North Korea Releases Fishermen

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/world/asia/30korea.html?_r=1&ref=asia

By CHOE SANG-HUN

Published: August 29, 2009

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Saturday released four South Korean fishermen it had held for a month, in another move to reach out to its rivals after months of bellicosity.

The North returned the four-man crew and its 29-ton fishing vessel at the sea border off the Korean Peninsula’s east coast. The South Korean boat was seized on July 30 after it strayed into North Korean waters when its satellite navigation system malfunctioned.

The North’s recent barrage of conciliatory gestures has been surprising, even to South Korean officials familiar with the fickle pattern in North Korea’s diplomacy. Analysts say the overtures indicate that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, has regained confidence about his health and grip on power. He was reported to have had a stroke last August.

“North Korea has suddenly become a nice guy, reaching across the table to grab South Korea’s hand,” said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow at the Sejong Institute near Seoul. “South Korea fears it might be dragged into a relationship it doesn’t want. So it’s balking, pushing back its chair from the table.”

North Korea’s charm offensive began when former President Bill Clinton visited Pyongyang, the North’s capital, on Aug. 4 to secure the release of two American journalists held there on charges of illegal entry. Mr. Clinton’s visit, billed in North Korea as a diplomatic coup for the government, provided Mr. Kim with the momentum to shift his tone, analysts said.

Since then, North Korea has released a South Korean worker held for five months on charges of denouncing Communist rule, lifted restrictions on border traffic and promised to resume South Korean tours to scenic spots in the North.

It also sent a high-level delegation to the funeral of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. When President Lee Myung-bak balked at meeting the group, the delegates extended their stay to win an audience with him and relay Kim Jong-il’s wish to improve ties. A year ago, the North called Mr. Lee a “traitor” and a “pro-U.S. sycophant.”

On Friday, the two Koreas agreed to resume reunions of elderly Koreans separated by the Korean War.

The mood is worlds apart from that of only three months ago. In April, the North launched a long-range rocket, quit six-nation nuclear disarmament talks, expelled nuclear monitors and restarted a plutonium plant. In May, it tested its second nuclear device.

“The change in Pyongyang’s approach means that Kim Jong-il has now become confident about his health,” said Kim Yong-hyun, an analyst at Dongguk University in Seoul.

His hard-line military had grown bolder as uncertainty deepened about the North Korean leader’s health, heightening tensions with the outside world. Analysts said that helped Mr. Kim tighten his grip at home while he reportedly began grooming Kim Jong-un, the youngest of his three sons, as his heir.

Mr. Kim looked gaunt after the stroke. But by meeting Mr. Clinton and later Hyun Jeong-eun, the chairwoman of the South’s Hyundai conglomerate, in Pyongyang, and increasing his visits to factories and military units by 50 percent in the first half of this year, Mr. Kim showed he was healthy enough to remain in charge.

“Kim Jong-il got the power elite to support his son,” said Mr. Cheong, the analyst at the Sejong Institute. Now he must get his people to accept the son. To do that, he needs food for the hungry people and breakthroughs in external relations that can be attributed to his son.”

But the North’s “tactical appeasing gestures” disguise its “strategic goal” of both improving ties with the United States, South Korea and other neighbors and being accepted as a nuclear power, according to Park Hyong-joong, an analyst at the government-run Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.

Washington has been mustering international support for United Nations sanctions intended to strangle the North’s arms trade, which is an important source of hard currency for the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

United States and South Korean officials fear the North may be using its current overtures to undermine international consensus for the need to enforce sanctions. They say they are determined to break the old pattern of rewarding the North’s on-again, off-again nuclear strategy with aid and diplomatic incentives.

South Korea says it will not repeat the old format of dialogue with the North that had provided aid but failed to dismantle the North’s nuclear program. On Thursday, the State Department said it had no immediate plan to send an envoy to North Korea. Such a trip would allow North Korea to open the bilateral discussions it has long sought while continuing to shun six-nation talks, a forum Washington prefers.

Analysts say they expect the North to continue its recent tack. Mr. Kim has promised his people that he will rebuild the economy by 2012. That achievement would make the dynastic transfer of power to his son more popular domestically, but require better ties with the outside world.

“North Korea doesn’t have much time,” said Kim Yong-hyun, the analyst at Dongguk University.