Temper Tantrum

South Korea's president Lee Myung-bak has been unimpressed by North Korea's recent threats and abuses. North Korea, upset with Mr. Lee's stance of only engaging with the North when it dismantles its nuclear capabilities, has threatened confrontation. According to the Economist, North Korea has "expelled most South Korean officials from the Kaesong industrial complex, a symbol of economic co-operation. In late January it repudiated a 1991 agreement on reconciliation, non-aggression and co-operation between the Koreas. It says it will no longer honour the western maritime boundary between the two countries, known as the northern limit line, long disputed by the North. This week South Korea’s press reported that the North Korea seemed to be making preparations to test-fire its Taepodong-2 missile." Mr. Lee has acknowledged the threats as serious but "not new".

Kim Jong-Il is likely employing these threats as a means of stirring up nationalism within North Korea while trying to maintain the attention of the United States as President Obama attempts to address domestic concerns, rather than to instill fear in the South Korean people. The
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has directed her attention to the North as she joined Yu Myung Hwan of the RoK's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to assert their dedication to the Six Party Talks to achieve a verifiable end to the North's nuclear program. Clinton called upon the North to uphold is agreement to the 2007 Joint Statement of the Six Party Talks. Additionally, Clinton stated North Korea can not expect to have a productive relationship with the United States if it continues to abuse and threaten South Korea.

In related news, Clinton announced that Ambassador Stephen Bosworth is to be the special envoy to North Korea and will assume the position of U.S. chief negotiator at the Six Party Talks. Bosworth has served as a U.S. ambassador to South Korea most recently at the turn of the millennium, as well as to the Philippines and Tunisia. He was the executive director of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) from 1995 to 1997, a group that, according to the Daily NK, "is in control of the aborted building of two light-water nuclear reactors in the North as part of a previous denuclearization deal".