Category: Inter-Korean Issues

I have always supported radio broadcasts as a low cost way to penetrate North Korea’s information blockade of its people and the Lee administration has given it up for nothing in return:

South Korea has halted the broadcast of a propaganda radio program into North Korea, the defense ministry said Monday, as the South seeks to mend frayed ties with the North.

The move is the latest in Seoul’s reconciliatory gestures, with President Lee Jae Myung vowing to restore inter-Korean ties and resume dialogue with Pyongyang.

“The defense ministry has halted the ‘Voice of Freedom’ broadcast as part of efforts to ease inter-Korean military tensions,” the ministry said in a notice to reporters.

South Korea had aired K-pop and news into North Korea through the halted radio program. Last year, it broadcast news on North Korea’s deployment of troops to Russia in support of its war against Ukraine.

The ministry reportedly halted the broadcast starting earlier in the day, marking the first suspension of the radio program in 15 years. South Korea resumed the radio program in May 2010, following North Korea’s deadly attack on the South Korean naval corvette Cheonan.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

How cute President Lee thinks he can get the Kim regime to denuclearize:

President Lee Jae Myung has said he will pursue a three-stage denuclearization plan for North Korea, with Seoul approaching such a strategy via active efforts for dialogue with Pyongyang based on the solid alliance with the United States. 

In an interview with Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun ahead of his visit to Tokyo for summit talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Lee said he will seek to freeze North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs in the first stage. 

In the second and final stage, Lee said he will seek to reduce and dismantle North Korea’s nuclear program, according to a script of the interview provided by the presidential office.

South Korea, while maintaining close coordination with the U.S., will actively pursue inter-Korean dialogue to establish conditions for the goal, Lee told the Japanese newspaper.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I am sure Lee knows that he has no chance of getting North Korea to denuclearize. That is why his plan first has pursuing a nuclear freeze deal. This is the only viable deal that can be pursued with North Korea at this time. A cap on the number of North Korean nuclear weapons and ICBMs in return for dropping sanctions might be something the Kim regime may go for.

It is a bit surprising that South Korea is holding on to North Korean operatives when they have aged into their 90’s:

 Six former North Korean soldiers and spies who were jailed in South Korea for refusing to renounce their socialist beliefs have asked the Seoul government to repatriate them to the North, officials said Tuesday.

Yang Won-jin, 96, Ahn Hak-sop, 95, and four others have recently submitted the formal request to the unification ministry, seeking to return to North Korea, a ministry official said.

Known as “unconverted” long-term prisoners, they are former North Korean soldiers and spies who were arrested in the South before and after the 1950-53 Korean War, an ideologically driven conflict that left the Korean Peninsula divided into the communist North and the democratic South.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The big question is what is the North Koreans doing to restore these agreements, or will it all be one sided:

Lee said the South under his leadership will respect the North’s current system and that it will not pursue any form of unification by absorption. 

He also said that Seoul will take “proactive, gradual steps” to restore the Sept. 19 military agreement, signed between the two sides in 2018 to reduce border tensions.

“If small, practical steps pile up like pebbles, mutual trust will be restored. The path to peace will widen, and a foundation will be laid for South and North Korea to grow together,” Lee said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but that is the problem with the Korean left; they actually think the North Koreans want peace. The North Korean system of government cannot survive if there is peace with the South. The Kim regime uses the unification of the Korean peninsula by removing the U.S. imperialists and the traitorous ROK government as a rationale for their continued one party rule. Without the goal of reunifying the peninsula what unifying ideology would the Kim regime be left with to justify their rule?

I would be more impressed if Kim Jong-un came out and told his people the same thing about South Korea:

President Lee Jae Myung said South Korea will not seek to absorb North Korea for unification, in an address marking the 80th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from 1910-45 Japanese colonial rule, Friday.

This conciliatory message is the latest in the Lee administration’s conciliatory overtures toward Pyongyang, signaling a commitment to peaceful dialogue and indicating a softer approach to inter-Korean relations. 

“We affirm our respect for the North’s current system, aver that we will not pursue any form of unification by absorption and assert that we have no intention of engaging in hostile acts,” Lee emphasized in the speech.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It looks like Fighters for a Free North Korea are going to have a hard time continuing their activities under the new Lee administration:

Lee also directed the government to curb propaganda leaflets sent northward by balloon by activist groups in South Korea. The North characterized the balloons as an act of war. The balloons that sometimes carry rice, small radios and other essentials to aid impoverished North Koreans hinder diplomatic relations between North and South and “threaten the daily lives and safety” of border-area residents, according to a presidential office statement June 14.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but it will be interesting to see if the Lee administration tries to jail the leader of Fighters for a Free North Korea Park Sang-hak. During the Moon administration they arrested him Park multiple times in an effort to stop his group from sending balloons to North Korea.

If these POWs do in fact defect to South Korea their families back in North Korea will likely face punishment by being sent to labor camps:

The government said Seoul has not changed its position regarding accepting to the nation, North Korean soldiers held captive by the Ukrainian military in the Russia-Ukraine war should they wish to defect to South Korea.

An official at Seoul’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that the North Korean captives are considered prisoners of war, regardless of Pyongyang’s acknowledgement of their deployment.

The official added that in accordance with the 1949 Geneva Conventions, they must not be repatriated against their will to their home country, where they could face persecution.

KBS Global

You can read more at the link.

Appeasement of North Korea is what one analyst expects and the Korean left’s track record on this issue shows this will likely come true:

Sung-Yoon Lee, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., said Yoon’s removal “virtually enthrones” Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung as the likely next president. Lee, who has not formally announced a run for the presidency, faced Yoon in the 2022 election.

In December, he famously scaled a wall at the National Assembly to block Yoon’s martial law decree. Yoon defended his decision, accusing the Democrats of obstructing legislation and conducting politically motivated investigations of government appointees. “If Lee Jae-myung or another [Democratic Party] politician takes power, we can anticipate big changes — mostly for the worse for South Korea’s national security and its alliance with the U.S., based on the ignoble record on North Korea policy …,” Sung-Yoon Lee told Stars and Stripes by email Friday. (…..)

“Politicians are prone to switching colors on various issues,” Sung-Yoon Lee said. “But Lee Jae-myung and his fellow lawmakers are united and unswerving when it comes to appeasing Kim …”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

When these drones were flown over Pyongyang it was clear this was in response to the North Korean trash balloons that the Yoon administration was struggling to find a response to. If Yoon wanted to provoke a military confrontation with North Korea there would have been better ways of doing so such as sinking a North Korean patrol ship that crossed the NLL this past October:

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff denied allegations that the military scattered anti-communist propaganda leaflets in North Korea to prompt a reaction from Pyongyang, according to a spokesman Thursday. It was “not true” that the South Korean military carried out activities “to induce provocations from the enemy” that were intended to warrant a counter response from Seoul, South Korean army Col. Lee Sung-jun, a Joint Chiefs spokesman, said Thursday at a press conference in Seoul.

South Korean lawmakers from the opposition Democratic Party have accused former President Yoon Suk Yeol of attempting to justify his abrupt martial law declaration last month by directing the military and intelligence agencies to provoke North Korea. North Korea alleged the South sent military drones north of the border to distribute propaganda leaflets in October. One of these drones crashed and was recovered Oct. 13 in Pyongyang, North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported six days later.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.