By Ankit Panda
In any Korean crisis, there needs to be a face-saving way out for both sides.
The ‘August Crisis’ between South Korea and North Korea appears to have come to a close. As my colleague Franz-Stefan Gady reported, Pyongyang has agreed to apologize for its provocative behavior and, in return, Seoul will cease propaganda broadcasts across the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the two countries. Seoul resumed broadcasts for the first time in more than a decade after two South Korean soldiers suffered injuries from a North Korean land mine, the first North Korean provocation to result in South Korean casualties since Kim Jong-un took over the Hermit Kingdom.
For long-time observers of the Koreas, it always seemed slim that this period of escalating rhetoric and action would be the one to thrust the Korean peninsula back into all-out war. What may have been less obvious, before the inter-Korean talks kicked off at Panmunjom, were the actions both sides could take to return to the status quo, before the land mine incident. For both states, a resolution that did not allow their leadership to save face would have been intolerable. Fortunately, neither Seoul’s actions nor Pyongyang’s seemingly brazen series of provocations caused a scenario where both Koreas had their backs to the wall. Room for a face-saving compromise was possible as long as Seoul responded to Pyongyang’s provocations carefully.
Read the full story at The Diplomat