Category: North Korea

This is just another example of North Korea trying to create more tension prior to the end of the year in hopes of getting a deal with the Trump administration:

The lack of courtesy shown to Kim had “prompted the waves of hatred of our people against the U.S. and the Americans and they are getting higher and higher”, Choe said.

“It would be fortunate” if Trump’s remarks were simply “an instantaneous verbal lapse, but the matter becomes different if they were a planned provocation that deliberately targeted us”, she said. 

North Korea would watch closely to see if Trump repeated the comments, Choe said. 

“If any language and expressions stoking the atmosphere of confrontation are used once again on purpose at a crucial moment as now, that must really be diagnosed as the relapse of the dotage of a dotard,” she concluded. 

Trump said on Tuesday he still had confidence in the North Korean leader but noted that Kim “likes sending rockets up”. 

“…That’s why I call him Rocket Man,” Trump told reporters at a NATO meeting in London.

Reuters

The North Koreans have never been known for their sense of humor, but clearly the President was trying to be funny.

Like I said before, President Trump does not respond well to threats:

U.S. President Donald Trump’s remarks about the possibility of using force against North Korea appears intended to warn against possible provocations ahead of the year-end deadline the regime set for Washington to show flexibility in their deadlocked nuclear talks, analysts said Wednesday.

Trump made the threat of military action on Tuesday, just hours after the North reiterated that the deadline is approaching and warned that it is entirely up to Washington what “Christmas gift” it wants to get.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has set the deadline for Washington to come up with an acceptable proposal to move forward the nuclear negotiations, warning that Pyongyang could otherwise take a “new way.”

“Now we have the most powerful military we’ve ever had and we’re by far the most powerful country in the world,” Trump told reporters during his trip to London to attend a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization leaders.

“And, hopefully, we don’t have to use it, but if we do, we’ll use it. If we have to, we’ll do it,” he added.

Yonhap

You can read more at he link, but is everyone ready for an interesting 2020?

I am not sure threatening President Trump is a good course of action for the North Koreans. He doesn’t seem to respond well to threats:

North Korea said Tuesday that a year-end deadline is drawing near for the United States to come up with a new proposal in their nuclear negotiations, warning it is entirely up to Washington what “Christmas gift” it wants to get.

North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Ri Thae-song issued the warning, saying Pyongyang has tried hard “not to backtrack from the important steps it has taken,” referring to a moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests and other measures it has taken to demonstrate its commitment to denuclearization. 

The warning apparently means that unless the U.S. comes up with a new negotiating proposal acceptable to Pyongyang, the communist regime could restart testing of nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting to see how this turns out, will the U.S. government give him a slap on the hand or send him to prison?:

Virgil Griffith, who has lately been working at the Ethereum Foundation, has been arrested for allegedly going to a conference in North Korea and sharing his expertise in using cryptocurrency.

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced Friday that Griffith was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on Thanksgiving Day.

“Despite receiving warnings not to go, Griffith allegedly traveled to one of the United States’ foremost adversaries, North Korea, where he taught his audience how to use blockchain technology to evade sanctions,” John Demers, an assistant attorney general for national security, said in a statement.

Yahoo

You can read more at the link.

Testing an ICBM I think will only happen after Kim Jong-un’s January 1st deadline to have a deal in place to drop sanctions. It makes no sense for him to do the test before then. Plus I only think he goes through with an ICBM test if he is confident that the Trump administration will not respond militarily:

Frequent movements of trucks have been recently detected at a rocket launch site in North Korea, a sign that Pyongyang may be preparing another long-range missile test. 

“North Korea appeared to have renovated its missile-related facilities in Dongchang-ri [in Cholsan County of North Pyongan Province] earlier in the year,” a high-ranking official in the South Korean government told the JoongAng Ilbo on Friday. “And recently, we detected an increase in the movement of vehicles in the area.”

At least four vehicles including buses and trucks were spotted in a parking lot near a facility that tests engine combustion in a satellite image of the site on Nov. 1 provided by Google Earth.

“There is a facility used for testing engine combustion in the area, and we detected small buses and trucks coming and going there,” the official said. “The North may not be ready to test a missile immediately, but we see these as signs that it is getting ready for one.”

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

This is all part of North Korea’s pressure campaign leading up to their January 1st deadline to have sanctions dropped:

North Korea said Friday it has successfully conducted the final test of a new super-large multiple rocket launcher with the firing of two projectiles that landed in the East Sea the previous afternoon. 

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspected the test-fire of a super-large multiple rocket launcher, conducted by the Academy of National Defense Science, the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Friday. “The volley test-fire aimed to finally examine the combat application of the super-large multiple launch rocket system [MLRS] proved the military and technical superiority of the weapon system and its firm reliability,” KCNA said. “The Supreme Leader expressed great satisfaction over the results of the test-fire.” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.