There has been a John Feffer sighting in the Hankyoreh. For those that don’t know who Mr. Feffer is, he is a long time North Korea apologist who once equated Kim Jong-il to former President George Bush. Feffer even incredibly once claimed that Kim Jong-un was not responsible for the Great Famine in North Korea that needlessly killed hundreds of thousands of his own citizens. Now Feffer is advocating for the Moon administration’s request for the US to approve exemptions on sanctions on North Korea:
John Feffer
North Korea has not pushed forward with denuclearization as quickly as some observers hoped. It hasn’t taken any steps to reduce its nuclear arsenal. In fact, according to a recent U.S. intelligence assessment, North Korea continues to produce highly enriched uranium for additional nuclear weapons.
Nor has North Korea even provided a list of all its nuclear-weapons-related sites or an inventory of its nuclear weapons.Still, North Korea has given several indications that it is serious about de-escalating tensions. It has maintained a moratorium on all missile and nuclear tests. It at least partially destroyed its nuclear test site at Punggye-ri (it may only have destroyed the entrances rather than the tunnels themselves). And most recently it began the partial dismantlement of its satellite-launch station.
None of these moves is irreversible. But given the Trump administration’s tendency to renege on deals – like the Iran nuclear deal – North Korea would frankly be crazy to do anything yet that it can’t later reverse. [Hankyoreh]
Notice how Feffer tries to make it out that it is all President Trump’s fault that North Korea has done nothing meaningful to denuclearize, ignoring the fact North Korea has never done anything meaningful and it has always been the US being the one making concessions in the past.
Here is where he gets into the easing of sanctions:
South Korea has also taken some important steps forward on conflict reduction. Most recently, it reported that it will reduce the number of guard posts along the DMZ and withdraw some military equipment as well. The United States, however, has not made any reciprocal moves. It canceled the summer military exercises with South Korea. But it hasn’t shown any flexibility on the issue of economic sanctions.Indeed, the Trump administration has pushed for stricter implementation of sanctions at the UN, citing North Korean violations of petroleum imports.
The United States has upped the pressure on China and Russia to enforce these sanctions. And last week, several U.S. government agencies send out an advisory that reminded businesses and individuals of the penalties of engaging economically with Pyongyang. Seoul has officially requested exemptions to the sanctions that would allow it to pursue certain economic projects with Pyongyang. It will likely have the support of both Russia and China for such exemptions.
The ball is in the U.S. court. If Trump truly wants to move forward with the deal he struck with Kim Jong Un in Singapore, then he has to put his money where his mouth is.The U.S. government can grant these exemptions while still maintaining an otherwise strict sanctions regime. It can still prevent U.S. businesses and individuals from engaging with North Korea.
It can still push for the tighter implementation of sanctions connected to critical resources, like petroleum, that North Korea needs.What South Korea is looking for, however, are exemptions that would permit the restart of joint economic programs like the Kaesong industrial zone and inter-Korean tourism operations.
The Kaesong Industrial Complex and the joint-tourism projects established by prior left-wing South Korean governments were major foreign revenue generators for the Kim regime. We heard for years about how these engagement projects would change North Korea. Well the engagers and apologists were right North Korea did change, they used the revenue to help fund their ballistic missile and nuclear programs that now can now threaten the entire region and even the US homeland.
Now the engagers and apologists want to double down on their failed ideas, but the big question is if President Trump wants to double down with them?
Like I have been maintaining, I don’t think anyone should panic unless sanctions are dropped for little to nothing in return from North Korea. This recent announcement suggests the sanctions will remain in place:
This photo, taken July 25, 2018, shows Deputy Minister for National Defense Policy, Yeo Suk-joo (R), shaking hands with Roberta Shea, acting deputy assistant secretary of defense at the 14th Korea-U.S. Integrated Defense Dialogue in Seoul. (Yonhap)
South Korea and the United States agreed Thursday to keep enforcing sanctions against North Korea until it takes “concrete, verifiable” steps toward denuclearization, during their biannual working-level defense talks.
During the 14th Korea-U.S. Integrated Defense Dialogue (KIDD) in Seoul, the two sides also shared the view that there is a need to continuously explore ways to build trust with Pyongyang as long as the communist state maintains a “good-will” dialogue.
Seoul’s defense ministry announced the outcome of the two-day talks. Deputy Minister for National Defense Policy, Yeo Suk-joo, represented the South Korean side, while Roberta Shea, acting deputy assistant secretary of defense, led the U.S. delegation.
During the talks, the two sides mentioned “meaningful progress” following two inter-Korean summits in April and May and last month’s U.S.-North Korea summit despite concerns over a perceived lack of progress in the North’s denuclearization process. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but I wonder what the Moon administration’s definition of “concrete, verifiable” steps is?
This is the kind of willful naïveté, the purposeful misrepresentation that drives me up the wall about this year’s detente w/ N Korea. Talk to them, yes; but praising Kim Jong Un? Jesus. Stop.Just stop. This is how Trump got rolled in SG. Read this first: https://t.co/USizTlr1pfhttps://t.co/0III7HLlmW
The Prime Minister may want to ask the people enslaved in the gulags how much Kim Jong-un cares about his people:
Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon speaks during a meeting in Nairobi with Korean residents in Kenya on July 19, 2018. (Yonhap)
South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon said Thursday that a series of changes has happened in North Korea and the most important of them is that the country finally has a leader caring for the livelihoods of his people.
Lee made the remark in Nairobi during a meeting with Korean residents in Kenya, referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s policy to put a greater emphasis on economic development, and vowing to seize the chance to bring permanent peace to the divided Korean Peninsula. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but do these people actually think that talking nice about Kim Jong-un will make him decide to denuclearize?
It didn’t take long for the North Koreans to use the proposed family unions as leverage against the South Korean government:
North Korea’s state-run media released a string of articles on Friday that criticized the South Korean government, hinting that planned reunions for families split between the two nations could be canceled. An editorial in the official state newspaper of the North Korean ruling party, Rodong Sinmun, argued that South Korea had been exaggerating its role in denuclearization talks between Pyongyang and Washington. South Korea’s role in the talks does “not even amount to that of an assistant,” the editorial stated. The same article described comments made by South Korean President Moon Jae-in in Singapore last week as “presumptuous” and “flippant.” [Washington Post]
You can read more at the link, but it appears the North Koreans are trying to put the ROK government back in its place as being subservient to the Kim regime with the denuclearization talks solely between the US and North Korea.
Here is the main reason they are threatening the cancelation of the family reunions:
In another attack against the Moon administration, Uriminzokkiri, a North Korean propaganda website, urged it to repatriate a dozen North Korean restaurant workers who came to the South in 2016.
The 12 had worked at a North Korean restaurant in China. Pyongyang claims they were abducted by South Korean authorities. The South has said the workers defected of their own free will.
Uriminzokkiri said there could be an “obstacle” in the planned reunion of families divided by the 1950-53 Korean War next month if the workers are not returned.
It lashed out at Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon by name, accusing him of “siding with” the former government which it said plotted the workers’ defection. [Reuters]
I think even for a left wing administration like President Moon’s, this will be politically very difficult to do. Could you imagine the backlash of forcibly removing these defectors from South Korea and handing them over to the Kim regime?
It is bad enough that Russia and China actively undermine United Nations sanctions against the Kim regime, but now even South Korea is reportedly helping North Korea evade sanctions as well:
North Korea reportedly transported its coal to a third country via South Korea last year in violation of UN sanctions.
The Voice of America(VOA) issued the report on Tuesday, citing information released by an expert panel under the UN committee monitoring sanctions against North Korea.
The panel said that North Korea shipped its coal from Kholmsk Port in Russia to a third country two times via South Korean ports in Incheon and Pohang on October second and 11th last year.
Earlier this year, the panel said in its previous report that the South Korean ports were the final destinations of the North Korean coal. However, in the latest report, it said the shipments were likely headed to a third country, although it is unconfirmed.
Meanwhile, an official at the South Korean Foreign Ministry said that there is a need to confirm the findings of the report.
The UN Security Council Resolution 2371 adopted in August last year imposed a total ban on all exports of North Korean coal. [KBS World Radio]
It looks like the Kim regime has made good progress on getting the restaurant workers returned to North Korea:
A former North Korean restaurant manager who defected to South Korea in 2016 together with a dozen female workers claimed Sunday that Seoul’s spy agency had lured and blackmailed him into defecting.
Ho Kang-il’s claim, made in a phone interview with Yonhap News Agency, corroborates suspicions that the high-profile defection was not voluntary and the then-government of President Park Geun-hye orchestrated it behind the scenes.
During the interview, Ho claimed that the South’s National Intelligence Service had tried to persuade him to defect, saying it would help him open a restaurant in a Southeast Asian nation, but the spy agency didn’t make good on the promise.
“Originally, I was a cooperator of the NIS and brought information to them,” Ho said. “But they lured me, saying that if I come (to the South) with my employees, they would get us to obtain South Korean citizenship and then they would open a restaurant in Southeast Asia that could also be used as an NIS hideout. They told me to run the restaurant there with the employees.”
Ho claimed NIS agents blackmailed him when he hesitated.
“They threatened that unless I come to the South with the employees, they would divulge to the North Korean Embassy that I had cooperated with the NIS until then,” Ho said. “I had no choice but to do what they told me to.”
He also said that the restaurant employees had thought they would be going to a restaurant in Southeast Asia, and it was only after they got on board the flight that they learned they were headed to the South.
Questions about their defection first arose in May after a local cable broadcaster aired an interview with the restaurant manager. Pyongyang has demanded their return, saying they were abducted by South Korean intelligence, but the South Korean government has claimed that all of the North Koreans defected voluntarily.
Last week, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, Tomas Ojea Quintana, called for a “thorough” and “independent” investigation after he met with some of the defectors.
“It is clear that there were some shortcomings in regards to how they were brought to South Korea,” Quintana told reporters. “From the information I received from some of them, they were taken to the Republic of Korea without knowing they were coming here.” [Yonhap]
First of all the ROK intelligence service should be asking North Koreans if they want to defect, however I don’t believe they should not be blackmailing them. With that said we don’t know if the blackmail claims from the restaurant manager are true. Remember these allegations from the restaurant manager only came up after the Moon administration came to power. Is the Moon administration putting him under intense pressure and allowing the North Koreans to contact him with threats against his family back in North Korea?
Remember these restaurant workers could have easily have made statements to the media that they were kidnapped before Moon became President or even over the first year of the Moon administration. It was only this past May when JTBC, Pyongyang’s favorite South Korean news channel, was allowed to interview the restaurant manager did these claims come up. It is going to be interesting to see if the Moon administration ups the pressure on the restaurant workers to voluntarily return to North Korea to keep the current peace process moving forward.
Eight officials of South Korean TV station JTBC will visit North Korea’s capital Pyongyang next week to discuss inter-Korean exchange in the field of media and the opening of the broadcaster’s bureau there.
It will become the first case of inter-Korean cooperation in media since inter-Korean military tension subsided early this year.
Seoul’s unification ministry approved their visit to the North late Friday. The ministry’s approval is a must for South Korean citizens to visit the North since the two Koreas are technically still at war with each other because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.
The ministry said the JTBC delegation, headed by its newsroom managing director Kwon Suk-chun, will visit the North from July 9 to 12, during which time they will meet with North Korean broadcasters and officials from the National Reconciliation Council, which invited the delegation to the North.
The purpose of the visit is to discuss “inter-Korean exchange in the field of media and JTBC’s opening of a Pyongyang bureau,” said the ministry in a message sent to reporters. It didn’t give further details. [Korea Times]
Kim Jong-un should have invited Dennis Rodman to attend this:
South and North Korean men’s and women’s basket ball teams will play goodwill matches today and Thursday in Pyongyang, possibly with the North’s leader Kim Jong-un attending.
The “Unification Basketball Competition” is the fourth of its kind and is being held for the first time in 15 years since the last games were played in 2003. The Koreas agreed to schedule the event at a meeting on sports cooperation last month.
A 101 member delegation departed for Pyongyang Tuesday, led by Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon. The delegation includes 50 basketball players, government officials, reporters and a broadcasting team.
“The PyeongChang Winter Olympics became the foundation of peace on the Korean Peninsula, so I hope that the Pyongyang unification basketball competition serves as an occasion to further develop peace on the peninsula,” Cho told reporters before departure.
The delegation headed to Pyongyang Sunan International Airport from Seoul Airport in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, via an air force transport aircraft, given international sanctions on North Korea.
This is the first time for the unification minister to visit Pyongyang in 11 years. His last visit was in 2007 as a presidential secretary. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but I wonder what the cost of the “hotel bills” are that South Korea will have to pay to North Korea to play these games?
