Thawing Korean ties?

The last 18 months have been some of the most fraught and unfriendly in the history of inter-Korean relations. The North's state media has labeled South Korean President Park Guen-hye a "crafty prostitute" and threatened to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire." The South, for its part, has increasingly taken a hard line on relations with Pyongyang and pushed ahead with plans for reunification on its own terms.

So Korea-watchers were momentarily stunned when three of the most powerful men in North Korea arrived in the South Korean city of Incheon on October 4 to ostensibly attend the closing ceremony of the Asian Games.

The three key men are Hwang Pyong-so, vice-chairman of the National Defense Commission and second-in-command after Kim Jong Un. Some observers believe Hwang may be more in charge of the day-to-day running of North Korea than Kim.

Hwang was accompanied by Kim Yang-gon, head of the United Front Department of the Workers' Party of Korea and point man in Pyongyang's relations with Seoul, and Choe Ryong-hae, who took charge of the Korean People's Army's Political Bureau in 2012.

Renewed hopes

South Korean Prime Minister Chung Hong-won held a 14-minute meeting with the 11-member strong delegation from Pyongyang at the stadium used for the Asian Games. Although both sides avoided discussing the sensitive topics that have dogged bilateral relations, Chung emerged from the meeting expressing hopes of a breakthrough that Seoul has been seeking.

The most concrete development was that the North Korean side agreed to resume reconciliation talks between late October and early November, although analysts warn that there is still a long way to go before the North Korean delegation's visit can be seen as a decisive breakthrough.

"North Korea's policy, as we have seen time and again over the years, has been to make overtures, get something in return for that - whether it be aid, money or assistance in building a light-water nuclear reactor - and to then go back to behaving badly," pointed out Robert Dujarric, director of the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies at the Japan campus of Temple University.

"They have been able to do that because no one wants to go to war and the North Koreans know that," he told DW.

Olive branch

Some analysts in South Korea say Pyongyang may have been compelled to offer an olive branch to Seoul as it continues to make important strides in deepening its ties with China, which has traditionally been the North's most important and influential ally, Professor Dujarric noted. At the same time, Seoul will have wanted to demonstrate to Beijing that it does not rely on China to deal with Pyongyang, he underlined.

Jun Okumura, visiting scholar at the Tokyo-based Meiji Institute for Global Affairs, is equally skeptical about North Korea's motivation and ambitions. "North Korea is in a position where it has to play all its cards," he said, adding that South Korea will always "play along with any kind of overture from Pyongyang."

As the North's agriculture sector is not having a good year, any assistance they can pick up along the way will help them, Okumura explained. "But there's no such thing as a free lunch and the South will be trying to get more out of the North," he stressed.

One possibility is that talks between the two governments will examine the possibility of reopening the Mount Kumgang resort area in North Korea. It is this kind of small steps that the South is hoping will lead to more substantive improvements on bigger issues, including the North's nuclear weapons program.

Rumors

Furthermore, there is uncertainty surrounding the whereabouts and health of Kim Jong Un, who has not been seen in public since early September and is rumored to have been unwell.

The North Korean government attempted to quell rumors that Kim had been taken seriously ill - or even deposed in some sort of coup or unrest in the North Korean capital - by issuing a statement in which it claimed that Kim has undergone surgery on his ankles due to his hectic schedule of "on-the-spot" guidance tours to factories and military facilities.

In such a closed society, it is impossible to know with any certainty the wellbeing of Kim or the degree of control he still exercises over the country, although analysts point out that there have been no signs of dramatic upheavals in the North Korean capital.

"He is well and there are no problems with his health at all," Kim Myong-chol, executive director of The Centre for North Korea-US Peace, told DW. He is often described as an "unofficial" spokesperson for the communist nation.

Although North Korea "wants progress," he said, it is too early to determine whether this unprecedented delegation to South Korea is the breakthrough that some assume. "If they had met with President Park, that would have been real progress," analyst Kim noted, stressing that this is a good first step, but the South must agree to drop its aggressive policies towards the North and it must withdraw the sanctions.