Funny thing about sanctions — the year we start to enforce them just happens to be the year Kim Jong-un shows up for summits w/ 3 foreign heads of state. You can argue whether sanctions helped diplomacy, but events refute any argument that they've hampered it. https://t.co/roKbGUdxn2
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un boards a domestically built bus in Pyongyang after touring a trolley car and bus plant in the capital city, the North’s main Rodong Shinmun newspaper reported Aug. 4, 2018. (Yonhap)
North Korea on Saturday said the US was acting with “alarming” impatience on the issue of denuclearisation, after Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State, stressed the need to maintain full sanctions pressure on Pyongyang.
At historic talks with Donald Trump, the US President, in June, Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator, signed up to a vague commitment to “denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula” – a far cry from long-standing US demands for complete, verifiable and irreversible disarmament.
While US officials have publicly been optimistic about the agreement, Pyongyang appears to have made little substantial progress and Washington has become concerned that some UN member states are easing sanctions.
At the ASEAN Regional Forum, Ri Yong Ho, North Korea’s Foreign Minister, criticised US impatience on denuclearisation.
“What is alarming, however, is the insistent moves manifested within the US to go back to the old, far from its leader’s intention,” he said, according to a statement.
Hidden trillions: What if North Korea’s economy opened up?
Since the June agreement, Pyongyang had taken “goodwill measures”, including a halt on nuclear and missile tests and “dismantling a nuclear test ground”, he said.
“However, the United States, instead of responding to these measures, is raising its voice louder for maintaining the sanctions against the DPRK,” he said, using the initials of the North’s official name.
“As long as the US does not show in practice its strong will to remove our concerns, there will be no case whereby we will move forward first unilaterally,” Mr Ri added. [The Telegraph]
You can read more at the link, but as I have long said the North Koreans were going to try and get the sanctions dropped for little to nothing in return. They need the sanctions dropped in order for South Korean President Moon Jae-in to restart the cross-border economic projects that will bring in huge sums of money for the Kim regime. This money in turn will go to further modernizing their nuclear and missile programs.
To get President Trump to drop the sanctions that is why the North Koreans have been behaving and saying nice things about President Trump. Likewise South Korean President Moon has been saying nice things as well to include saying President Trump should get the Nobel Peace Prize. They are trying to appeal to President Trump’s ego to get the sanctions dropped for little to nothing in return.
I think it is pretty clear that the Chinese government is using the North Korea issue to put pressure on the ROK to remove the THAAD battery:
South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha (L) holds talks with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Singapore on Aug. 3, 2018. (Yonhap)
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi asked South Korea on Friday to resolve the issue of an advanced U.S. missile defense system deployed on the peninsula.
Wang made the request in bilateral talks with his South Korean counterpart, Kang Kyung-wha, in Singapore on the margins of annual ASEAN-hosted sessions, according to a South Korean government official.
He cited the need for a “compete resolution” to the matter, a repeat of Beijing’s demand, which comes amid a peace mood in Korea. [Yonhap]
If there is no agreement, no doubt you'll agree that Pyongyang has no basis to complain if we enforce sanctions aggressively, talk about human rights, hold defensive exercises, or install missile defenses. https://t.co/tPghepmVYF
This photo, provided by the defense ministry, shows Lt. Gen. Nam Young-sin, the commander of the Army’s Special Warfare Command, whom President Moon Jae-in appointed as the new head of the Defense Security Command (DSC) on Aug. 3, 2018. (Yonhap)
Considering that Hyundai was used to help pay the original $500 million bribe to the Kim regime to secure the first Inter-Korean summit, I can understand why North Korea has fond memories of working with the former chairman Chong Mong-hun:
In this photo provided by Hyundai Group, its chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun pays respect to late chairman Chung Mong-hun during a memorial service at Mount Kumgang on Aug. 3, 2018. (Yonhap)
A North Korean media outlet reported in detail on a South Korean firm’s devotion to inter-Korean cooperation Friday, apparently trying to create a favorable mood for resumption of the company’s now suspended tour program.
Uriminjokkiri, the North’s external propaganda website, shed light on Hyundai Group’s work and its relations with Pyongyang in time for a trip by group officials to Mount Kumgang to attend a memorial service for late chairman Chung Mong-hun.
Chung spearheaded the now suspended tour program to the North Korean mountain. His wife and current chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun was among the visitors.
The ceremony was attended by some 20 North Korean officials and 30 Hyundai officials, according to the company.
“We have expectations to resume the tour program within this year. That’s what the North was thinking too,” Hyun told reporters after her visit.
Yet the chairwoman said she did not have detailed discussions on the possible resumption of inter-Korean projects with the North Korean officials.
During a meeting with Hyun in 2005, the website said that the North’s then leader Kim Jong-il delivered condolences for the death of Chung, emphasizing that the North began its “first love” with Hyundai in terms of improving inter-Korean relations way ahead of its cooperation with the Seoul government.
Kim also praised Chung for his devotion to advancing relations between the two Koreas, calling him a “patriotic business person” who followed in the footsteps of his late father and group founder, Chung Ju-yung, according to the website. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but for those that don’t remember Chong Mong-hun committed suicide back in 2003 by jumping off of a building after he was indicted for his role in paying the bribe to North Korea.
It would be helpful if the article would have specified which news outlets were not invited to the news conference. Maybe the embassy only invited major news outlets and not smaller ones?:
Ambassador Harry Harris
New U.S. Ambassador Harry Harris held his first news conference Thursday since taking the job. The former admiral invited several newspapers and broadcasters, but others were not invited.
Certainly, it was his prerogative to invite who he wished, but this approach often carries risks.
In Harris’ case, it could send a wrong message not just to the uninvited media outlets but by extension their readership or audiences.
The “wrong” message is that the new ambassador is emulating his boss, President Donald Trump, picking choosing from the media so he can speak to outlets he views as favorable (in Trump’s case, Fox) and lumping the rest as fake news producers (in Trump’s case, CNN).
If he was following Trump’s lead, then it would not be a wrong message but an intended one. [Korea Times]
I would not be surprised if there is more to this story then what is being reported:
The U.S. government deported a Mexican woman on Friday who had lived in the country illegally for nearly two decades despite efforts by lawmakers to keep her in Florida with her husband, a Marine Corps veteran, and her two American children.
Alejandra Juarez, 38, was joined by her family and her congressman, Darren Soto, at Orlando International Airport for tearful farewells before her flight back to Mexico.
Juarez sought to illegally enter the United States in 1998 and was ordered to be removed, precluding her future chances at getting a visa or becoming a citizen, according to Soto and media interviews Juarez has given.
She illegally re-entered the country in 2000, the same year she married Temo Juarez, a Mexico native who went on to serve in the war in Iraq with the U.S. Marines and is now a naturalized U.S. citizen.
After being discovered in the country during a 2013 traffic stop, she had been required to check in every six months with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. [Reuters]
You can read the rest at the link if you want to read all the anti-Trump stuff even though her deportation process began under the Obama administration.
I feel bad for the kids, but their parents had nearly 20 years to work on her immigration status which leads me to believe there is more to this story. With that said should illegal immigrant wives of US military servicemembers receive special immigration status? That is basically the argument being made here.
