretly investigate North Korea's human rights situation. He was released in 2014.
Image: Reuters/KCNA
'Criminal involved in killing civilians'
In 2013, Merrill Newman an 85-year-old Korean War US Army veteran, was detained for one month in North Korea. Arrested as he was departing, he was accused of "masterminding espionage and subversive activities." He was freed after he expressed "sincere repentance" and read a statement that said he was "guilty of a long list of indelible crimes against the DPRK government and Korean people."
Image: Reuters
Freed by a diplomatic gesture
US journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling were captured in 2009 after briefly entering North Korea to report on refugees. After a month in confinement, they were sentenced to 12 years hard labor for "illegal entry and "hostile acts." Two months later, after former US President Bill Clinton met with former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang, the two women were pardoned and freed.
