Tag: North Korea

The axis of authoritarianism is meeting in China this week to pretend that the CCP had anything to do with helping to win World War II:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is set to take an initial step onto the multilateral diplomatic stage in China this week, with his planned trip to attend a military parade in Beijing setting the stage for a possible three-way summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

It will be the first time for Kim, who assumed power in late 2011, to attend a multilateral diplomatic event. His grandfather and the North’s founder Kim Il-sung attended a military parade in Beijing in 1959.

The decision by Kim to attend China’s military parade marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, alongside Putin and Xi, was announced days after both South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and U.S. President Donald Trump expressed their eagerness to resume diplomacy with North Korea in their high-stakes summit in Washington.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

If President Lee wants to stay on the good side of President Trump he should see what he can do to set up a meeting with Kim Jong-un:

 U.S. President Donald Trump indicated his willingness to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un before the end of the year, raising the possibility of a meeting at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in South Korea later this year.

During his first summit with President Lee Jae Myung at the White House, Monday, Trump was asked by reporters whether he planned to meet the North Korean leader again. He responded that he hoped to do so, emphasizing that he “gets along great with him.”

“I look forward to meeting with Kim Jong-un in the appropriate future,” the U.S. president said.

Regarding the upcoming APEC Summit scheduled for the end of October in Gyeongju, South Korea, Trump said he’d love to come for the summit.

When presented with the possibility of meeting both Kim and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the APEC event, Trump described the idea as “interesting,” although he acknowledged it could be difficult to arrange.

“That’d be interesting. We’ll arrange a meeting between you and Kim Jong-un. Would you like that? I don’t know. That’s a very tough question right now. I don’t know where that question is leading. Anyway, look, I get along great with Kim Jong-un and whatever I can do, having to do with South Korea and getting people together, you should get together,” he said.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but Kim Jong-un would never travel to South Korea for a summit because domestically it would like he is being subservient to the U.S. and South Korea. What Trump might be able to do is a meeting at Panmunjom with Kim Jong-un like he has did previously where they look of equal standing. Optics are very important to the Kim regime.

I wonder if the development of these new missiles was helped by the Russians?:

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised the test-firing of two types of new antiair missiles, state media said Sunday, displaying his expanding military capabilities as the South Korean and U.S. militaries carry out joint drills.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said the test Saturday proved the missiles effective in countering aerial threats such as drones and cruise missiles, and that Kim assigned unspecified “important” tasks to defense scientists ahead of a major political conference expected early next year. The report did not specify the missiles that were tested or where the event took place. It did not mention any remarks by Kim directed at Washington or Seoul.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

It appears the North Koreans are probing to see what they can get away with along the DMZ under the new Lee administration:

Around 30 North Korean troops recently crossed the inter-Korean border despite warning broadcasts, triggering warning shots from the South Korean military, a spokesperson of the U.S.-led U.N. Command (UNC) said Sunday, citing its investigation into the incident.

The spokesperson made the remarks in response to a question from Yonhap News Agency, a day after North Korea berated the South Korean military for having fired more than 10 warning shots at North Korean troops who were conducting a border reinforcement project last week.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

How cute President Lee thinks he can get the Kim regime to denuclearize:

President Lee Jae Myung has said he will pursue a three-stage denuclearization plan for North Korea, with Seoul approaching such a strategy via active efforts for dialogue with Pyongyang based on the solid alliance with the United States. 

In an interview with Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun ahead of his visit to Tokyo for summit talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Lee said he will seek to freeze North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs in the first stage. 

In the second and final stage, Lee said he will seek to reduce and dismantle North Korea’s nuclear program, according to a script of the interview provided by the presidential office.

South Korea, while maintaining close coordination with the U.S., will actively pursue inter-Korean dialogue to establish conditions for the goal, Lee told the Japanese newspaper.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I am sure Lee knows that he has no chance of getting North Korea to denuclearize. That is why his plan first has pursuing a nuclear freeze deal. This is the only viable deal that can be pursued with North Korea at this time. A cap on the number of North Korean nuclear weapons and ICBMs in return for dropping sanctions might be something the Kim regime may go for.

This is supposedly the first time open source imagery has located one of North Korea ICBM bases:

North Korea has an undeclared ballistic missile operating base near its border with China, which likely possesses intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of reaching the continental United States, a U.S. monitor confirmed Wednesday.

Beyond Parallel, a project of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, unveiled the Sinpung-dong Missile Operating Base in North Pyongan Province, about 25 kilometers from the border with China, as it released its analysis of satellite imagery taken July 11.

It marks the first open-source study confirming the base, according to the monitor.

“Preliminary analysis suggests that the base likely houses a brigade-sized unit equipped with a total of six to nine nuclear capable Hwasong-15 or -18 ICBMs, or an as yet unknown ICBM, and their transporter-erector-launchers (TEL) or mobile-erector-launchers (MEL),” it said in a report posted on its website.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is a bit surprising that South Korea is holding on to North Korean operatives when they have aged into their 90’s:

 Six former North Korean soldiers and spies who were jailed in South Korea for refusing to renounce their socialist beliefs have asked the Seoul government to repatriate them to the North, officials said Tuesday.

Yang Won-jin, 96, Ahn Hak-sop, 95, and four others have recently submitted the formal request to the unification ministry, seeking to return to North Korea, a ministry official said.

Known as “unconverted” long-term prisoners, they are former North Korean soldiers and spies who were arrested in the South before and after the 1950-53 Korean War, an ideologically driven conflict that left the Korean Peninsula divided into the communist North and the democratic South.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.