Category: Inter-Korean Issues

It looks like Kim Jong-un really wants to get the Kumgang Resort cash cow reopened considering the North Koreans are holding talks again with the ROK in regards to another possible round of family reunions.  ROK Heads may remember the Kumgang Resort was closed to South Korean tourists when a 53 year old grandma was shot dead on the beach by a North Korean soldier:

North and South Korea held high-level talks at a North Korean border town on Friday, a small step meant to improve ties battered by a military standoff in August and decades of acrimony and bloodshed.

No major breakthrough was reached in the meeting of vice-ministerial officials in Kaesong, and the two sides decided to extend the talks for another day.

Analysts see the talks as meaningful because they seek to carry out previously agreed reconciliation efforts — something the rivals have often failed to do in the past.

South Korean officials want to discuss more reunions between aging family members separated by the 1950-53 Korean War. Analysts have said cash-strapped North Korea might seek the South’s commitment to restart joint tours to its scenic Diamond Mountain resort, which were suspended by Seoul in 2008 following the shooting death of a South Korean tourist there by a North Korean soldier.   [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link.

This is really not a surprise at all because the truth about how these reunions came about to stop the ROK’s propaganda broadcasts is not something that the Kim regime can have the average North Korean learn about:

When it comes to news, the two countries could hardly be more different, as evidenced by Wednesday’s papers.

South Korea has more than 100 newspapers and even more online news outlets, and South Koreans are constantly on their smart phones checking the latest headlines.

In the North, however, there’s the state-run wire service, the Korean Central News Agency, the official TV station, Korean Central Television and the main newspaper, the Rodong Sinmum. And all of them feature a heavy diet of Kim Jong Un news.

But what was reported about the reunions also differed sharply.

South Korean outlets focused on the personal stories of the separated families, especially on the reunion of Lee Soon-gyu, who got to see her husband Oh In Se for the first time since 1950, when she was 19 and six months pregnant.

But North Korean state media used the occasion to trumpet their “socialist system” and the wise leadership of Kim Jong Un.

“Those from the north told their separated families and relatives from the south about the fact that they and their families are enjoying a happy and worthwhile life in the Korean-style socialist system,” KCNA reported.

Uriminzokkiri, a Web site affiliated with North Korea, also ran with the same message about how great life is in Kim Jong Un’s socialist paradise.

And of course, North Korea took the credit for the reunions happening at all (only scant mention of the South Korean Red Cross, which did the organizing, or the fact that these reunions happened so Kim Jong Un could stop potentially destabilizing broadcasts from the South.)  [The Washington Post]

You can read the rest at the link.

For those that have followed the North-South family reunions before the news that strict controls on what the South Korean families can discuss and the fact that the North Korean relatives are closely monitored should be no surprise:

The Koreans tearfully reuniting this week after being torn apart by war for six decades yearn for details about their loved ones. But with strict rules and constant hovering by North Korean officials, the brief reunions have often ended with deep regrets over questions not asked and future meetings never to come.

Participants from democratic, wealthy South Korea travel with a guidebook warning about what not to say to relatives from impoverished, authoritarian North Korea: nothing about food shortages and economic malaise; nothing that questions the competence of three generations of Kim dictators.

“I just looked at their faces and asked questions like how many family members were still living in the North,” said Jang Choon, 83, who was reunited with his younger brother and sister at the last round of the reunions before this week’s. “We should have been given more time,” said Jang, who still weeps whenever he thinks about the siblings he saw in February of last year but knows he’ll likely never see again.

After the tears and hugs, genuine conversation is often tough, maybe impossible, during the reunions at North Korea’s Diamond Mountain resort.

Here’s a look at what past participants say happens when the journalists covering the reunions, which end Monday after two three-day rounds, leave and long-lost families from two starkly different countries have time to themselves:  [Associated Press]

You can read the rest at the link.

Due to the Korean War there are many more families like this one that have remained separated for decades.  It is good they have finally been able to see each other:

The long-awaited reunions of some 530 members of 96 families separated for over six decades following the Korean War (1950-53) kicked off Tuesday at Mount Kumgang in North Korea in a flurry of tears of joy and sorrow over the time together stolen from them.

Lee Sung-kyu, from Changwon in North Chungcheong, was separated from her husband Oh In-se in June 1950 at the outbreak of the war. She was just 19 years old.

Lee was one of 389 South Korean participants eager to reunite with 141 North Koreans at the reunion center on Mount Kumgang at around 3:20 p.m.

Some were anxious over whether they would recognize the faces of a child, spouse, sibling or parent after more than half a century had passed, in the first round of the 20th inter-Korean family reunions that will run until Thursday.

Lee, now 85, was accompanied by her and Oh’s son and daughter-in-law. Her eyes swelled with tears upon seeing her 83-year-old husband in a gray suit, a fedora hat and hearing aids.

Their 65-year-old son Oh Jang-kyun uttered the salutation “Father” for the first time in 65 years.

“I tried to live proud to be your son,” said Oh, who was born during the war and never knew his father in North Korea. “We look alike.”

His father beckoned him, said, “Come nearer,” and stroked his son’s face. It was their first conversation.

Jang-kyun and his wife proceeded to give a deep bow to his father, a sign of respect to elders.

For 37 years, Lee thought her husband was dead and even conducted memorial services for him every year.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the whole thing at the link.

I guess we will see if the Kim regime manufactures a reason to cancel these reunions at the last minute, but it appears these reunions are pretty much set to happen this time:

South Korean families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War gathered at a resort on the country’s east coast Monday to prepare for reunions with their North Korean relatives later this week, officials said.

The first batch of the nearly 400 South Koreans, part of 96 families, stopped in the city of Sokcho on their way to the scenic resort on Mount Kumgang for the reunions with their family members in North Korea from Tuesday to Thursday.

The upcoming event, the first since February 2014, is the result of the deal South and North Korea reached in August to defuse military tension and resume the family reunions.

The second round of the reunions involving some 250 South Koreans, part of 90 families, will be held from Saturday to next Monday at the North Korean resort, which is about a half-hour drive from Sokcho.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

I guess we will see if these family reunions happen or not, but I think the Kim regime is hoping these reunions will open the door to the South Korean government reopening the Kumgang Resort on the North Korean side of the DMZ.  This resort was a good source of foreign currency for the regime before South Korea discontinued the joint venture after a North Korean soldier shot a South Korean tourist in the back:

South and North Korea Thursday exchanged the final list of family members separated by the 1950-53 Korean War to join the upcoming reunions, the Unification Ministry said.

South Korea’s Red Cross handed over a list of 90 South Koreans hoping to meet their relatives living in the North, the ministry said. In return, North Korea delivered a list of 97 North Korean family members to the South.

Last month, South and North Korea agreed to hold the reunions for 100 separated family members from each side on Oct. 20-26 at a scenic resort on Mount Kumgang on the North’s east coast.

But the actual number of people to join the reunions will be less than 100 as living separated families, mostly in their 80s and older, suffer from health problems or their beloved ones living across the border have already died.

The upcoming event is the outcome of the two Koreas’ landmark deal that was reached on Aug. 25 to ease military tension and follow through with the family reunions.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

I have no sympathy for idiots like this guy who cross into North Korea for their own selfish reasons and then when the going gets tough they willingly make themselves propaganda tools of the Kim regime and want South Korea and the US to get them out:

North Korea Monday repatriated a South Korean student who had been detained for five months, an unexpected conciliatory gesture toward South Korea.

Joo Won-moon, a 21-year-old student at New York University and a green card holder for the U.S., was handed over to South Korean authorities at the border village of Panmunjom at around 5:30 p.m. Monday. Joo’s release followed a surprise announcement earlier in the day by the state-run Korean Central News Agency saying he would be freed. The announcement didn’t elaborate on what led it to the decision.

Joo crossed the Yalu River from China into North Korea in April and was arrested by North Korean guards. In an interview with CNN in May, he said he hoped his journey “could have a good effect in the relationship.”

Joo reappeared before cameras in a Sept. 25 press conference in Pyongyang at which he read what was seen as a carefully drafted statement praising North Korea and denying international accusations that the Pyongyang regime was responsible for gross human rights violations. He also called for a shift in the U.S.’s North Korea policy to engage the country more.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link.

The Sunshiners are back and they just cannot bring themselves to admit that they wrong.  All the Sunshine Policy did was keep one of the world’s worst governments in power with money and food aid that in turn was used to develop ballistic missiles and a nuclear program that are now a threat to the rest of the world:

At symposium, participants argue that if conciliatory policies had been continued, inter-Korean relations wouldn’t have deteriorated

At an academic conference to mark the eighth anniversary of the October 4 North-South Declaration, several voices called for a restoration of the Sunshine Policy and other initiatives to improve inter-Korean relations. On Oct. 2, the Roh Moo-hyun Foundation, Korea Peace Forum and Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs) co-hosted an international symposium for the eighth anniversary of the October 4 declaration at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in central Seoul.

At the symposium, James Hoare, a Chatham House fellow who was charge d’affaires and HM Consul-General at the British Embassy in Pyongyang, said that what South and North need right now is a return to the Sunshine Policy initiatives enacted by Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun from 1997 to 2007. He added that if Lee Myung-bak had continued such initiatives instead of abandoning the October 4 Declaration, it would have helped inter-Korean relations immensely.　Moon Jae-in, leader of the opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy, claimed that if the initiatives of the October 4 declaration had continued, the lives of 70 million people would now be “brimming with hope and prosperity,” while the Korean Peninsula “reached out to the international community as a whole.” “The past eight years of Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye, however, have thrown inter-Korean relations back to the dark ages,” he added, adding that if measures such as the special zone of peace and cooperation in the West (Yellow) Sea and economic reunification had been properly implemented, the nation could have focused its efforts on conquering problems like stagnant growth, the decline of the middle class, and youth unemployment. The October 4 declaration included agreements to establish a “special zone of peace and cooperation” in the West Sea, including the city of Haeju and the surrounding maritime region, as well as the launch of joint fishing areas and peace districts.  [Hankyoreh]

You can read more at the link.

This is why the Kim regime agrees to family reunions, not because they actually care about reuniting their citizens with southern family members, but because they get money from it and it is an additional bargaining chip for them to use.  They are now using that bargaining chip in an effort to silence President Park’s criticism of their expected rocket launch:

North Korea lashed out against President Park Geun-hye’s speech at the UN General Assembly on Monday and threatened to cancel planned cross-border family reunions.

South Korea’s “reckless” and “confrontational” behavior means that “the rare reunions of separated families are at stake like being on a thin ice,” a spokesman for the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland said in a statement.

In her UN speech, Park urged Pyongyang not to go ahead with what it claims will be a satellite launch but is widely seen as an attempt to test long-range missile technology.  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

It looks like there is another convert to what I have been saying for years that the Kim regime will never denuclearize or seek peaceful reunification with South Korea:

A former CIA agent said Tokyo, which is expected to pass a controversial security bill on Friday, should build up its military strength in order to play a key role in a North Korea collapse.

Michael Lee, the 81-year-old former director of the CIA’s North Korea section, made the statement in an interview with Sankei Shimbun, the conservative Japanese newspaper that was charged for publishing derogatory remarks about South Korean President Park Geun-hye.

“The strong samurai spirit of Japan is needed,” Lee said on the topic of dealing with North Korea, and added the government in Seoul is not up to the task of reunification.

South Korean outlet Newsis reported Lee, a Korean-American, said Seoul is wrong to seek a win-win strategy in negotiations with North Korea, and added that “now is the time” to take down the Pyongyang regime – citing Kim Jong Un‘s destabilizing politics of fear.

Lee also said South Korea’s “submissive attitude” to Pyongyang was a “complete failure,” and criticized the Park administration for its show of weakness. Lee also said Washington is believed to be changing its North Korea policy and considering a possibility of collapse after Pyongyang refused to give up its nuclear weapons program.

Lee said it is impossible to coexist with the current regime in North Korea and that the only way to liberate North Koreans from their suffering would be the elimination of the Kim regime.  [UPI]

You can read the rest at the link.