Will Japan’s Quake Create Korean Summit?

Talk about chain reactions. A week after the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan, there are signs that North and South Korea may decide to talk about something – the likelihood of an eruption of Mount Baektu, the biggest mountain on the Korean peninsula. The mountain is on the border of North Korea and China and it hasn’t erupted since 1903. It’s unclear precisely why North Korea is reaching out to the South on the prospect of an eruption there.

But on Thursday, North Korea sent a letter to the South’s meteorological society that suggested joint research on the mountain. North Korea’s state media announced the letter on Friday. In doing so, the North’s news agency said, “The great quake that hit Japan, in particular, underscores the urgency to conduct in a foresighted and successful manner the researches into earthquake and volcanic activities on the Korean Peninsula as it is geographically located close to that country.”

Some politicians in the South — clearly disturbed that last week’s Japan quake caused other disasters, including extreme trouble at a nuclear plant — are taking note of what a natural disaster on the peninsula could mean here. “North Korea’s poor nuclear facilities made a possible eruption more worrisome, and we shedder to think what kind of catastrophe an eruption can bring about,” Liberty Forward Party, a conservative party, said in a statement Friday.

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