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.
Kim San-jo, #SouthKorea's Fair Trade Commission head, says #MoonJaein is like Steve Jobs #2. What? Kim & Moon both r busy over-regulating businesses, kicking out CEOs, investigating/harassing businesses non-stop, & stifle innovation. Where's the similarity? https://t.co/rXoxrJdIrz
This photo shows South Korean President Moon Jae-in (L) meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington on April 11, 2019. (Yonhap)
U.S. President Donald Trump will visit South Korea next month for talks with President Moon Jae-in on the denuclearization of North Korea and alliance issues, Moon’s office announced Thursday amid growing concerns about the overall peace process. Trump plans to visit South Korea in late June as part of his regional trip. He will travel to Osaka, Japan, for the two-day G-20 summit to open on June 28. The exact schedule for Trump’s second trip to South Korea as U.S. president remains unannounced. He made a state visit to South Korea in November 2017. “The two leaders plan to discuss ways for the establishment of a permanent peace regime through the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the strengthening of the South Korea-U.S. alliance,” Cheong Wa Dae spokesperson, Ko Min-jung, said early Thursday morning (Seoul time).
Who would choose this new political police force, & on what criteria? Who would they report to? Could Koreans believe in its objectivity when the courts are being re-packed, & have never applied either rules of evidence or precedents? https://t.co/N8hMKVXDms via @scmpnews
This may be President Moon’s greatest legacy, appointing left-wing ideologues into the Constitutional Court to ram through North Korea related legislation:
Lee Mi-sun
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.
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.”
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.
South Gyeongsang Province Gov. Kim Kyoung-soo was released Wednesday after 77 days of detention over his role in a massive rigging of online opinions. The Seoul High Court approved Kim’s request for bail but attached a condition under which he should only stay in his residence in Changwon, 400 kilometers south of Seoul. Kim, known as a confidant of President Moon Jae-in, was sentenced to two years in prison in January for colluding with a power blogger to carry out an illicit cyber operation to sway public opinion in favor of Moon ahead of the 2017 presidential election. “(I) will prove once and for all that truth will come around no matter how far it is thrown away,” he told reporters. “(I) will reveal the truth through an appeals trial.” Kim, 51, earlier requested the bail on the grounds that the provincial government suffered a setback in doing its work due to his absence. For the 200 million-won (US$176,025) bail, the court ordered him to pay half of the amount in cash. Kim received the two-year jail term for collusion with the power blogger, better known by his nickname, Druking, to artificially jack up the number of likes of Internet comments on sensitive political news to benefit the ruling Democratic Party (DP), the then main opposition party, and its presidential candidate Moon ahead of the 2017 elections. Moon won the snap election in May, replacing former President Park Geun-hye, who was ousted from office in March 2017 over a corruption scandal.
You can read more at the link, but the excuse that the provincial government could not work effectively because he is in jail is one of the lamest excuses I have heard yet. Would any other criminal be let out of prison early because their work place suffered a setback with that person’s absence?
Kim Jong-un promised that he would visit Seoul and Moon Jae-in doesn’t seem to eager to force his hand to make that visit:
President Moon Jae-in speaks at a meeting with his senior aides at Cheong Wa Dae on April 15, 2019. (Yonhap)
President Moon Jae-in said Monday that he hopes to meet again with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as early as possible, welcoming Kim’s latest message on denuclearization talks. Moon stressed that the venue and format of his fourth summit with Kim does not matter, as he seeks “concrete and substantive discussions” on ways to produce “fruits” to outdo those of two U.S.-North Korea summit talks. “Now is the time to make preparations and push for South-North summit talks in earnest,” he said in a meeting with senior presidential aides here. He added, “As soon as North Korea’s conditions are created, I hope the two Koreas will have another summit without being restrained by the venue and format.”
You can read more at the link, but Kim Jong-un I think will not visit Seoul unless he receive a huge payoff. His dad needed $500 million to host a summit in Pyongyang, so I am sure Kim Jong-un’s price to go to Seoul will be much higher.
President Moon’s goal was to get sanctions relief for North Korea and it appears he got President Trump to at least consider some relief in the future:
President Donald Trump’s meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in comes amid uncertainty over whether the leader of North Korea is considering backing out of nuclear negotiations or restarting nuclear and missile tests. Trump, in his first meeting with Moon since the unsuccessful U.S. summit with Kim in Hanoi, said the U.S. wants to keep economic sanctions in place to pressure Kim to denuclearize. But Trump said he retains good relations with Kim and didn’t rule out a third summit or taking steps to ease food or other shortages in the repressive nation. “We want sanctions to remain in place,” Trump said Thursday at the White House. “I think that sanctions right now are at a level that’s a fair level.” Moon, for his part, has called for an easing of sanctions, including those holding back joint economic projects between North and South Korea. But he didn’t speak to the sanctions issue as he and Trump spoke with reporters at the start of their talks.
Trump said he would favor easing those sanctions at the right time but added: “This isn’t the right time.” He said he was open to discussing smaller steps, such as helping to ease North Korea’s humanitarian problems, but that, in general, the U.S. wants sanctions to remain. “There are various smaller deals that maybe could happen,” Trump said.
You can read more at the link, but if the Kim regime can afford a nuclear weapons and ICBM programs then they can afford to buy food for their people. Any humanitarian crisis in North Korea is regime manufactured and not because of the sanctions.
