Tag: North Korea

Hopefully North Korea heeds John Bolton’s warning:

John Bolton, the U.S. national security adviser, warned that North Korea resuming its nuclear and missile testing will “not be a good idea” in a radio interview Sunday. 

Responding to North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui’s recent remarks critical of Washington, Bolton told the WNYM radio in New York, “They issued an unhelpful statement that they’re thinking of going back to nuclear and ballistic missile testing, which would not be a good idea on their part.” 

Last Friday, Choe said Pyongyang may suspend further denuclearization negotiations with the Washington, and that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un could rethink the country’s moratorium on nuclear and missile tests. 

Notably, Choe blamed Bolton and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for creating an “atmosphere of hostility and mistrust” that “obstructed” the negotiation efforts by the two countries leaders. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

I agree they may not be preparing for a missile launch in the near term, but they are definitely reconstructing the launch site to prepare for a future launch if needed to pressure the Trump administration:

 South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo said Monday that he does not view North Korea’s recent activities at its long-range rocket launch site as preparations for a missile launch.
Recent media reports and U.S. think tank analyses on activities at the North’s west coast Dongchang-ri launch site and the Sanumdong missile research center near Pyongyang have fueled the speculation about a possible missile or satellite launch.
“Describing them missile-related activities is a hasty judgment,” Jeong said during a session of the National Assembly’s defense committee. “Though Dongchang-ri is a launch site, we don’t judge them as activities in preparation for a missile launch.”

he communist regime has been seen rebuilding the Dongchang-ri missile launch facility it partially dismantled last year. Some analysts said that it might be a negotiation tactic following the breakup of the second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Hanoi last month.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I can only imagine what criminal schemes the Russians and North Koreans are discussing to skirt United Nations sanctions:

A group of Russian senators is visiting North Korea, the latest in a series of talks between the two countries following the collapse of the U.S.-North Korea summit in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Sergei Kislyak, the first deputy chairman of the Russian Federation Council’s Committee for Foreign Affairs and one of the Russian delegates, said the visit from March 16 to 21 will be “an absolutely natural, normal practice” to continue dialogue between the two countries.

But speculation is rampant it results from Pyongyang’s desperate bid to woo support from Moscow, following the collapse of talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

The failure of talks apparently clouds the North Korean leader’s plans to rebuild the country’s economy by convincing the U.S. to lift nuclear sanctions against his regime.

China, the North’s closet ally, is believed to be remaining prudent in its stance over the summit collapse.

“The goal of the visit (to North Korea) is to continue the dialogue with a country that is friendly to us and that is solving most difficult problems in the foreign and domestic policies,” Kislyak told Russian news agency TASS after arriving at Pyongyang Sunan International Airport, March 16. “We have things to discuss, we wish to better understand the aspirations of our North Korean neighbors, and I think that this dialogue is an absolutely natural, normal practice that we will continue in our relations.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This news makes me wonder if the intent behind the raid was to cause the Hanoi Summit to fail?:

Days before President Donald Trump was set to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam, a mysterious incident in Spain threatened to derail the entire high-stakes nuclear summit.
In broad daylight, masked assailants infiltrated North Korea’s Embassy in Madrid, restrained the staff with rope, stole computers and mobile phones, and fled in two luxury vehicles.

The group behind the late February operation is known as Cheollima Civil Defense, a secretive dissident organization committed to overthrowing the Kim dynasty, people familiar with the planning and execution of the mission told The Washington Post.
The group’s alleged role in the attack has not previously been reported, and officials from the governments of North Korea, the United States, and Spain declined to comment on it.

But in recent days, rumors have swirled about the motivations behind the attack in the Spanish media, including a report in El Pais alleging that two of the masked assailants have ties to the CIA.
People familiar with the incident say the group did not act in coordination with any governments. American intelligence agencies would have been especially reluctant to do so given the mission’s sensitive timing and brazen nature. But the raid represents the most ambitious operation to date for an obscure organization that seeks to undermine the North Korean regime and encourage mass defections, they say.
“This group is the first known resistance movement against North Korea, which makes its activities very newsworthy,” said Sung-Yoon Lee, a North Korea expert at Tufts University. [Washington Post]

You can read more at the link, but I would think there is going to be a covert war against the dissidents now by North Korea and their allies.

What is it about N Korea that appeals to both far left & the far right, makes David Duke approvingly republish Bruce Cumings, & makes the alt-right exalt the racism & misogyny that the alt-left overlooks?
Maybe it just attracts inadequate souls who want to burn the world down. https://t.co/LLXSobdaHw

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) March 15, 2019

All Korean people? https://t.co/UOeMHeJM9s

— 🇰🇷Edward Oh🇺🇸 (@EdwardHBOh) March 13, 2019

It looks like the North Koreans are confirming what we all already knew, they never had any intention of really denuclearizing:

 A senior North Korean official announced Friday that her regime is rethinking whether to continue nuclear talks with the United States and maintain a moratorium on missile tests, according to foreign news reports.
Speaking at an urgent meeting with diplomats and foreign media in Pyongyang, Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui cited the U.S. attitude in the recent Hanoi summit.
“We have no intention to yield to the U.S. demands (at the Hanoi summit) in any form, nor are we willing to engage in negotiations of this kind,” she was quoted as saying by Russia’s TASS news agency.
The Associated Press also quoted Choe as saying that her country was deeply disappointed by the failure to strike an agreement in Hanoi late last month.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but all President Trump said during the summit was that if the Kim regime closed down all their nuclear facilities he would remove the economic sanctions. The Kim regime clearly is not ready to do that.

This is pretty bold of the CIA if true:

Spanish intelligence officials believe at least two of the 10 attackers who broke into the North Korean embassy in Madrid last month, holding staff hostage and making off with computers, are linked to the CIA, according to a report in El País.

Police and Spain’s national intelligence centre (CNI) are investigating the unusual robbery, which took place on 22 February in the west of the capital.
The online newspaper El Confidencial, which broke news of the raid, reported that the group of men tied up and threatened staff, fleeing only after a woman managed to free herself and raise the alarm. (…..)

El País pointed out that the robbery took place five days before Donald Trump’s second summit with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un.
It suggested the intruders could have been looking for information relating to Kim’s top negotiator, Kim Hyok Chol, who served as ambassador to Spain before being expelled in September 2017.

MSN via a reader tip

You can read more at the link.

Pyongyang has socialized too many pundits to be so empathetic to what terms might be acceptable to it, they've lost sight of what terms should be acceptable to us. That is how an industry secedes from the mainstream, self-marginalizes, & abdicates its influence. https://t.co/cvoObNrlOS

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) March 11, 2019