[Editorial] A call for dialogue

In the Korean political context, it would be hardly thinkable for the prime minister to take a different tack when the president was making a shift in policy. But that was what Prime Minister Chung Hong-won did when he said Friday that it was necessary to convince Pyongyang that it was threatening a war against South at its own expense and that Seoul’s proposal for talks now would only make the bad security situation worse.

The prime minister told reporters that South Korea, while beefing up its deterrence against the North’s aggression, needs to convince Pyongyang that it would pay a high price if it launched any provocation. He made the remarks when President Park Geun-hye proposed talks with Pyongyang. She said it was necessary to hear from the North what it was thinking when it was engaged in saber rattling.

Later in the day, Chung tried to tone down his remarks through his press secretary, who said the prime minister had intended to emphasize the South’s deterrence and tell the North that the South was ready to open talks anytime if it was earnest in its pursuit of dialogue.

Still, his earlier remarks had more than a grain of truth. If a person wishes to gain what it wants from negotiations, he needs to convince his negotiating partner he is entering talks in a position of strength, not one of weakness. It is the same with the state.

True, Park did not offer to send her emissary to North Korea’s young leader Kim Jong-un, as had been urged by ill-advised lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties. Nor did she take enough precautions to convince Kim that she was not yielding to Kim’s threat of war.

Instead, she said, “It is necessary to hear what North Korea is thinking because there are so many pending issues, including the Gaeseong industrial complex (which it threatened to shut down against South Korean corporations operating there).” Was she responding to a North Korean claim the previous day that her office must take the initiative in solving the Gaeseong problem?

On the bright side, however, her offer of talks may help Kim make an easier decision to retreat from his threat of war because it will certainly help him save face. She would be given due credit should tension deescalate for inter-Korean talks.