It looks like the ROK is trying to play nice with Japan. I guess we will see if leads to any positive developments:

South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon is scheduled to visit Tokyo next week to attend the Japanese emperor’s enthronement event, his office said Sunday, in what is seen as a move to mend soured relations between the two neighbors.

Lee will visit Japan from Oct. 22-24 for the ceremony, according to a statement by the prime minister’s office. His itinerary includes the enthronement event on Oct. 22 followed by a banquet hosted by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Oct. 23.

The prime minister’s office also said Lee will meet with “key officials in Japan’s political and business circles” and will host a meeting with Korean residents and immigrants in the country.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Another Korean War era hero is coming home:

 The remains of a Michigan soldier who went missing during the Korean War’s fierce Battle of Chosin Reservoir are being returned home after DNA testing confirmed that he died in that battle nearly 70 years ago.

U.S. Army Sgt. David Alexander Feriend was 23 in December 1950 when he was listed as missing in action, after the brutal 17-day siege near the Chosin Reservoir in eastern North Korea. 

Feriend’s remains were among 55 boxes of human remains that North Korea turned over to the U.S. after a June 2018 summit in Singapore between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. 

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced in August that Feriend had been “accounted for.” DNA testing verified that the remains in box number 36 were those of Feriend, WOOD-TV reported.

Army Times

You can read more at the link.

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

Warning to any ROK Heads looking to travel by train in the coming days in Korea, KORAIL workers are going on strike:

Railway workers are set to begin a three-day strike Friday to press their demands for higher pay and better working conditions. 

The government plans to deploy substitute workers and alternative forms of transportation to minimize disruption, as the walkout is expected to cut passenger and cargo train operations by 20 percent and 60 percent, respectively.

The 19,000-member Korean Railway Workers’ Union decided to strike early last month, after its negotiations with the Korea Railroad Corp. (KORAIL) broke down in late August.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The Bank of Korea is considering issuing Dokdo coins:

The chief of the nation’s central bank has pledged to consider issuing “Dokdo commemorative coins,” amid increasing public demand for the issuance of such coins in a pre-emptive move to increase awareness among the international community that the eastern islets are Korean territory.

Bank of Korea (BOK) Governor Lee Ju-yeol made the promise during a National Assembly audit of the bank, Tuesday, in response to Rep. Park Myung-jae of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, who asked whether the issuance of Dokdo commemorative coins is still difficult for the central bank.

In a report given to Rep. Kim Du-kwan of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) ahead of the audit, the BOK also said: “If the government asks us to issue Dokdo commemorative coins, we will consider the issuance, after taking its appropriateness and ripple effects into account.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This is like the North Korean version of a maximum pressure strategy and we will see in the coming months if it works:

U.S. negotiators tried to cast the impasse in the best light, stating that they’d raised “new initiatives” and describing the discussions as “good.” They noted that the United States and North Korea “will not overcome a legacy of 70 years of war and hostility on the Korean peninsula through the course of a single Saturday,” and that they sought “more intensive engagement” and another meeting in the optimistic Pompeoian time frame of a couple of weeks.

The North Korean delegation, however, appeared unwilling to enter into a substantive and structured diplomatic process, let alone technical conversations about dismantling the country’s nuclear program. Instead of presenting themselves as the empowered negotiators U.S. officials had hopedto finally confront after previous rounds of abortive working-level nuclear talks, the North Koreans seemed to once again be primarily in listening mode.

“Rather than the breakdown of talks, what we are seeing resembles classic North Korean negotiating tactics: demand more concessions, minimize denuclearization commitments, and figure out how to cheat,” Easley told me by email. “Kim Myong Gil does not have authority to compromise on anything until approved by Kim Jong Un. He probably went to Stockholm with talking points and instructions to receive the updated U.S. position before walking out to buy time and apply pressure.” (…..)

Now that the Democrats have launched an impeachment inquiry into the president’s efforts to pressure the Ukrainian government into investigating the Bidens ahead of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, North Korean officials (who are known to closely follow U.S. politics) may be calculating that they are in a stronger negotiating position, and that Trump, a “self-advertised dealmaker” without many actual deals in foreign affairs, will be interested in “a distraction” from his domestic troubles in the form of a nuclear accord, Yun noted.

The Atlantic

You can read more at the link.