By Kim Young-jin

When Democratic Party (DP) Chairman Sohn Hak-kyu last week called for the two Koreas to set aside "minor challenges" and hold a summit in the name of reconciliation, he revealed a deep divide between conservatives and liberals on North Korea.

But with elections next year and domestic issues grabbing the spotlight, will the public care when they head to the polls?

"The North and the South should put minor challenges behind them and work toward peace," Sohn said, marking the 11th anniversary of the first inter-Korean summit. It was a thinly-veiled jab at President Lee Myung-bak's stance that Pyongyang should apologize for the two deadly attacks last year before any talks move forward.

Sohn's characterization of the attacks shows his party is ready to get on with the business of peacemaking. Some DP members have urged the President to send Sohn as a presidential envoy to Pyongyang to hopefully strike a breakthrough.

Analysts downplayed the impact of the division on the electoral process for now.

"The parties are making very good use of the division," Shin Chang-hoon of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies said of the partisanship. "But most people here are smart enough to deal with the issue and not to be persuaded by the rhetoric."

Shin added that the public has long been accustomed to the North's behavior and is unlikely to be swayed by partisan posturing.

Bahng Tae-seop of the Samsung Economic Research Institute agreed, saying: "There are a lot of issues the public is more concerned with ― social welfare, college tuition, the economy. If there's not another major incident, North Korea is not really a hot topic right now."

Inter-Korean relations are at their lowest as the sides have failed to overcome the hurdle presented by the North's sinking of the warship Cheonan and shelling of Yeonpyeong Island.

For Lee's conservative Grand National Party (GNP), the attacks revealed the North for what it was ― a regime willing to push the peninsula to war to extort concessions despite years of reconciliatory gestures from the South.

Lee has stuck to his guns over his demand for an expression of regret and taking responsibility with an aim to prompt real change from Pyongyang. But the stance comes at a cost: last February, military talks between the sides ­ the first talks since the November shelling ­ broke apart over the North's unwillingness to do so.

The North says it regrets the loss of civilian life in the two attacks, but denies any involvement or responsibility for the ship sinking and says it was goaded into the shelling by military exercises by the South.

For the DP and other liberals, the North's belligerence reflects its growing anger over Lee's hard-line stance. Massive amounts of aid from previous liberal administrations are virtually on halt and tied to the North's denuclearization. Some left-leaning analysts suggest the provocations were a direct result of the halting of the "sunshine policy" initiated by the late liberal President Kim Dae-jung.

Opinion polls show that the majority of South Koreans agree with Lee's hard-line stance and still want apologies. Still, a portion backs a reconciliatory approach as a way to manage the North's belligerence and mobilize aid to North Koreans.

The agenda for a highly-anticipated meeting Monday between President Lee and Sohn bore the analysis out, as it appeared to seek compromise on disputed domestic issues and not North Korea.

Still, the wrangling over North promises to flare up again this month as the GNP pushes a bill designed to help improve North Korea's human rights conditions this month, with Pyongyang vehemently opposing the move. The DP will offer its own version focused mainly on aid.