Tag: North Korea

This is just further evidence that North Korea is committed to conducting a provocation:

U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun failed to meet a senior North Korean diplomat at the North’s side of the Joint Security Area, also known as Panmunjeom, despite his open request for the high-profile meeting to resume stalled denuclearization talks.

“Efforts by intelligence officials between South Korea and the United States to make Biegun’s direct encounter with North Korea’s First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui actually happen at Panmunjeom went in vain as Pyongyang didn’t respond to the request,” a senior South Korean intelligence official told The Korea Times by telephone, Tuesday.

After wrapping up his three-day visit to Seoul, the senior Washington official left for Tokyo for talks with Japanese officials on the North Korean nuclear issue. The intelligence official added Biegun had planned to pass on U.S. President Donald Trump’s “personal messages” for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to the senior North Korean diplomat if the meeting had happened.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the Kim regime seems committed to raising tensions and creating a “crisis”. This will allow the U.S. media to have non-stop breathless coverage of how President Trump’s North Korea policies have failed. The Kim regime probably believes this will pressure Trump into a deal favorable to them because he is facing reelection next year and will want the Korea “crisis” to go away.

The only question now appears to be what will the rocket launch be? I expect they will conduct a “space launch” and put a satellite into orbit again. This allows the Kim regime to claim they have the right to the peaceful use of space just like everyone else. Plus it gives cover to the Russians and Chinese to block any efforts to further sanction North Korea at the United Nations.

North Korea is just continuing to up the pressure campaign against the Trump administration through the media with these tests. North Korea did not even say what this test was, but I assume it was probably an engine test of whatever rocket they plan to fire:

North Korea said Saturday that it will use its new technologies to develop a strategic weapon to counter the U.S. nuclear threat.

Pak Jong-chon, chief of the North Korean military’s General Staff, also said North Korea has “stored up a tremendous power” and the military is fully ready to put into action any decision of leader Kim Jong-un.

“In the situation of the acute confrontation, the U.S. and other hostile forces will spend the year-end in peace only when they hold off any words and deeds rattling us,” Pak said in a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

The comments came hours after North Korea said it successfully carried out “another crucial test” at its satellite launch site in a possible sign of further provocations unless its year-end deadline is met.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is looking more and more like North Korea’s pressure campaign may be working to get the Trump administration to make concessions on sanctions:

The United States is ready to be flexible in negotiations with North Korea on dismantling the regime’s nuclear weapons program, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations said Wednesday, urging Pyongyang to refrain from provocations.

Ambassador Kelly Craft made the remarks at a U.N. Security Council session as Pyongyang’s year-end deadline for nuclear negotiations with Washington draws near.

Amid indications the North is preparing to launch a long-range missile, Craft warned that such activity will only complicate efforts to implement an agreement reached by U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at their first summit in Singapore in June 2018.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the Trump administration has not given up on diplomacy with North Korea:

U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun may visit the North Korean side of the Joint Security Area early next week, for a meeting with a high-level North Korean official, sources familiar with the issue told The Korea Times, Wednesday.

“Biegun plans to visit South Korea later this week or early next week, after attending a meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in New York. Talks are underway for Biegun to possibly meet with a high-level North Korean diplomat on the North’s side of the border village of Panmunjeom,” a senior lawmaker from the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) said.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It only makes sense that with a left wing government in power these former convicted spies would seek to have their records purged:

Seven leaders of a now-disbanded left wing party filed for a retrial of a North Korea-affiliated treason case that rattled the nation six years ago, Wednesday, claiming the ruling was rigged by misleading evidence and corrupt ties between the judiciary and the former administration.

Lawyers for former lawmaker Lee Seok-ki and six other former members of the United Progressive Party (UPP) submitted the application for the retrial to the Seoul Central District Court.

The seven were arrested in 2013 on charges of plotting a pro-North Korean rebellion, and were sentenced to jail terms of two to nine years in August 2014 for “inciting” an armed rebellion during two gatherings with dozens of followers in May. Later that year, the Constitutional Court ruled to disband the UPP, saying the small leftist party with five parliamentary seats was a risk to national security due to its “violent” communist motives.

Korea Times via a reader tip

You can read much more at the link.

I always suspected that the claims the NIS made of the spy ring plotting to overthrow the government were exaggerated.  However, this does not explain why Lee Seok-ki was requesting classified documents and then leaking them in an effort to harm the US-ROK alliance.  Why was Lee also trying to get his hands on US-ROK war plans?  As I said before Lee and the UPP are just a political extension of the North Korean stooges in the Korean left that inhabit organization such as the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and the Korea Teacher’s Union.

These organizations have long been pro-North Korean and anti-US.  That is why I said this whole UPP spy scandal is just a continuation of the Ilshimhoe Spy Scandal and not some new organization trying to overthrow the government.  These groups coordinate with North Korea in order to cause political and social unrest within South Korea.  That is why I said at the time that the UPP should not be banned in South Korea.  By having the UPP all the pro-North Korean politicians all in one party and you know who they are. 

This is something ROK Heads have known for quite some time, but the media is catching up:

For Trump, keeping the status quo would be the best policy at this point because any future deal with North Korea will be criticized within the U.S. as a “bad deal,” according to Kim Dong-yub, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies of Kyungnam University.

“After North Korea gave up Yongbyon, the U.S. still did not give up on sanctions. If the U.S. were to make concessions in any future deal, it will be criticized domestically. Trump considers it best to maintain the current state of tension without any additional agreement. This is the most conducive to keeping up Trump’s case that North Korea has not tested missiles or launched an ICBM,” the professor told The Korea Times, Monday. “If North Korea launches an ICBM, it could affect the U.S. election. But it will not be easy for North Korea to do this, although it has been testing engines and so forth.” 

Another analyst explained that Kim could be aiming to pressure Trump ahead of the U.S. election, but was negative about an ICBM test in the near future. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.