This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/world/asia/lets-stop-all-the-insults-north-korea-says.html

The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
Let’s Stop All the Insults, North Korea Says Let’s Cease The Insults, North Korea Says to South
(about 9 hours later)
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea made what it called an “important proposal” on Thursday, suggesting a pact with South Korea to stop all cross-border slandering. SEOUL, South Korea — For years, North and South Korea have hurled invective at each other that would do Shakespearean characters proud.
The North also said it would initiate unspecified steps to help ease military tensions along the disputed western sea border with the South, the scene of military clashes in recent years. The North’s insults usually follow an anti-imperialist line — “American puppets” is a favorite — though “traitors” and “running dogs” are also usual fare. And then there was the personal insult last year against Park Geun-hye, the South’s first female president, with a reference to the “venomous swish” of her skirt.
The proposal, made by North Korea’s National Defense Commission and publicized by the official Korean Central News Agency, suggested that as of Jan. 30, both sides cease all the insults they have customarily thrown at each other for decades. It was unclear why that date was suggested. The South’s oratory is usually less strident, but conservative activists in the rollicking democracy have been known to pick up the slack, railing in public against the man many in North Korea see as a godlike figure, calling the young leader, Kim Jong-un, a diabolical tyrant, “a little pig” and “an immoral brat.” Then they burned him in effigy.
In return, North Korea also called for an end to the annual joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States — a longstanding demand that the South has said it had no intention of accepting. Now, North Korea has made what it called an “important proposal,” suggesting on Thursday an end to the mudslinging as a way to smooth over relations that reached a particular low last year. The North also held out a carrot, saying it would begin unspecified steps to help ease military tensions along the disputed western sea border, the scene of military clashes in recent years.
The proposal by the National Defense Commission, a top governing agency headed by the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, was the latest in a series of proposals and counterproposals between North and South Korea, which have recently said they want to improve ties but have accused each other of blocking the process. But the North’s proposals were tied to another request that the South has already called an impossibility: the cancellation of United States-South Korea military exercises. The White House quickly rebuffed the request, and South Korean officials have said such regular exercises will continue so long as the nuclear-armed North poses a threat.
There was no immediate reaction from the South Korean government. Still, the latest overture is notable for its timing, coming as each half of the divided peninsula appears to be trying to reach out again to the other, even if halfheartedly, and as the North seems to feel especially touchy over portrayals of its 31-year-old leader.
It was unclear how the North’s proposal defined slander and insult. The state-run North Korean news media routinely refer to the United States and South Korea as warmongers. The North has described American leaders as cruel monsters and bloodthirsty beasts and South Korean leaders as puppets, hooligans and dogs. Last year, it insulted President Park Geun-hye of South Korea, the first woman to serve as the country’s leader, with a reference to the “venomous swish” of her skirt. Mr. Kim has taken something of a beating in the world news media in recent weeks after executing his uncle in what intelligence officials outside the country saw as a power struggle. The North indicated that what it considered the South Korean news media’s poor treatment of Mr. Kim was one reason for rejecting an offer by Ms. Park last week to resume reunions of families separated by the Korean War.
The North’s proposal may also have been a reference to the balloons occasionally launched into its territory from South Korea that carry messages denouncing North Korea’s leader as a brutal dictator and human-rights abuser. Anti-North activists in the South, many of them defectors, sent a barrage of balloons northward across the heavily guarded border earlier this week, carrying hundreds of thousands of leaflets. The proposal by the North might also have been a reference to the balloons regularly launched into its territory by South Korea carrying messages denouncing North Korea’s leader as a brutal dictator and human rights abuser. Anti-North activists in the South, many of them defectors, sent a barrage of balloons across the border this week.
Korean tensions rose sharply early last year as North Korea conducted a nuclear test and threatened to launch missile and nuclear strikes at Washington and Seoul. South Korea responded with a threat to obliterate the North Korean regime. The United States led an international campaign to tighten sanctions against the North and flew nuclear-capable long-range bombers over the Korean Peninsula as a warning to Pyongyang last spring. The proposal for less belligerency is not a new one, and at least once it proved to be a winner. As part of an agreement struck during their first summit meeting in 2000, the two Koreas declared a cease-fire in their decades-old propaganda war along the border. They dismantled billboards and switched off the batteries of loudspeakers along their 155-mile-long frontier.
Tensions have since eased. In his New Year’s Day speech, Mr. Kim said he wanted to improve ties with South Korea. In her New Year’s news conference on Monday last week, President Park proposed that the two Koreas take a first step toward improving relations by resuming a humanitarian program of arranging reunions of Koreans separated by the 1950-53 Korean War. Until then, shrill voices had drifted across the demilitarized zone day and night. Those from the North condemned a “U.S. colony” in the South. Those from the South talked of a “medieval fiefdom” in the North. South Korean Army veterans remember a female voice urging them to “Come to the Socialist paradise! It’s only five minutes on the run.”
North Korea rejected Ms. Park’s proposal. The North insisted that the South first stop itself and its news media and civic activists from criticizing Mr. Kim’s government and cancel a series of annual joint war games with the United States that were scheduled to begin in late February and last through April. The South bombarded North Korean soldiers with pop music and news about the booming South’s latest per capita income. South Korean announcers urged North Korean soldiers to think over why their leader at the time, Mr. Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, was portly while the rest of the population was starving.
The North said such war games raised the chances of military clashes on the peninsula. In a sign of the worsening of relations in recent years, though, the South has remained wary of any new conciliatory gestures by the North. Just last year, Mr. Kim proposed better relations. Then he tested a nuclear weapon in defiance of the world.
By contrast, the North’s National Defense Commission said Thursday, its proposal “is a move that can lift the specter of nuclear calamity.”
The South has said it will keep up the war drills as long as North Korea continues its nuclear weapons development. South Korean officials have remained wary of any North Korean gestures because in the past, such overtures were often followed by military provocations.
The North reiterated on Thursday that it was still committed to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. But the North insisted that its policy of developing nuclear weapons was a justified deterrent against what the North considers American nuclear threats.