Seoul  - Political relations on the Korean peninsula reached a new low in 2008, as insecurity over the political situation in Pyongyang and North Korea's renewed nuclear posturing raised concerns all across the region.

In early December, at the latest round of the six-party talks disbanded in Beijing, negotiators from China, Russia, the United States, Japan and South Korea struggled to reach a compromise with Pyongyang on a verification roadmap for its nuclear disarmament.

Falling back to its traditional gambit of rejecting previous agreements, North Korea dumbfounded its negotiation counterparts by refusing to have international inspectors take environmental samples at its nuclear facilities.

North Korea's foreign ministry previously called a US demand for environmental and waste samples a breach of sovereignty that would "certainly bring about a war."

After a prolonged tug-of-war, the United States removed North Korea in October from its terrorism blacklist, but not before Pyongyang stopped dismantling its nuclear facilities and threatened to restart the production of weapons material.

Speculation abounded throughout the summer over the health of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who was conspicuously absent from the festivities celebrating the country's 60th anniversary in August.

US and South Korean intelligence sources, among others, claimed that Kim, who is said to suffer from cardiac problems, was recovering from a stroke. Undated photos released by North Korea, showing a healthy Kim inspecting troops or attending football matches, did little to quell the rumours.

At the same time, bilateral relations with South Korea appeared to deteriorate. An announcement by the North's military to close down borders with South Korea was only the latest in a series of threats, showing its Pyongyang's displeasure with Seoul's shifts towards a less lenient policy regarding the communist state.

As of December 1, North Korea cut the numbers of South Koreans allowed access to 880, tightened border crossings and ended a cargo train service.

The measures were a hard blow to the Kaesong industrial park, a cooperation project between the two countries just north of the border, where 80 South Korean companies employ more than 35,000 North Korean workers.

It also took away the only option for South Korean tourists to catch a glimpse at their impoverished northern neighbor.

While Seoul still retains some hope that Pyongyang may return to the interrupted bilateral dialogue, there is little illusion that it is being pressured by its northern neighbour to return to the conciliatory policies of the previous liberal government.

President Lee Myung Bak, who took office in February, openly distanced himself from the so-called Sunshine Policy of his two predecessors, which he regards as overly naive, and announced he would reevaluate cooperation projects agreed in the October 2007 summit.

Another spoke in the wheels of bilateral relations are the attempts by South Korean activists to send propaganda leaflets across the border in helium-filled balloons, aimed at stoking resistance against the totalitarian regime in the North.

The "leaflet war" showed ideological divisions among the South Korean government, where some members were said to believe their distribution was "undesired and sent a wrong message" to the North, while others rejected northern demands to stop the activists.

While analysts try to make sense of any scrap of information coming out of North Korea, no one can say for sure what is going on in the hermit state which tested a nuclear device in 2006, set to remain both threat and enigma. (dpa)