Category: North Korea

It looks like President Trump is continuing the messaging that he is open to talks on North Korea’s denuclearization while simultaneously increasing sanctions to further pressure the Kim regime:

President Donald Trump will make a two-day visit to South Korea this weekend, officials said Monday, as the U.S. administration said it’s ready to resume nuclear talks with the North “at a moment’s notice.”

Trump’s visit, which will be his second trip to the divided peninsula as president, comes amid new optimism for the stalled diplomatic push to persuade the North to abandon its nuclear weapons.

The president sent a letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that was welcomed by the communist state, raising hopes for efforts to break the deadlock that followed the February summit between the two men, which ended without agreement in Vietnam.

“I can confirm that that letter was, in fact, sent,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday. “And I am hopeful that this will provide a good foundation for us to begin to continue the important discussions with the North Koreans to denuclearize the peninsula.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest penpal letter that President Trump has sent to Kim Jong-un:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has received a personal letter with “excellent” and “interesting” content from U.S. President Donald Trump, Pyongyang’s state media said Sunday.

“After reading the letter, the Supreme Leader of the Party, the state and the armed forces said with satisfaction that the letter is of excellent content,” the Korean Central News Agency said, referring to its leader.

“Appreciating the political judging faculty and extraordinary courage of President Trump, Kim Jong-un said that he would seriously contemplate the interesting content,” it added.

The KCNA did not disclose when and how the letter was delivered to Kim.

The letter appears to be in answer to a letter Kim sent to Trump recently in time for the anniversary of their first-ever summit in Singapore last June.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

A country that can afford nuclear weapons, ICBMs, and a space program cannot afford to buy rice?:

South Korea will send 50,000 tons of domestically produced rice as humanitarian aid to North Korea through the World Food Programme (WFP), according to the Unification Ministry on Wednesday.

The food aid package, which is believed to be worth around 27 billion won ($22.9 million), follows Seoul’s donation of $8 million won to the WFP and Unicef earlier this month, which is to be used for emergency nutritional and medical assistance for children and pregnant women in the North. 

This will be the first time in nine years for South Korea to send rice to the North and the first time rice harvested from South Korean paddies will be provided to Pyongyang through the WFP. On earlier occasions when Seoul went through the WFP, its aid packages largely consisted of corn, mixed grains or flour. 

“The government hopes that the food it provides through the WFP rapidly makes it into the hands of the North Korean people,” read a Unification Ministry press release. “The timing and amount of any further food aid to North Korea will be decided after the results of this assistance package are monitored.”

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but it will be interesting to see if this rice ends up on the North Korean blackmarket or not.

Deng Xiaoping on a visit to NK in Sept 1978 chided #KimIlSung for his excesses on the "Golden Boy" (pejorative term used by foreigners in Pyongyang) statue of himself. Later the gold came off and Kim became the Bronze Boy. https://t.co/CMilnA7K4v

— Sung-Yoon Lee (@SungYoonLee1) June 17, 2019

President Moon must be thinking he is going to convince President Trump into a “pretend denuclearization” deal when they meet later this month in South Korea:

The international community is “open to discussions on easing economic sanctions on North Korea” with security guarantees from the progress of the denuclearization talks, according to President Moon Jae-in on Friday evening (KST).

“The international community is ready to ease economic sanctions on North Korea and provide firm security guarantees upon the level of progress in the denuclearization talks,” Moon said during his major speech in the Parliament House of Stockholm, Sweden.

Korea Times

People best watch President Trump’s actions more than what he says. He is clearly talking nice about Kim Jong-un in an effort to keep dialogue open while at the same time continuing to enforce sanctions on them to pressure them into a deal:

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday appeared to downplay North Korea’s recent missile launches amid assessments that they violated international sanctions.

In a phone interview with the Fox News program “Fox & Friends,” Trump said North Korea is “not testing nuclear and not testing anything.”

He said the North sent some short-range missiles out which he said “everybody else does too.”

Regarding alleged sanctions violations by Pyongyang, such as illicit ship-to-ship transfers of oil, Trump said in the interview that “everybody tries to break sanctions” but that the sanctions are hurting North Korea badly and the U.S. “never took the sanctions off.”

Trump continued to note the U.S. has a “good relationship” with the North and that he is in no rush to resume negotiations for a nuclear deal.

KBS World Radio

The suspense will become unbearable. https://t.co/yZLWtX4lFM

— 🇰🇷Edward Oh🇺🇸 (@EdwardHBOh) June 11, 2019

It looks like President Trump is continuing his charm offensive with Kim Jong-un:

President Trump promised he wouldn’t allow the CIA to use spies against North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un after reports surfaced that Kim’s half brother had been a U.S. intelligence asset before he was assassinated in Malaysia.
Kim Jong Nam was killed in February 2017 — allegedly while he was en route to meet a CIA contact — by two women who sprayed a nerve agent in his face. U.S. officials quickly placed the blame for the killing on North Korea.
Trump, speaking to reporters on the White House lawn Tuesday before leaving on a campaign trip to Iowa, was asked about Kim Jong Nam’s spying, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
“I don’t know, I have not heard about that,” the president said, before contradicting himself and assuring Kim Jong Un that his administration wouldn’t do anything so underhanded.
“I saw the information about the CIA with respect to his brother or half brother, and I would tell him that would not happen under my auspices, that’s for sure,” Trump said. “I wouldn’t let that happen under my auspices.”

Yahoo News

You can read more at the link.

This is something that has been speculated on before and if true it would explain why the Kim regime took such risky measures to kill him inside a busy international airport:

“Several former U.S. officials said the half brother, who had lived outside of North Korea for many years and had no known power base in Pyongyang, was unlikely to be able to provide details of the secretive country’s inner workings,” the Journal said.

The former officials also said Kim Jong Nam had been almost certainly in contact with security services of other countries, particularly China’s, the Journal said.
Kim Jong Nam’s role as a CIA informant is mentioned in a new book about Kim Jong Un, “The Great Successor,” by Washington Post reporter Anna Fifield that is due to be published on Tuesday. Fifield says Kim Jong Nam usually met his handlers in Singapore and Malaysia, citing a source with knowledge of the intelligence.
The book says that security camera footage from Kim Jong Nam’s last trip to Malaysia showed him in a hotel elevator with an Asian-looking man who was reported to be a U.S. intelligence agent. It said Ki’s backpack contained $120,000 in cash, which could have been payment for intelligence-related activities, or earnings from his casino businesses.

Reuters via a reader tip

You can read more at the link.

There have been so many false reports about the North Korean regime I find this report to be just another likely click bait headline:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un reportedly executed a general accused of plotting a coup by throwing him into a piranha-filled fish tank.
The unnamed general was said to be the latest victim of the dictatorial leader, who has executed numerous aides, including his envoy to the US in May.
The general was allegedly killed inside a giant piranha tank built inside Kim’s Ryongsong Residence, in Pyongyang, after being accused of plotting a coup, the Daily Star reported.

It is claimed the general had his arms and torso cut open with knives before being thrown into the tank, which was filled with hundreds of piranhas imported from Brazil, it is reported.  

Daily Mail

You can read more at the link.