“Bibimbap,” a traditional Korean dish of mixed rice and vegetables, is served to UAE officials and journalists during an Iftar dinner at the Korean embassy in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), on May 23, 2018, in this photo courtesy of the South Korean embassy in the UAE. Iftar is the first evening meal at the end of fasting during Ramadan. (Yonhap)
Here is the play-by-play of the Punggye-ri dog and pony show:
Punggye-ri nuclear test site.
North Korea destroyed its only known nuclear test site with a series of explosions over several hours on Thursday, taking an initial step toward denuclearization, according to South Korean journalists visiting the area.
The North dynamited the North Portal, also referred to as Tunnel No. 2, at Punggye-ri, a northeastern remote area, at around 11 a.m., they said in a brief pool report delivered by phone.
Two other tunnels were destroyed at 2:17 p.m., followed by the explosion of barracks, observation towers and other facilities on the ground.
The blasts ended at 4:17 p.m., the journalists said without clarifying whether Tunnel No. 1, or the East Portal, was removed as well. Among the four tunnels in the zone, the East Portal was evidently abandoned earlier, according to 38 North, a U.S.-based website.
Plumes of smoke soon covered the mountain.
Reporters and television crews from the United States, China, Russia and Britain were also invited to witness the ceremony.
They filmed the spectacle, but footage is expected to be available only after they return to Wonsan, the North’s eastern coastal city, presumably on Friday morning. [Yonhap]
As I have long said the closure of the nuclear test site is largely meaningless because if they decide they need to conduct more tests they can just dig another shaft at a time of their choosing.
President Trump has completely flipped the script on the Kim regime. The North Koreans are used to being the ones canceling talks and making the other parties make concessions to get them to come back:
President Donald Trump called off his summit with Kim Jong-un on Thursday after North Korea hurled insults at Vice President Mike Pence.
Trump said it would be ‘inappropriate’ to hold talks at this time after the Kim regime again tested the limits of his patience.
‘You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never be used,’ he said in a letter to Kim that the White House distributed.
North Korea‘s vice foreign minister had slammed Pence for his ‘unbridled and impudent remarks that North Korea might end like Libya.’
Choe Son Hui also said the future of the summit between Pyongyang and Washington is ‘entirely’ up to the United States, as she condemned an interview Pence gave to Fox News.
Trump said in his letter to Kim that as a result of the ‘tremendous anger and open hostility’ demonstrated by North Korea in the latest back and forth, he was pulling out of the June 12 meeting to discuss Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
‘I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting,’ Trump said hours after North Korea publicly destroyed much of its Punggye-ri nuclear test site. ‘Therefore, please let this letter serve to represent that the Singapore summit, for the good of both parties, but to the detriment of the world, will not take place.’
The U.S. president went on to say that he hopes to meet Kim one day and that the good dialogue that was building up between the two nations prior to the recent provocations remains promising.
Trump’s letter to Kim followed a string of threats from the North to call off the summit that had been brokered to discuss a commitment to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
The president told DailyMail.com on Wednesday that he’d know whether he was moving forward with the Singapore summit ‘next week.’ That was before North Korea’s latest volley, which included the assault on Pence.
‘We will neither beg the U.S. for dialogue nor take the trouble to persuade them if they do not want to sit together with us,’ said Choe Son Hui, according to a report by North Korea’s central news agency on Thursday.
She added: ‘I cannot suppress my surprise at such ignorant and stupid remarks gushing out from the mouth of the US vice-president. [Daily Mail]
You can read more at the link, but here is the letter that President Trump sent to Kim Jong-un:
I look at this as not being a cancellation of the talks, but instead part of the ongoing negotiations. The Trump administration has put North Korea in its place by reminding them who they are and who they are dealing with; thus the description in the difference in nuclear capabilities in the letter. I also think the message being sent is that the United States will not be pushed around by the North Koreans and they should be respectful towards the Trump administration and thankful for the opportunity to meet with the US President. This is especially true considering President Trump has made very respectful remarks towards Kim Jong-un and even the cancellation letter is extremely polite towards Kim Jong-un.
We are about to see how serious the Kim regime is about holding these talks and reaching a denuclearization deal because the ball is now officially in their court. President Trump’s letter leaves it very open for a future meeting if the Kim regime changes its tone. If they apologize for the remarks towards Vice President Pence that is a signal that they really do want a deal. However, if they begin another launch cycle or execute a provocation of some kind then that is a sign they were never serious about these talks in the first place.
However, it was good to see that for once the United States got something out of North Korea, the release of the three American detainees for little to nothing in return. It is usually the other way around where the US and South Korea makes concessions to North Korea for little to nothing in return. Once again President Trump has flipped the script on the Kim regime. It will be interesting to see how the North Koreans respond.
Here is another strange brain injury inflicted on a US diplomat, this time in China:
US officials have issued a health alert in China after a US government employee stationed there reported “abnormal sensations of sound and pressure” that indicated a mild brain injury.
The US State Department is looking into whether the incident is a “sonic attack,” a US diplomatic official told CNN, similar to what happened in Cuba in 2016 and 2017, which led to a reduction in staffing at the nation’s US embassy in Havana.
The official who fell ill was assigned to the city of Guangzhou in southern China and reported a range of physical symptoms from late 2017 through to April 2018, the State Department said. The employee was sent back to the United States for assessment. The US Embassy in Beijing learned on May 18 that the clinical findings of the evaluation matched that of a “mild traumatic brain injury,” an embassy spokeswoman told CNN.
A US Diplomatic official told CNN the State Department “is looking into whether this is a sonic attack, similar to what happened in Cuba.” CNN has reached out to China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs but has not yet received a response on this matter. [CNN]
You can read more at the link, but it is believed that the sonic attacks in Cuba were caused possibly by a flawed spying device. So whatever the spying device being used in Cuba was maybe it came from China and this same device malfunctioned there as well?
Korean residents in the United States wait for South Korean President Moon Jae-in and first lady Kim Jung-sook outside the former Korean legation building in Washington on May 22, 2018. The presidential couple visited the building on its reopening day as an exhibition hall and a museum. The legation, opened in February 1889, was Korea’s first diplomatic mission in a Western country. (Yonhap)
It looks like President Trump is making it very clear that there will be no long drawn out denuclearization process with North Korea like we have seen with past failed deals:
President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump talk during their summit at the White House, Washington, D.C., Wednesday. / Yonhap
U.S. President Donald Trump mentioned the possibility of delaying his planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in a meeting with President Moon Jae-in at the White House, Wednesday.
Trump said “all-in-one” denuclearization would be better than an incremental process with incentives, and it should be done over a very short period of time.
“There are certain conditions that we want. And I think we’ll get those conditions. And if we don’t, we won’t have the meeting,” Trump said. “Frankly, there’s a chance to be a great, great meeting for North Korea and a great meeting for the world. If it doesn’t happen, maybe it will happen later.”
He added, “It may not work out for June 12.”
But the U.S. president assured Kim of the safety of his regime, adding South Korea, China and Japan would invest in the North to help make the country “great” if it follows through on denuclearization. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but I agree with President Trump that this should be an all or nothing deal for Kim Jong-un. The North Koreans this time should not receive massive amounts of aid and other incentives for little to nothing in return. Instead they should demonstrate irreversible intent to denuclearize which the dog and pony show for the closure of the nuclear test site is not. For example if nuclear material begins to get shipped out of the country and their nuclear plant is dismantled that is evidence of irreversible intent to denuclearize.
It looks like the North Koreans are satisfied that they made their point to South Korea about how unhappy they are about the Ningpo 13 and have folded and allowed South Korean reporters to cover the upcoming dog and pony show at Punggye-ri:
South Korean journalists board a government plane on Wednesday at the Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, Gyeonggi, to fly to Wonsan, North Korea. [YONHAP]A group of eight South Korean journalists flew into North Korea on Wednesday afternoon after Pyongyang, at the last minute, accepted Seoul’s list of reporters to cover the dismantling of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site.
Eight journalists from two media outlets departed at around 12:30 p.m. from Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, Gyeonggi, on a South Korean government plane and flew directly to Kalma Airport in North Korea’s eastern port city of Wonsan.
After arriving in Wonsan, they joined journalists from four other countries – China, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States – to board a special train to head to the site of the demolition of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site to take place on Thursday or Friday. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
South Korea is shouldering 73 percent of the cost for stationing U.S. troops here, a civic group claimed Tuesday, citing data from the governments of both nations.
Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea (SPARK) said South Korea covered 72.6 percent of the costs for keeping 28,500 U.S. troops here in 2016, after analyzing defense expenditures of both South Korea and the U.S.
According to official announcements by Seoul and Washington, the total costs of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) presence here add up to around $2 billion (2.17 trillion won), of which South Korea pays 42 percent.
However, the civic group stated taking into account the sites South Korea provides for military bases, the percentage rises above 70 percent.
The group said South Korea paid around 3.39 trillion won in direct and indirect expenses for the USFK last year, according to data from the defense ministry.
Direct costs paid by South Korea for the USFK were 1.81 trillion won. This included 944.1 billion won in costs paid under the Special Measures Agreement (SMA), 666.7 billion won in expenses for relocating personnel to Pyeongtaek and 184.3 billion won for repairing military facilities. Also included in the expenses were managing the Korean Augmentation To the United States Army (KATUSA) and conducting environmental studies on bases.
Indirect costs totaled 1.57 trillion won ― most of which accounted for South Korea providing land for U.S. military use. The civic group said the land value exceeds 1.16 trillion won.
It also looked into expenditures of the U.S. Department of Defense to reach the conclusion the cost-bearing ratio is 72.6 to 27.4.
“The U.S. government must stop forcing South Korea to raise its portion of costs, and must immediately return accumulated funds and illegally reaped interest earnings,” the group said.
It also demanded the U.S. stop calling for Korea to cover more costs of deploying U.S. strategic assets and maintaining a THAAD battery here. [Korea Times]
By not including the cost of deploying US strategic assets to the peninsula this totally discredits what this group is claiming. They are more than happy to include indirect costs for Korea in their analysis, but not indirect costs for the US military. Imagine how much their analysis would change if the cost of an aircraft carrier or stealth bombers when they are deployed to the peninsula is included. Better yet what about the cost of all the space based assets that USFK uses to protect South Korea that they get the benefit of and don’t have to pay for?
Someone at the Pentagon involved in the cost sharing talks should run all these numbers to counter what the left wing group SPARK is putting out.
