North Korea Warns South to Show ‘Respect’ for Kim Jong-il
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea urged South Korea on Friday to “show proper respect” over the death of its leader, Kim Jong-il, calling the South’s decision to express sympathy for the North Korean people but not to send a government delegation to Mr. Kim’s funeral next week “an unbearable insult and mockery of our dignity.”
The statement, carried on the official Web site of the North, Uriminzokkiri.com, was the new leadership’s first comment on a South Korean policy since it announced on Monday that Mr. Kim had died of a heart attack last Saturday.
Mr. Kim’s death and the inexperience of his son and heir, Kim Jong-un, have raised anxieties in the region over where North Korea is headed and how neighbors should deal with it. The death of the man regarded by many North Koreans as a patriarch but by the rest of the world as a ruthless dictator is also creating delicate questions of protocol.
“The South’s authorities must think about the grave impact its actions will have on North-South relations,” the North Korean statement said. “Depending on what it does, the relations can thaw or completely derail.”
It said North Korea would open its air and land border with the South to accept all condolence delegations from South Korea. The North would guarantee their safety, the statement said, and it warned the South against blocking such trips.
The statement was another sign that the new leadership in the North, whomever its central members might be, was sufficiently in control to strike a typically strident posture toward South Korea. On Friday, the North Korean media’s zeal to rally support behind the young leader reached new levels, saying North Koreans “will become human rifles and bombs to defend our respected comrade Kim Jong-un with our lives.”
“Under the dying wishes of Comrade Kim Jong-il, we will follow our peerless leader and respected comrade Kim Jong-un to the ends of earth and heaven,” said Rodong Sinmun, the Workers’ Party newspaper.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency reported that coal production had radically increased because miners “rose up heroically, turning their grief into strength and courage.”
In Seoul, Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik, the top policy maker on North Korea, said the South did not plan to revise its decision not to send an official delegation.
A day after Mr. Kim’s death was announced, officials in Seoul and Washington issued coordinated statements. They were careful to direct their “sympathy” or “prayers” to the “North Korean people,” not to the government, in contrast to Beijing and Moscow, which sent official condolences to the authorities in Pyongyang, the capital.
Though Seoul will not send a delegation to Mr. Kim’s funeral on Dec. 28, it authorized visits to the North by the widows of former President Kim Dae-jung, who held a landmark summit meeting with Mr. Kim in 2000, and a former Hyundai chairman, Chung Mong-hun, who had business ties with North Korea.
South Korean officials also said that they would permit condolences to be mailed or faxed by individuals and private organizations, including a foundation named after former President Roh Moo-hyun, who held a summit meeting with Mr. Kim in 2007.
Explaining these decisions, South Korean officials said that while they were careful to avoid any hints of approval for Mr. Kim’s legacy, they wanted to relay hopes for a more productive relationship with the North.
Critics of the South’s approach were not limited to North Korea. Reunification activists said the government should do more. And opponents of reconciliation sent giant balloons to the North that carried messages like “Why send condolences to evil?”
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