On July 11, 2008 Pak Wang-Ja, a 53 yr-old wife/mom/tourist from SK, while out on a walk, was shot in the back & killed by NK guards at Mt. Geumgang resort in #NorthKorea, funded by SK's Hyundai, allegedly for having walked into a no-entry zone. NK never apologized. #Engagement
— Sung-Yoon Lee (@SungYoonLee1) July 10, 2019
I thought it was reported that North Korea has a price on this man's head. If true, wouldn't he be safer in jail than out free where he could be killed? https://t.co/P1xqexyzcx
— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) July 9, 2019
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is really increasing his criticism of the Moon administration:
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday linked Tokyo’s economic retaliatory measures against Seoul with the implementation of North Korea sanctions – underscoring a lack of “trust” in South Korea.
Abe appeared to be sidestepping the real reason for his government’s restrictions on industrial exports to Korea – court rulings against Japanese companies found guilty of forcing Koreans to work for them during World War II – and suggesting an overarching problem with trust in Seoul that extends to security concerns.
One suggestion is that high-tech products made with Japanese materials may be making their way to North Korea.
Speaking on a televised debate ahead of upper house elections on Fuji TV, Abe said that South Korea “claims that it is abiding by sanctions on North Korea” and is also following the Wassenaar Arrangement, the first multilateral export control regime for conventional weapons and sensitive dual-use goods and technologies.
Abe went on to suggest that Seoul is not capable of fulfilling its commitment to implement sanctions on the North because it “clearly does not keep its promises and abide by the claims agreement between two countries” and “obviously will not properly abide by trade regulations.”
On the matter of his government’s new restrictions on exports of key industrial materials to Korea, Abe said that there was an “occurrence of an inappropriate matter,” and added, “you can’t trust what they say.”
Japan on Thursday implemented export restrictions to Korea on three key materials – fluorinated polyimide, hydrogen fluoride and photoresists – needed in the production of semiconductors and smartphones.
Joong Ang Ilbo
You can read more at the link.
He will probably eventually regret this, but we will never hear about it:
A South Korean son of Ryu Mi-yong, the late chairwoman of a North Korean minor political party, has arrived in Pyongyang to live in the communist country for good, a North Korean propaganda media outlet said Sunday.
Ryu and her husband, Choe Tok-sin, who served as foreign minister in South Korea during the 1960s, emigrated to the United States in 1976 and defected to the North in 1986, leaving behind two sons and three daughters.
In the North, Ryu served as chairwoman of the central committee of the Chondoist Chongu Party.
On Saturday, Uriminzokkiri, one of the North’s propaganda websites, reported that Ryu’s second son, Choe In-guk, arrived in Pyongyang on Saturday for “permanent residence.”
If confirmed, it would be a rare case of a South Korean national entering North Korea and publicly announcing a decision for permanent residence there.
Upon arriving at a Pyongyang airport, Choe said he will devote his life to helping achieve the feat of national unification in accordance with the desire of his late parents.
“To live in and follow a country for which I feel thankful is a path to protect the will left by my parents. So I’ve decided to permanently live in North Korea, albeit belatedly,” the media outlet quoted Choe as saying.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
If the Trump administration goes with the “small deal” approach with North Korea, they are essentially doing what has already been tried before and did not work:
An editorial published by the Washington Post has put forward the argument that a step-by-step “small deal” is the only diplomatic way forward with North Korea.
Columnist Josh Rogin said in an op-ed Thursday that the United States and North Korea are resuming negotiations in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s impromptu meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un last weekend, and that a fight over North Korea policy has rekindled within the Trump administration.
He said, “What we’re seeing now is a return to the idea of a step-by-step approach known as the ‘small deal,’” which he called the only diplomatic path with any chance of success.
He asserted that the Trump administration, led on this issue by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and special representative Stephen Biegun, is now returning to an incremental and phased approach to persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.
KBS World Radio
You can read more at the link, but a small deal would politically get the Trump administration through the 2020 election cycle which is what I think the North Koreans are counting on. The longer they wait and the harder they negotiate up to the 2020 election cycle the better deal they will likely get. Their goal is to get sanctions relief and keep their nukes and the small deal allows them to do this.
If a small deal is signed it will likely be marketed as a “Big Deal” if it includes a path to full denuclearization of North Korea. This politically allows the Trump administration to claim they have achieved a deal to completely denuclearize North Korea as a foreign policy achievement during the 2020 election. However, as we have seen in the past it is likely that the Kim regime will tear up the agreement at a time of their choosing and blame the U.S. for the deal’s failure. By the time this happens their treasury will be flush with cash due to the easing of sanctions and maybe even get major political concessions such as a Korean War peace treaty and USFK troop reductions.
I guess we will see where this is headed to in the next few months.
Well now we know what Australian Alek Sigley got in trouble for in North Korea, because he was “spying” for NK News:
KCNA said Sigley, who was caught “red-handed” by a “relevant institution” of the North on June 25, had abused his status as a student by “combing” through Pyongyang and providing photos and other information to news sites such as NK News and other “anti-DPRK” media, a reference to the North’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The news agency said the North expelled Sigley out of “humanitarian leniency.”
“He honestly admitted his spying acts of systematically collecting and offering data about the domestic situation of the DPRK and repeatedly asked for pardon, apologizing for encroachment upon the sovereignty of the DPRK,” the agency said.
Associated Press
You can read more at the link, but what Mr. Sigley was publishing articles at NK News about life in Pyongyang that were very innocuous. I suspect he did not get proper clearance for posting the articles and thus why he was detained. However, since he was spoken positively about North Korea for so long he did not get the Otto Warmbier treatment and was instead released. Here is a statement from NK News about Sigley’s detention.
It will be interesting to see if he ever turns up in Pyongyang again.
It will be interesting to see how eager this guy is going to be to go back to North Korea anytime soon:
A 29-year-old Australian student detained in North Korea surfaced in Beijing airport on Thursday, saying he was in “very good” spirits after being released.
Alek Sigley ― one of a handful of Westerners living and studying in North Korea ― disappeared without a trace around June 23, prompting a week of deep concern and frantic speculation about his fate.
For days Sigley’s family received no word about his whereabouts or wellbeing, stoking fears he may be the latest in a long line of foreigners to become entangled in North Korea’s police state.
Then, with little warning, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Thursday told lawmakers that Sigley had “been released from detention in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” and that “he is safe and well”.
Korea Times
You can read more at the link, but there has been speculation that his detention may have been linked to the Trump-Kim summit at the DMZ. The North Koreans may not have wanted word of the meeting to leak and took extreme precautions to include detaining this Australian man until after the summit was complete.
If the New York Times report is to believed, there are members of the Trump administration advocating for a “freeze deal” which is really the first steps towards a “pretend denuclearization” deal with North Korea:
Washington’s goal in talks with North Korea remains its “final, fully verified denuclearization,” the U.S. State Department said Monday, denying speculation that the Trump administration was considering an incremental deal to freeze Pyongyang’s nuclear activity.
A spokesman gave the response to a question from Yonhap on a New York Times report on Monday that said a splinter was widening within the administration over how to approach Pyongyang. The article said senior diplomatic officials are leaning towards an incremental approach as negotiations between the two countries resume.
The State Department’s Special Representative for North Korea Policy, Stephen Biegun, also denied the report, calling it “pure speculation.”
According to the piece, U.S. officials are discussing a plan that could involve North Korea first closing down nuclear facilities capable of producing fissile material, and in return the United States could provide sanctions relief.
This, in effect, would resemble the proposal that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un brought to his second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam, last February. Kim offered to shut down the Yongbyon nuclear complex in return for relief from five sets of economic sanctions imposed by the United States.
Under this possible deal for Yongbyon – or a larger one reportedly being considered by U.S. officials that would freeze activity at the nearby Kangson uranium facility as well – the North would no longer produce additional nuclear material, but none of its existing nuclear weapons or stockpiles would be touched. While this would imply de facto acceptance of North Korea’s status as a nuclear state, it could serve as an initial step toward full denuclearization in the future, the report said.
Joong Ang Ilbo
National Security Advisor John Bolton did not mince worlds on what he thought of the New York Times report:
I read this NYT story with curiosity. Neither the NSC staff nor I have discussed or heard of any desire to “settle for a nuclear freeze by NK.” This was a reprehensible attempt by someone to box in the President. There should be consequences. https://t.co/TTRPQkksza
— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) July 1, 2019
It is pretty clear that the New York Times is doing what they can to create strife within President Trump’s foreign policy team.
North Korean media needs to be read, in Korean, for more than a decade, to be understood in their context. And one needs to read more than what the North knows to be closely observed by the outside world. https://t.co/58EUhwmHUa
— the oranckay (@oranckay) July 1, 2019
