Apparently Kim Jong-un does not like to be reminded that he is a young leader:
Former North Korean Defense Minister Hyon Yong Chol often referred to Kim Jong Un as a “young person,” and made other remarks that factored into the North Korea’s leader’s decision to eliminate Hyon. Photo by Rodong Sinmun/Yonhap
Former North Korean Defense Minister Hyon Yong Chol was executed for making disparaging remarks about Kim Jong Un, and the North Korean leader poses a greater threat than his father to South Korea, an analyst said Wednesday.
Chung Sung-jang, a researcher at South Korea’s Sejong Institute said intelligence gathered from a defector indicated the purged Hyon often referred to Kim as a “young person,” Yonhap reported.
Hyon also held several other grievances toward Kim and had criticized him for neglecting his duties, according to a Seoul spy agency report in May.
Hyon’s complaints eventually reached Kim, and they factored into the North Korean leader’s decision to eliminate his defense minister.
But Kim’s purge of Hyon was not an impromptu gesture that emerged from a personal vendetta, South Korean outlet Newsis reported.
According to Chung’s analysis, Hyon’s execution is part of Kim’s larger strategy of reducing a bloated military elite, a plan that includes the ongoing personnel changes and demotions taking place within the elite ranks of North Korea’s military. [UPI]
You can read more at the link, but as always keep in mind that this analysis is based on defector testimony which is not always reliable.
It looks like the next North Korean provocation cycle will occur in October if these analysts are correct:
Construction to upgrade North Korea’s main rocket launch site now appears complete amid expectations in rival South Korea that a launch could take place in October, a U.S. research institute said Tuesday.
South Korean officials are predicting the North will mark the upcoming 70th anniversary of the ruling communist party with a “strategic provocation” – possibly a blastoff from the west coast site of Sohae from where Pyongyang launched its first rocket into space in December 2012, drawing international condemnation.
The U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies says commercial satellite imagery taken July 21 shows Pyongyang has made quick work since spring of constructing a support building on the launch pad where rockets would be prepared. It has also apparently completed a moveable structure on rails, several stories high, that would be used to shift rockets or rocket stages to the launch tower. (……………)
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency last week cited unnamed government sources as saying that North Korea has almost completed modifications at Sohae, including an extended launch tower, and that it would be used to fire a long-range missile bigger than the rocket launched three years ago. This would mark the Oct. 10 anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea.
“I’m sure we’ll have a grand celebration,” North Korean Ambassador to the United Nations, Jang Il Hun, told reporters Tuesday in response to a question about a possible missile test for the anniversary. He added, “We are free to do whatever we want.” [Associated Press]
This would actually be a fitting tribute for the Kim regime’s 70th anniversary commemoration because Kim Jong-un has been very diligent in associating himself with the nation’s space program. Kim Jong-un does not have the military or governmental credentials of his grandfather or father, but I believe he is trying to make his own mark as the person advancing North Korea’s technological prowess, be it smartphones, expanding intranet access, submarine technology, nuclear technology, and most importantly the nation’s space program.
I don’t know how much more blunt the Kim regime can be that it has no intention of giving up its nuclear weapons:
Lately North Korea has been boasting their nuclear arms capabilities a bit more than usual and part of that might be from outside pressure following the Iran nuclear deal.
North Korea’s ambassador to China Ji Jae-ryong made it very clear on Tuesday that the communist country would continue with their developing their arsenal. In fact, any form of dialogue was unwelcome according to him.
“The DPRK (North Korea) is not interested at all in dialogue to discuss its nuclear program,” Ji said at the North Korean Embassy in Beijing according to Yonhap News Agency. “We are a nuclear weapons state both in name and in reality.”
Ji also mentioned during his statement that his country had already completed the development of a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can be mounted on a missile. [Korea Times]
Like I have said repeatedly before, all the people calling for North Korean nuclear disarmament are wasting their time because they have no intention of giving up their nuclear weapons; why should they?
It looks like there is an update to the cult of personality going on in North Korea:
In North Korea, there’s no escaping the Kim family.
“Eternal President” Kim Il Sung continues to reign — according to North Korean lore — 21 years after his death. His son, “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il, died in 2011 but lies in state with his father in a huge mausoleum the size of Buckingham Palace on the outskirts of Pyongyang. And the grandson, “Great Successor” Kim Jong Un, is making sure none of his subjects forget about the family line — by strengthening the bizarre personality cult that the family has perpetuated during the past 60 years.
The latest outlet for Kimism: new statues. The regime has been tearing down statues of Kim Il Sung around the country — an act that must be require all sorts of hoopla since it’s a treasonous offense to even place a newspaper with a photo of one of the Kims face down — and replacing them with huge new statues of Kim Senior and Kim Junior.
“This looks like part of Kim Jong Un’s plan to solidify his hereditary succession, carry on his father’s mantle,” says Curtis Melvin, a North Korea researcher at the U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS, Johns Hopkins, who has studied the country’s geography extensively using satellite imagery. He has noted the steady replacement of the statues over time, thanks to his remarkable knowledge of the country through Google Earth. [Washington Post]
I guess this means we will no longer see any defenders of the 1994 Agreed Framework considering one of the nation’s top Democrats has now disavowed it:
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday the recent landmark deal on Iran’s nuclear program grew out of “the failure of the North Korea experience.”
Kerry also said that Iran and North Korea are different, defending the Iranian deal during a Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing as Republican senators raised concern the Iranian deal could fall apart like the 1994 nuclear deal with North Korea.
“Iran has also agreed to accept the additional protocol, and the additional protocol is an outgrowth of the failure of the North Korea experience, which put in additional access requirements precisely so that we do know what Iran is doing,” Kerry said.
The 1994 deal with North Korea, known as the Agreed Framework, required North Korea to freeze and ultimately dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for economic and political concessions. But the deal fell apart after the North was found to have been running a secret nuclear program in late 2002.
Kerry stressed that Iran is different from the North.
“Unlike North Korea, that created a nuclear weapon and exploded one and pulled out of the NPT (Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty), Iran has done none of that,” he said.
The North Korea experience is “what gave birth to the additional protocol” in the Iranian deal, Kerry said. [Yonhap]
I can still remember the good old days when Democrats claimed the failure of the Agreed Framework was all Bush’s fault. How times have changed.
This photo published in the North’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un delivering a congratulatory address during a national meeting of veterans in Pyongyang on July 25, 2015. (Yonhap)
It appears that Kim Jong-un’s plane may have crashed near Wonsan, but Kim was not on the plane which makes me wonder who was?
Cessna 172 Skyhawk, the type of plane that flies Kim Jong-un around North Korea.
A small North Korean plane, the same type of plane used by leader Kim Jong-un, has crashed, an official said Thursday.
The Cessna went down near the eastern port city of Wonsan, home to Kim’s special villa, on July 15, said the South Korean official familiar with the issue.
The crash was confirmed with intelligence assets of South Korea and the U.S., she said, without elaborating on the assets or the Cessna model.
She did not provide any further details of whether there were any casualties of those who were on board the doomed flight.
Kim was apparently not on board the ill-fated plane. On July 15, North Korea’s state television aired footage of Kim taking photos with participants of an ambassadors meeting in Pyongyang.
On Sunday, Kim cast a ballot in the elections to select deputies to local assemblies, which were held for the first time in four years, according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
North Korea’s state media remained silent on the accident. [Yonhap]
