Military talks between the rival Koreas have "collapsed," a unification ministry official in Seoul said on Wednesday, dealing a setback to efforts to restart international aid-for-disarmament talks.
Tensions have eased on the divided peninsula since the start of the year, with both sides calling for dialogue, raising hopes the neighbors could rebuild relations shattered over the past two years by a series of deadly attacks and failed nuclear talks.
Colonels from the two Koreas, still technically at war since their 1950-53 civil conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty, talked for two days but failed to get past the first hurdle of the preliminary meeting -- setting the agenda for senior discussions.
On the bright side, at least the talks didn't break down over the shape of the table.
Still, who can be shocked at this? The North Koreans wanted aid from Seoul and their nukes. The South Koreans are wary of even trading aid for limits on North Korea's nuclear weapons programs given past duplicity from Pyongyang on the subject. Where was the common ground for agreement? Still, you have to have some grudging respect for North Korea for giving it a shot. What did they have to lose?
Well, one thing. Just talking at this meeting was a victory for South Korea, so it isn't fair to say the talks were pointless. They were just pointless on the nuclear issue. For decades, North Korea refused to talk to South Korea one-on-one to maintain the fiction that America was the puppet master and that South Korea wasn't a real nation. North Korea effectively recognized South Korea as an independent entity by talking to them. This alone shows how desperate North Korea is to stave off collapse.
So South Korea has little incentive to engage in future pointless talks over nuclear issues unless North Korea offers real and verifiable concessions first, since South Korea achieved one objective in this handshake and chat. Perhaps the Pillsbury Nuke Boy will finesse this by arguing that military-to-military contacts are just field talks between forces rather than practical recognition, but North Korea did retreat, I think.
