More careful preparations needed
It is regretful that the Ministry of Unification was forced to reconsider its plan to allow barter transactions between a farmers' organization in South Korea and a trading firm in North Korea. The plan was disrupted because the North's Kaesong Koryo Insam Trading Co. was found to be the subject of international sanctions.
The company is an umbrella apparatus of Bureau 39 of the North Korean Workers' Party and is known to be a channel for foreign currency provision for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's family. Since he took office, Unification Minister Lee In-young has been pushing for the trading of South Korean sugar and North Korean liquor under the name “small transactions.”
Lee has been pursuing the project in a bid to find a breakthrough in the long-stalled inter-Korean relations starting with small-scale exchanges and cooperation. But his plan met a hurdle from the beginning. It is fortunate the plan was halted before it got into full swing and risked violating sanctions.
The government had been focusing on realizing the project, as it could be the first inter-Korean exchange since the implementation of the May 24 measures in 2010 in the wake of the North's sinking of the frigate Cheonan. The ministry still maintains it is modifying the project without fully canceling it.
The ministry is also pushing for a plan to barter rice and medicine from the South in return for mineral water from the North. All these and other efforts are necessary to find a breakthrough to the deadlocked inter-Korean relations.
Minister Lee has been stressing the need for the two Koreas to carry out exchange programs within the boundaries of the United Nations sanctions. He has also been complaining about the South Korea and the United States joint working group for its failure in making progress.
As a matter of fact, in a show of displeasure over the lack of progress in inter-Korean projects, North Korea blew up the liaison office in Gaeseong in June. The ministry should push relentlessly for a cooperative project with the North without violating international sanctions. We urge the North to more positively respond to the South's initiative toward cooperation and exchange.