Alternative headline: 6150 South Korean citizens want to give their money to an enemy regime that enslaves millions of their fellow kinsmen because they want to take selfies at a mountain. https://t.co/dBk6hsUvmg
— John Lee (The Korean Foreigner) (@koreanforeigner) June 14, 2019
It looks like there may be a fourth Inter-Korean Summit before President Trump visits South Korea on June 30th:
A senior presidential aide said Thursday that discussions are underway with officials from Pyongyang regarding another inter-Korean summit, before U.S. President Donald Trump’s planned meeting with President Moon Jae-in, June 30.
“It’s evident that the U.S. president didn’t rule out the possibility of another meeting between President Moon and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ahead of his planned visit here at the end of June. President Moon earlier raised this idea at his April summit with Trump in Washington. South Korea and the U.S. are united on that idea,” the official told reporters in a briefing.
“My understanding is that the U.S. president didn’t say anything on the usefulness and necessity of another inter-Korean summit,” the senior aide said, adding announcements will be made once the discussions are completed.
Moon renewed his call late Wednesday (KST) for a fourth summit with Kim Jong-un ahead of his meeting with Trump.
Korea Times
You can read more at the link, but I am not sure what they would talk about? Are they going to coordinate how they plan to persuade President Trump into signing a “pretend denuclearization” deal? Talk about how to avoid international sanctions?
Anyone else have any guesses on what they could possibly talk about?
Kim Won-bong is basically the Benedict Arnold of South Korea. I think it is okay to record his military contributions as part of the historical record, but his treason should be part of the historical record as well instead of just receiving praise for his anti-Japanese activities:
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The Ministry of National Defense said Monday it was reviewing a request from its research arm to include details of Kim Won-bong’s fight for Korea’s independence in the historical records of the Korean military on its official website.
Korea Times
Kim was the leader of a secret society fighting for independence. He and his associates became undercover operatives for the Korean provisional government in China from the late 1930s to early 1940s. But Kim later went to North Korea, where he earned commendations from Pyongyang for his efforts in the Korean War.
“The ministry understands there is a need to record the late Kim Won-bong’s activities if they turn out to be based on historical facts,” ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyun-soo told reporters in a briefing at the ministry’s headquarters in Yongsan-gu, Seoul.
A request was made last year by the Institute for Military History for the current history on the ministry website to be revised to include some facts about Kim’s activities including his creation of the anti-Japanese Korean Volunteer Corps in 1938 in Wuhan, China. Kim was later appointed deputy commander of the Korean Liberation Army in 1942 and served until 1945.
Currently, the ministry’s records only state certain facts such as those on the late independence activist Ahn Jung-geun and his assassination of then-Japanese Resident-General Hirobumi Ito in 1909, or the foundation of the provisional government in 1919, in the history before the 1945 liberation of Korea from colonial rule.
The historical assessment on Kim, however, remains controversial as he became a North Korean military commander in 1948 and fought against South Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War. He was said to have helped strengthen Kim Il-sung’s regime in North Korea before being purged in 1958.
Controversy surrounding Kim has recently resurfaced following President Moon Jae-in’s June 6 Memorial Day speech at Seoul National Cemetery, where he gave credit to him for his activities.
You can read more at the link.
The Moon administration is not going to like this news:
Eight out of ten South Koreans think economic issues are more important than unification with North Korea, according to a new government survey.
KBS World Radio
The Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs released on Friday the results of their survey of three-thousand-873 South Korean adults, which indicates that 77-point-one percent of respondents would choose the economy over unification if only one of the two problems could be solved.
In the survey, 55-point-nine percent agreed with the proposition that South Korea and North Korea don’t necessarily have to form a unified country.
A full 53-point-two percent answered negatively when asked if they were willing to partially give up their quality of life for unification with North Korea.
You can read more at the link.
I wonder what the U.S. government’s definition of a “certain limit” is compared to the Moon administration’s?:
South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said her country and the United States determined that North Korea’s short-range missile launches in May did not “deserve” suspending talks with the regime.
Yonhap
Speaking Friday at a security forum in Bratislava, Slovakia, Kang said South Korea and the U.S. analyzed the launches in early May and “decided to take a cool headed approach about this.”
“We said this doesn’t deserve breaking the momentum for dialogue,” she told the forum in English, according to an AP transcript. “But if it reaches, the provocation reaches a certain limit and that cannot be tolerated, clearly it goes back to more pressure.”
You can read more at the link.
US: “It can only range Seoul, so what do we care?”
— 🇰🇷Edward Oh🇺🇸 (@EdwardHBOh) May 22, 2019
SK: “Missiles? What missiles? In the interest of inter-Korean comity, we prefer to see them as ‘projectiles for peace’ instead.” https://t.co/GY4dKpFeNy
Here is a $8 million more dollars that the Kim regime does not have to spend on its people:
South Korea decided Friday to donate US$8 million to international agencies for aid projects in North Korea and allow a group of businesspeople to visit a shuttered joint industrial complex in the communist nation.
Yonhap
The decisions came as Seoul has been trying to keep the peace process with the North alive despite the North’s firing of missiles and projectiles earlier this month. Seoul is also formulating plans to send food aid to the impoverished North.
“The government decided to approve the businesspeople’s trip to North Korea as part of efforts to protect their property rights,” the unification ministry said in a press release. “We will make necessary efforts to make their trip to the Kaesong industrial complex go smoothly without any problem.”
“We also plan to provide $8 million through international agencies such as the WFP and UNICEF for projects to support the nutrition of children and pregnant women and their health,” it added, referring to the World Food Programme and the United Nations Children’s Fund.
You can read more at the link, but Seoul is saying they are sending the food aid to keep the peace process alive. So this is basically extortion money then to the Kim regime?
Remember how the Moon administration said they would get public opinion before agreeing to food aid to North Korea? Well as expected public opinion to them is getting their food aid plan agreed to by fellow leftist groups:
Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul discussed the issue of providing food aid to North Korea with civic groups here, Tuesday, as part of a first step in reviewing the project.
Korea Times
Seventeen people from three organizations, including the Korea Conference of Religions for Peace, participated in the discussion.
The three groups are favorable toward the government providing humanitarian aid to the North. In a joint statement, they said South Korea should never ignore the devastating food shortage there despite ongoing military and political tension between the two Koreas.
“As of now, the unification ministry is focusing on receiving opinions. We will decide on the project’s timing, method and scale afterwards,” a ministry official said.
You can read more at the link, but some how I doubt anyone from these groups asked the Unification Minister how come the Kim regime cannot purchase food for their people, but can buy $640 million of luxury goods from China?
This editorial in the North Korean state controlled newspaper is clearly intended to send a message to the Moon administration to violate international sanctions:
Pyongyang’s state media on Sunday condemned the South for citing humanitarian reasons for its plans to provide food aid to the North, saying Seoul is “playing with empty words” rather than attempting to tackle “fundamental issues” in their relationship.
Joong Ang Ilbo
The editorial from Arirang Meari – a state-run outlet in Pyongyang that mainly covers inter-Korean issues – criticized the South for being “entangled with an external environment” and putting off the implementation of their joint declarations from earlier summits. Calling the South’s references to humanitarianism “empty words” and “showing off,” the piece went on say that making a “big deal out of a few counts of humanitarian cooperation projects” was an “insult to public opinion and an act lacking respect and ethics.
“[The South] must not make a mockery out of the historic inter-Korean joint declaration with a trivial counts of goods trading or human exchanges,” the essay continued. “If [South Korea] is truly interested in improving inter-Korean relations as a primary party to national issues, it must boldly divorce itself from a policy of foreign dependence and fulfill its duty to the people by actively sticking by the inter-Korean declarations.”
You can read more at the link, but the Kim regime is trying to push the Moon administration to unilaterally restart joint projects such as the Kaesong Industrial Park that would violate international sanctions.
Does anyone think that the Kim regime takes anything from the ROK government seriously right now?
The South Korean Defense Ministry has urged North Korea to stop heightening military tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
KBS World Radio
In the wake of North Korea’s short-range missile test and artillery exercises this past Saturday, ministry spokesperson Choi Hyun-soo addressed the situation without specifically describing the military move as a missile launch.
[Sound bite: Defense Ministry Spokesperson Choi Hyun-soo (Korean)]
“North Korea’s launch of multiple projectiles partially goes against the purpose of the (inter-Korean) military agreement and we are very concerned. We urge North Korea to cease actions that heighten military tensions on the Korean Peninsula.”
You can read more at the link.
