SEOUL -- North Korea's blowing up of a liaison office between the two Koreas near the North's border town of Kaesong on Tuesday was apparently aimed at exerting pressure on the administration of South Korean President Moon Jae-in and extracting concessions including economic cooperation.
By ramping up inter-Korean conflict, the latest move could also be intended to put pressure on U.S. President Donald Trump, who touts the easing of tensions on the Korean Peninsula as a diplomatic achievement ahead of the November U.S. presidential election.
Kim Yo Jong, the first deputy director of the Workers' Party of Korea and sister of party chairman Kim Jong Un, cited the issue of leaflets critical of Kim Jong Un disseminated by a group of North Korean defectors, when she warned in remarks last Saturday that the joint liaison office would be obliterated.
Yet such leaflets had been dropped in the North before, and there is a prevailing view that "it's just an excuse to raise pressure on South Korea," as an expert on North Korean affairs put it.
As a matter of fact, Kim said in her remarks that if the Moon administration had the ability and courage to accomplish right away what it had failed to do over the past two years -- since the inter-Korean summit in April 2018 -- would North-South relations have remained as they are now? Saying this, she criticized Seoul for its failure to advance economic cooperation with Pyongyang. By pushing forward his sister, whom he trusts, leader Kim demonstrates how disgruntled he is.
Kim said in her remarks that North Korea will have to retaliate with successive moves, meaning North Korea is poised to continue provocative action against the administration led by Moon, whose term of office will expire in less than two years.
The Moon administration, which seeks to continue dialogue with the North, expressed "strong regret" at the standing committee of the National Security Council held Tuesday evening. As the United States holds fast to economic sanctions against North Korea, Seoul has few of its own means to break the current deadlock in inter-Korean relations.
Trump, in his bid for reelection, emphasizes the significance of the U.S.-North Korean summits and his personal relationship with North Korea's leader. But he has taken the stance of maintaining the present state of U.S. relations with North Korea, judging that it would be difficult to achieve any results in negotiations on North Korea's denuclearization.
On the other hand, North Korea aims to get some reprieve in economic sanctions by the time of the U.S. election. North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Son Gwon, showed impatience last Friday when he criticized the U.S. government for using dialogue with North Korea to proclaim its own achievements.
North Korea apparently hopes to heighten its pressure on Trump indirectly by staging tension between the two Koreas, all while refraining from conducting any nuclear tests or firing intercontinental ballistic missiles, which would decisively deteriorate its relationship with the United States.
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