Which, Technically Speaking, Makes All North Korean Citizens Hostages

… but when you pay a ransom, don’t you expect the hostage to be released? North Korea is an exception to every rule not written by Isaac Newton or Galileo, which is to say, every rule from which diplomats can’t grant exemptions:

North Korea wants South Korea to reward it for resuming reunions of families separated by the Korean War, an official said Sunday after the communist nation hosted the first such meetings in two years.

Hundreds of Korean families separated for more than half a century were reunited Saturday under a temporary reunion program. The North agreed last month to resume the Red Cross-arranged reunions in part of efforts to reach out to South Korea and the U.S. after months of tension over its nuclear and missile programs.

South Korean Red Cross chief Yoo Chong-ha told reporters covering the reunion at the North’s Diamond Mountain resort that his North Korean counterpart Jang Jae On asked him Saturday about Seoul rewarding Pyongyang for the family reunions.

According to South Korean media pool reports, Yoo quoted Jang as saying: “This reunion was (arranged) as the North offered a special amity. How about South Korea offering its amity in response to this?”

Yoo said the North Korean Red Cross chief didn’t say what reward his country wants from the South. But the pool reports, without citing any source, said the North appeared to be seeking resumption of food and fertilizer aid to the North, noting the country made similar demands in the past. [AP, Hyung-Jin Kim]

Or, asking for cash. I can think of no higher priority for the regime than to get South Korea to make cash payments without verifying the ultimate use of the funds. That’s the thin end of the wedge they want to drive into UNSCR 1874. President Lee Myung Bak sounds like a man who isn’t inclined to buy it:

“In the past, from experience, we know that negotiating with North Korea has always been a process whereby we make one step forward and we take two steps back, and we go back and forth and back and forth, without achieving much results,” Lee said.

It is difficult to determine what North Korea’s “true intentions” are, Lee said, but the world can be certain the country will not readily give up its nuclear weapons program. Negotiators, therefore, must work together closely to make sure North Korea has “no choice” but to disarm, Lee said. [AP, Foster Klug]

It isn’t really hard to determine North Korea’s true intentions, of course, and I suspect that privately, Lee has a fairly clear idea of what they are.

North Korea must be faced with “no choice” but to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions and it is “unthinkable” to accept the North as a nuclear-armed state, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said on Friday.

“The North Koreans will not readily give up their nuclear program. What’s important then is for the international community to work very closely together so that North Korea will be in a position whereby they will have no choice but to give up all of their nuclear weapons,” he said. [Reuters, Paul Eckert, via N.Y. Times]

In this context, you have to suspect that Lee’s offer of a “grand bargain” is mostly a sweetener to show what a nice guy he really is. But “nice” guys have a well-established record of bringing out the worst in North Korea.