US, South Korea agree to consider terminating North Korea Coordination Group

The United States and South Korea have agreed to end the controversial, more than two-year-old working group forum on North Korea over criticisms that the group had run afoul of Seoul’s stance on North Korea policy, the South Korea Foreign Ministry announced in the state presser, Tuesday. Assuming the pro-détente cold war stance, Seoul cited Pyongyang's insistence on relaxation on the sanctions and trade embargo without actually dismantling its nuclear arsenal.

The prospect of the inter-Korean reconciliation was blocked completely on June 21, just a year after the ex-US Ambassador Harry Harris had urged South Korea's Unification Minister Lee In-young to upgrade the joint "working group" to North Korea in a way that facilitated the development of inter-Korean relations and Korean Peninsula peace policy.

On Tuesday, the US President Joe Biden’s point man for North Korea, Sung Kim’s appealed to Seoul for the resumption of dialogue with Pyongyang’s contumacious regime, but his South Korean counterpart Noh Kyu-Duk suggested terminating the North Korea working group. Kyu-Duk implored that Seoul and Washington look towards strengthening coordination at other levels as the former two decided to scrap the joint consultative channel established in November 2018, according to the ministry of South Korea. 

The announcement was made in the aftermath of the North Korean authoritarian leader’s powerful younger sister Kim Yo-jong’s official statement on Monday which stated that the US’ expectation for talks with the communist regime would “plunge them into a greater disappointment.” In a warning to the Biden administration, [just a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived in Asia for a comprehensive dialogue with Japan and Seoul], Kim’s sister said that the US must not “cause stink” if it wants to “sleep in peace.” North Korea’s warnings were fired at Washington after Blinken told reporters that the US is committed to working with its regional allies towards North Korea's denuclearization, according to a joint US-Japan statement. 

In response to the US secretary of state, Kim Yo Jong stated, “North Korea took this opportunity to warn the new US administration trying hard to give off powder [gunpowder] smell in our land.” "If it [US] wants to sleep in peace for the coming four years, it had better refrain from causing a stink at its first step," Yo Jong warned in North Kora’s first public statement made towards the US, state news agency KCNA reported.

[US special representative for North Korea Sung Kim talks with South Korea's Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs Noh Kyu-duk. Credit: AP]

[Credit: AP]

Consultative mechanism for 'inter-Korean dialogue'

While the US special representative for North Korea, Sung Kim was ready for talks “anywhere, anytime” with Pyongyang, after the recent series of threats directed at Seoul and Washington, he agreed to look into terminating the working group following a dialogue with Seoul. The North Korea working group was a consultative mechanism for coordination between the US and South Korea for denuclearisation of the recalcitrant North Korean regime, sanctions enforcement and trade embargo, humanitarian aid, and inter-Korean projects. 

It had, however, ended up hampering progress on cross-border dialogue, mutual cooperation, and instead served as a hindrance to inter-Korean relations and continued stalemate in nuclear diplomacy as Pyongyang largely viewed the group operates in the national interest of the United States. The decision came as Washington’s North Korea point is in Seoul for a five-day visit to speak with officials from South Korea and Japan. 

“We support meaningful inter-Korean dialogue, cooperation, and engagement, and I look forward to staying in very close touch with you and your colleagues about some of the ideas that you have going forward,” said  US special representative for North Korea Sung Kim.