Though Pyongyang and Seoul have ratcheted down their hostilities in the past eight months, they’ve shown little interest in working side by side — even on programs that both governments appear to value. In a letter sent to the South’s Ministry of Unification, North Korea said that Park had made a “good offer,” but one that belied the South’s “present stance of confrontation.”
“In South Korea, one war drill is being followed by another,” the North said in a statement also released by its state-run news agency, “and huge joint military exercises are slated soon.” The North likely was referring to annual springtime exercises held with the United States.
Park had proposed that the reunions be held around the Jan. 31 Lunar New Year, a time when Korean families traditionally gather. On both sides of the demilitarized zone, tens of thousands of relatives have gone more than six decades without seeing one another. In the South, some 73,000 are on the waiting list for the reunions. Most are in their 70s and 80s.
By North Korea’s often-fiery standards, the rejection Thursday was mild and appeared to offer hope for a thaw on the peninsula, where tensions spiked last April amid a torrent of war threats from the nuclear-armed North.
“The same situation as what happened last year should not be allowed to repeat itself,” North Korea said.
But the North also criticized the South for a series of unremarkable offenses, ones that include “indiscreet” comments from “media, experts and even authorities” and a recent speech from Park that touched on the North’s weapons program and leadership turmoil. North Korea last month executed Kim Jong Un’s uncle and onetime protector, Jang Song Thaek, on charges of treason.
Park said that the North had become “even more unpredictable” with Jang’s purge.