문재인대통령님 김정숙여사님
사랑합니다💙💙 pic.twitter.com/CAsKxBvnqK

— 임동주🌱onLy MOON😎 (@ceonasin47) April 19, 2019

It appears that Ambassador Harris is emphasizing to North Korea that if they want a deal they better start thinking big:

February’s summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was about choosing between “a very bad deal and no deal,” and Trump made the right decision by ending the talks without an agreement, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea said Monday. 
Amb. Harry Harris made the remarks in a meeting with reporters, stressing that the North’s offer to dismantle its Yongbyon nuclear complex in exchange for the lifting of key sanctions represented a “bad deal” because it would have resulted in sanctions relief with the North’s weapons programs remaining largely intact.

The remark appears to underline Washington’s insistence on a “big deal” that calls for the lifting of sanctions only after the North’s complete denuclearization. It also differs from South Korea’s call for “a good enough deal” — a phased-in, incremental approach.

Yonhap

South Korea’s “good enough” strategy has been tried before and where has it led? To a North Korea equipped with nuclear weapons and ICBMs.

This may be President Moon’s greatest legacy, appointing left-wing ideologues into the Constitutional Court to ram through North Korea related legislation:

President Moon Jae-in on Friday rammed through the appointments of two Constitutional Court justices whom lawmakers refused to confirm.

Moon formalized the appointments of Lee Mi-sun and Moon Hyung-bae to the bench of the Constitutional Court around 12:40 p.m. on Friday, Senior Presidential Secretary for Public Affairs Yoon Do-han said.

“In order to prevent vacancies in the Constitutional Court, Moon, currently on a state visit to Uzbekistan, used the electronic signature system to approve the appointments,” Yoon said. 

Those appointments brought the number of top officials Moon rammed through without National Assembly conformation hearing reports to 15. Since he took office in May 2017, Moon named 11 minister-level officials and four Constitutional Court judges without getting lawmakers’ blessings, which is legal.

Joong Ang Ilbo

This news of packing the Constitutional court with ideologues friendly to the Moon administration has made his political opposition very unhappy:

The LKP has fiercely protested Moon’s picks. Earlier Friday morning, Rep. Na Kyung-won, floor leader of the LKP, said Moon insisted on the appointments because they “are the final pieces to complete Moon’s puzzle to create a leftist dictatorship.” 

It takes six out of nine Constitutional Court justices to rule a law unconstitutional, and Na said Moon has secured the magic number. 

“The Moon administration will no longer have any reason to struggle in the National Assembly to revise laws,” she said. “It can just file constitutional petitions against laws it does not like and rule them unconstitutional.” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

Remember President Moon wants to create a confederation with North Korea. Packing the Constitutional Court with left wing ideologues will allow him to pass any laws needed to make this a reality.

So much for the hotline for the two leaders to contact each other, instead President Moon needs a one-on-one meeting with Kim Jong-un:

President Moon Jae-in could deliver a message from U.S. President Donald Trump to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un if a new inter-Korean summit takes place, a presidential official said Sunday.
CNN reported earlier, citing unidentified sources, that Moon has a message from Trump to relay to the North’s leader. Moon met with Trump at the White House earlier this month to discuss ways to get the stalled denuclearization talks between Washington and Pyongyang moving again. 
“If an inter-Korean summit takes place, a related message could be delivered” to the North’s leader, the presidential official told reporters, when asked to comment on the CNN report. The official did not elaborate on the content of the message.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but Moon should be careful that he does not come off as looking too desperate for the photo op summit with Kim Jong-un.

#NorthKorea's #KimJongUn thinks he can both intimidate and disrespect President #Trump. I think that could be Kim's last mistake. https://t.co/xItBOjdNv5

— Gordon G. Chang (@GordonGChang) April 19, 2019

It looks like if the the North Koreans want a deal, they are going to have to get one by going through Mike Pompeo first:

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday he will continue to lead nuclear talks with North Korea, dismissing the regime’s call for his replacement.   

In a news conference held after a meeting between U.S. and Japanese foreign and defense ministers, Pompeo said “nothing’s changed,” which is viewed as an open dismissal to North Korea’s request for his replacement with a “more mature” negotiator who can better communicate with the North. 

Pompeo said the U.S. continues to work to negotiate and that he is still in charge of the team. 

He said President Trump is obviously in charge of the overall effort, but it will be his team and Special Representative Stephen Biegun who will continue to lead U.S. efforts to achieve what the North Korean leader committed to do in June last year, which was to denuclearize.

KBS World Radio

You can read more at the link, but this seems like a miscalculation by North Korea if they thought President Trump would replace Pompeo.

Some old wounds from the ROK military’s involvement in the Vietnam War are being reopened:

On Apr. 22, Nguyen Thị Thanh, 59, a victim of civilian massacres by South Korean troops during the Vietnam War, visited Korea to participate in a “citizens’ peace tribunal” held to uncover the truth about the massacres. The tribunal was organized by MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society and the Korea-Vietnam Peace Foundation.
A plaintiff in the citizens’ tribunal, Nguyen claimed that she’d been shot on the left side of her body by Korean troops near her home in the village of Phong Nhị, Dien Ban District, Quang Nam Province, on Feb. 12, 1968. After the massacre, she received an operation to reconnect her severed intestine and still suffers from the aftereffects of her injury today. Five of her family members were killed in the massacre, and her 14-year-old older brother was grievously injured.

The citizens’ tribunal concluded that the Korean troops had committed a massacre and ruled that the South Korean government ought to compensate the plaintiffs according to the conditions of the State Compensation Act and make an official apology to restore their dignity and reputation. That’s what Nguyen wants to hear from the South Korean government, but Seoul has never taken an official stance on this matter. Is there any chance of Nguyen’s wish coming true?

Nguyen submitted a petition signed by 103 victims of civilian massacres to the Blue House on Apr. 4 and is planning to sue the South Korean government for compensation, represented by MINBYUN attorney Lim Jae-seong, within the year. That will be the first time that a victim of the Vietnam War has filed a lawsuit against one of the aggressor states. Nguyen is spending a week in Korea on this trip to prepare the documents that are necessary for the lawsuit.

Hankyoreh

You can read more at the link, but the Minbyun group of lawyers are hard core leftists.  In the past they have attacked the USFK base relocation, tried to bring back the US beef issue, and tried to have North Korean defectors forcibly returned to North Korea.  

So why would hard core leftists be bringing up this issue now with a left wing government in power?  They are likely going to use this issue to attack and blame conservative ROK politicians, since former South Korean strongman Park Chung-hee was in power at the time.

Here is why the Kim regime is pushing so hard to have sanctions eased for little to nothing in return:

For years, the North Korean state has produced coal, iron ore, seafood and textiles for export, mostly to its ally China. Mr. Kim and top officials have used this export revenue, as well as the earnings of North Korean workers abroad, to finance nuclear weapons, large projects like Samjiyon and their own privileged lifestyles.

Previous international sanctions aimed to prevent North Korea from acquiring weapons parts and technology. But the newer ones, imposed in the past few years, ban those lucrative exports, depriving Mr. Kim’s regime of its main source of income.
As a result, party officials, soldiers and police officers who make a living off the state are feeling the effects more sharply than ordinary people who have already learned to fend for themselves through hundreds of unofficial markets, according to defectors and economists.
“Hardest hit by sanctions are those 20 to 30 percent of the population who stay on the government’s socialist payroll and rations,” said Jiro Ishimaru, a Japanese journalist who monitors North Korea with the help of correspondents there. “Enterprising North Koreans can make as much in a day selling vegetables in the market as many military officers can make a month in official wages.”

New York Times

You can read more at the link, but Kim Jong-un has stated that negotiations have until the end of the year to make a deal.

I think the North Koreans believe that with the US Presidential election happening next year that President Trump is not going to want a return to missile and nuclear tests in 2020 before the election. The Kim regime is likely betting that the Trump administration signs up for their “pretend denuclearization” deal that eases sanctions, gives the Trump administration a so called foreign policy “win”, and the North Koreans keep a low profile before the election.

This approach has worked with past US administrations, but clearly this is not a typical US presidential administration. It will be interesting to see if the old North Korean playbook works on this administration as well.