Category: North Korea

The Trump administration apparently has no appetite to reduce sanctions on North Korea which would reward them for a threatened provocation:

The United States on Monday rejected a reported proposal by China and Russia to lift some United Nations sanctions on North Korea, saying Pyongyang has yet to make progress toward denuclearization.

A spokesperson for the State Department made the comment after Reuters reported that China and Russia proposed a draft U.N. resolution seeking partial sanctions relief, including the lifting of sanctions on North Korean exports of statues, seafood and textiles.

“Now is not the time for the U.N. Security Council to consider offering premature sanctions relief,” the spokesperson told Yonhap News Agency in an email.

“The DPRK is threatening to conduct an escalated provocation, refusing to meet to discuss denuclearization, and continuing to maintain and advance its prohibited weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs,” the official added, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is just further evidence that North Korea is committed to conducting a provocation:

U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun failed to meet a senior North Korean diplomat at the North’s side of the Joint Security Area, also known as Panmunjeom, despite his open request for the high-profile meeting to resume stalled denuclearization talks.

“Efforts by intelligence officials between South Korea and the United States to make Biegun’s direct encounter with North Korea’s First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui actually happen at Panmunjeom went in vain as Pyongyang didn’t respond to the request,” a senior South Korean intelligence official told The Korea Times by telephone, Tuesday.

After wrapping up his three-day visit to Seoul, the senior Washington official left for Tokyo for talks with Japanese officials on the North Korean nuclear issue. The intelligence official added Biegun had planned to pass on U.S. President Donald Trump’s “personal messages” for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to the senior North Korean diplomat if the meeting had happened.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the Kim regime seems committed to raising tensions and creating a “crisis”. This will allow the U.S. media to have non-stop breathless coverage of how President Trump’s North Korea policies have failed. The Kim regime probably believes this will pressure Trump into a deal favorable to them because he is facing reelection next year and will want the Korea “crisis” to go away.

The only question now appears to be what will the rocket launch be? I expect they will conduct a “space launch” and put a satellite into orbit again. This allows the Kim regime to claim they have the right to the peaceful use of space just like everyone else. Plus it gives cover to the Russians and Chinese to block any efforts to further sanction North Korea at the United Nations.

North Korea is just continuing to up the pressure campaign against the Trump administration through the media with these tests. North Korea did not even say what this test was, but I assume it was probably an engine test of whatever rocket they plan to fire:

North Korea said Saturday that it will use its new technologies to develop a strategic weapon to counter the U.S. nuclear threat.

Pak Jong-chon, chief of the North Korean military’s General Staff, also said North Korea has “stored up a tremendous power” and the military is fully ready to put into action any decision of leader Kim Jong-un.

“In the situation of the acute confrontation, the U.S. and other hostile forces will spend the year-end in peace only when they hold off any words and deeds rattling us,” Pak said in a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

The comments came hours after North Korea said it successfully carried out “another crucial test” at its satellite launch site in a possible sign of further provocations unless its year-end deadline is met.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is looking more and more like North Korea’s pressure campaign may be working to get the Trump administration to make concessions on sanctions:

The United States is ready to be flexible in negotiations with North Korea on dismantling the regime’s nuclear weapons program, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations said Wednesday, urging Pyongyang to refrain from provocations.

Ambassador Kelly Craft made the remarks at a U.N. Security Council session as Pyongyang’s year-end deadline for nuclear negotiations with Washington draws near.

Amid indications the North is preparing to launch a long-range missile, Craft warned that such activity will only complicate efforts to implement an agreement reached by U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at their first summit in Singapore in June 2018.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the Trump administration has not given up on diplomacy with North Korea:

U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun may visit the North Korean side of the Joint Security Area early next week, for a meeting with a high-level North Korean official, sources familiar with the issue told The Korea Times, Wednesday.

“Biegun plans to visit South Korea later this week or early next week, after attending a meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in New York. Talks are underway for Biegun to possibly meet with a high-level North Korean diplomat on the North’s side of the border village of Panmunjeom,” a senior lawmaker from the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) said.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This is something ROK Heads have known for quite some time, but the media is catching up:

For Trump, keeping the status quo would be the best policy at this point because any future deal with North Korea will be criticized within the U.S. as a “bad deal,” according to Kim Dong-yub, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies of Kyungnam University.

“After North Korea gave up Yongbyon, the U.S. still did not give up on sanctions. If the U.S. were to make concessions in any future deal, it will be criticized domestically. Trump considers it best to maintain the current state of tension without any additional agreement. This is the most conducive to keeping up Trump’s case that North Korea has not tested missiles or launched an ICBM,” the professor told The Korea Times, Monday. “If North Korea launches an ICBM, it could affect the U.S. election. But it will not be easy for North Korea to do this, although it has been testing engines and so forth.” 

Another analyst explained that Kim could be aiming to pressure Trump ahead of the U.S. election, but was negative about an ICBM test in the near future. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It appears the North Koreans are being very open to make sure satellites capture what they are doing to drive media coverage prior to a provocation:

South Korea has been working closely with the United States to analyze a “very important test” that North Korea claimed to have conducted at its satellite launching site over the weekend, the defense ministry said Monday.

The communist country said Sunday that it carried out the test successfully at its Sohae Satellite Launching Ground, referring to its Dongchang-ri site in North Pyongyan Province, the previous day.

Pyongyang did not elaborate on what it tested but noted that results “will have an important effect on changing the strategic position of the DPRK once again in the near future.” The DPRK stands for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but this is apparently a new ICBM engine being tested. I have long speculated that the Kim regime could test an ICBM and then call it a “space launch”. They can claim they have the right to the peaceful use of space and never promised to suspend their space program. Plus this will give the Russians and the Chinese the ability to diplomatically cover for them if the U.S. tries to increase sanctions through the United Nations.

At least the North Koreans are being honest now and admitting they never had any plans to denuclearize:

Earlier Saturday, North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations, Kim Song, said that denuclearization has already been taken off the negotiating table with the U.S.

“We do not need to have lengthy talks with the U.S. now and denuclearization is already gone out of the negotiating table,” Kim said in a statement issued after Britain and five other European nations condemned the North’s “continued testing of ballistic missiles.”

Yonhap

North Korea wasn’t finished:

 Satellite imagery indicated on Monday that North Korea had tested a rocket engine, and a senior Pyongyang official called Donald Trump a “heedless and erratic old man”, resuming insults of the U.S. president that had been set aside during a thaw.

The statement carried in state media KCNA by Kim Yong Chol, a ruling party vice chairman who was instrumental in arranging a failed second summit in February, was the strongest salvo yet in a war of words that has rekindled in recent days.

He described Trump as impatient, rebuked him over his own rhetoric and repeated a threat from last week that Pyongyang would dust off its previous insult “dotard” for the U.S. leader.

You can read more at the link.

I am sure President Trump understands this, but if a deal is not made the North Koreans will very likely launch provocations next year to pressure the Trump administration into a deal:

 U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday he doesn’t think North Korea will engage in hostile acts and interfere with the upcoming U.S. presidential election, an apparent warning that the communist nation shouldn’t undertake provocations that could hurt his reelection chances.

“I’d be surprised if North Korea acted hostilely,” Trump was quoted as telling reporters at the White House. “He knows I have an election coming up. I don’t think he wants to interfere with that. But we’ll have to see.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.