&#91EDITORIALS&#93Shut up, Pyeongyang

North Korea is intervening in South Korea’s internal affairs. It is even indulging in a plot to split South Koreans after Seoul decided to name an independent counsel to investigate money transfer to North Korea. Pyeongyang’s discord-producing plot is making Seoul skeptical that the North is really changing. But yet, some South Koreans lamentably act in concert with the North’s plot.
Pyeongyang, in its attempt to stop the probe, claimed that the cash transfer must not be investigated under South Korean law. That was undeniably an intervention of the domestic affairs of the South. Furthermore, the North asserted that the opposition Grand National Party had sent a secret envoy to the North before the election in an obvious attempt to discredit the party’s call for a special prosecutor.
But North Korea did not make public any details that the South could examine to see if the assertions were true. The Grand Nationals denied the allegation, demanding that the North make public more details of its insistence. The North seemed to believe that its unjustified arguments were enough to make South Koreans rise up, and the plot was, in fact, effective to some extent. The ruling Millennium Democratic Party criticized the opposition party, inplicitly accepting Pyeongyang’s arguments without examining them. The MDP even formed a committee to investigate if the GNP did send secret envoys.
The ruling party objected to the probe by an independent counsel for the cash transfer to the North, but it was still lamentable that the MDP played into the North’s hands. The ruling party’s committee belatedly told the North to stop its plot to split South Koreans, and we welcome the move.
North Korea must not push the South by leaking information tailored to meet its interests at this sensitive time. Such a maneuver may confuse some South Koreans for a while, but in the long term, the North will be discredited. South Korean politicians must never allow politics here to aid the North’s plot. If the North succeeds in shaking South Koreans now, the identity of the Republic of Korea will be challenged and the North will continue employing its discord-producing intrigue.