Category: Inter-Korean Issues

It is just amazing that people keep wanting to shovel money into North Korea and keep thinking the results are going to be different this time:

Incheon Metropolitan Government has sparked a controversy for contracting out a study on developing airports in North Korea, drawing criticisms from conservative lawmakers over the plan’s feasibility and political motivation.

According to Incheon Metropolitan Government’s data submitted to Rep. Han Ki-ho of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP), the city government contracted out the study to a consortium led by Korea National University of Transportation in May last year, at a cost of 135 million won ($120,000).

The study was aimed at exploring ways to nurture Incheon International Airport as a travel hub for North Korea. For this purpose, the study proposed improvements to eight existing airports in North Korea and the building of a new one there. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the Incheon government wants throw over $4 billion into renovating North Korean airports and build a whole new airport in Rason.

The Korean government is going after Park Sang-hak again:

South Korean police in Monday summoned an activist who said he flew hundreds of thousands of anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets toward North Korea in defiance of a new law that criminalizes such activities.

The questioning of Park Sang-hak came hours after President Moon Jae-in in a nationally televised speech issued apparent criticism toward Park without naming him, saying it’s “never desirable” to dampen relations with the North by violating inter-Korean agreements and South Korean laws.

Associated Press

You can read more at the link, but I guess we will see if the ROK government tries to jail him or not to appease the Kim regime. If they do jail him it will likely lead to much international criticism for jailing a human rights activist to appease the thugs in Pyongyang.

ROK Heads may remember that Park Sang-hak has been the victim of multiple assassination attempts by North Korean agents and assaulted by Korean leftists. He has also had leftists intrude at his house and has been repeatedly arrested and harassed by the Moon administration in effort to stop his group’s activities. .

Kim Yo-jong is not happy with a ROK Drop favorite Park Sang-hak because his group continues leaflet activities into North Korea:

Kim Yo-jong also issued a statement blaming Seoul for letting a North Korean defectors organization fly anti-Kim regime leaflets into the country last week. 

In the statement carried by the North’s Korea Central News Agency, she called it “an intolerable provocation” and said “the South Korean authorities again did not stop the reckless acts of the defectors from the North, winking at them.” Kim warned of “a corresponding action,” without elaborating.

On Friday, Fighters for a Free North Korea, a group of North Korean defectors, claimed that it had flown balloons carrying leaflets, booklets and U.S. dollars across the border. This came weeks after South Korea criminalized such an act despite criticism from some U.S. lawmakers and international rights groups that the law banning anti-Pyongyang leaflet campaigns limited South Korea’s freedom of speech.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

ROK Heads may remember that Park Sang-hak has been the victim of multiple assassination attempts by North Korean agents and assaulted by Korean leftists. He has also had leftists intrude at his house and has been repeatedly arrested and harassed by the Moon administration in effort to stop his group’s activities. .

The Unification Ministry is still living in their fantasy where they believe North Korea will live up to past agreements with the ROK:

 Unification Minister Lee In-young urged North Korea on Tuesday to implement inter-Korean summit agreements and come out for talks as he marked the third anniversary of a historic 2018 summit between President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Lee made the remarks during an event organized by civic groups to celebrate the anniversary of the Panmunjom Declaration adopted after the summit talks on April 27, 2018, stressing that South Korea is willing to resume talks with the North “anytime, anywhere and on any issues.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest bad idea from the Moon administration:

North and South Korea should unify their economies while maintaining separate political systems, South Korean unification minister Lee In-young said on Thursday.

“Our approach now should aim more at the ‘one people, two countries, two systems, and one market’ model,” Lee told South Korea’s Seoul Shinmun newspaper, pointing to the European Union as an example of a similar system.

NK News

You can read more at the link, but any economic assistance given to the North Koreans history has shown they have used to expand their military, nuclear weapons, and missile programs at the expense of their people. This is irrefutable and what is different now to think this isn’t going to happen again?

How come this governor isn’t advocating for the Russian vaccine to be given to South Koreans and instead wants to ship it to North Korea first?:

Gangwon Province Governor Choi Moon-soon’s proposal of manufacturing Russian COVID-19 vaccines in South Korea and providing them to North Korea is a feasible way to help normalize inter-Korean ties, according to Pyongyang watchers, Tuesday. 

However, they added that Seoul needs to come up with a creative and bold strategy to make such “vaccine diplomacy” happen, as the North is seeking to reduce dependence on its southern neighbor for humanitarian support and economic cooperation, as evidenced by its snubbing of the government’s repeated calls for inter-Korean economic and public health cooperation amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It is pretty amazing that the Moon administration wants to build a nuclear power plant in North Korea while trying to close down nuclear power plants in South Korea:

 A political controversy appears to be brewing over the Seoul government’s possible attempt years ago to help North Korea build a nuclear power plant, after a local broadcaster on Thursday disclosed the existence of relevant government documents.

SBS TV, citing prosecutors investigating the destruction of government documents related to the closure of an aging nuclear reactor by some officials of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy in 2019, reported that a number of files on inter-Korean energy cooperation, including the planned construction of a nuclear plant in the North, were among the deleted documents.

Last month, prosecutors in the central city of Daejeon indicted three energy ministry officials on charges of destroying 530 kinds of computer documents linked to the closure of Wolsong-1, the country’s second-oldest nuclear reactor, right before the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) requested the submission of the documents in December 2019.

The BAI had opened an audit into the closure of Wolsong-1, in southeastern South Korea, as it emerged as a hot-button issue after President Moon Jae-in decided in 2017 to phase out nuclear power generation in line with his energy policy.

According to the bill of their indictments, disclosed by the broadcaster, the deleted computer documents, recovered later by BAI officials, contained numerous files on plans to build a nuclear power plant in North Korea and other inter-Korean energy cooperation projects.

Notably, the deleted documents included reports titled “North Korean nuclear power plant construction implementation plan” and “Inter-Korean economic cooperation experts in energy field,” which were produced from May 2-15, 2018, and stored under the folder title of “pohjois,” a Finnish word meaning north.

Moon’s first and second summit meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un were held in late April and late May, respectively, of the same year.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The Moon administration has kept this very quiet for two years until it has now been leaked to the media:

A North Korean diplomat has defected to South Korea while serving as the acting chief of mission at the country’s embassy in Kuwait, a source said Monday.

Ryu Hyun-woo, who had served as the embassy’s charge d’affaires since Ambassador So Chang-sik was expelled from Kuwait after a U.N. resolution was adopted in 2017, entered South Korea, along with his family, according to the source. 

Further details were not available, including the timing of the defection.

But a media report earlier said that Ryu appears to have defected to the South in September 2019, about two months after Jo Song-gil, the acting ambassador to the North’s embassy in Italy, entered the country after disappearing in late 2018.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but Ryu apparently defected to give his family a better life.