The important thing to remember is that this concession is easily reversible:
The two Koreas are looking to withdraw 11 guard posts within a 1-km radius of the Military Demarcation Line on their border by the end of 2018.PHOTO: REUTERS
North and South Korea and the UN Command agreed on Monday (Oct 22) to withdraw firearms and guard posts in an area within the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) this week, Seoul’s defence ministry said, the latest move in a fast-improving relationship.
The three sides held their second round of talks at the village of Panmunjom to discuss ways to demilitarise the border in line with a recent inter-Korean pact reached at last month’s summit in Pyongyang.
The US-led UNC, which has overseen affairs in the DMZ since the end of hostilities in the 1950-53 Korean War, was not immediately available for comment, but it said on Friday it supports the two Koreas’ efforts to implement their military deal.
The announcement comes amid US concerns that the inter-Korean military initiative could undermine defence readiness and comes without substantial progress on North Korea’s promised denuclearisation.
The neighbours are looking to withdraw 11 guard posts within a 1km radius of the Military Demarcation Line on their border by the end of the year.
They also plan to pull out all firearms from the Joint Security Area (JSA) at Panmunjom and cut to 35 each the numbers of personnel stationed there and share information on surveillance equipment. [Strait Times]
You can read more at the link, but I would think the American JSA battalion commander will have a well rehearsed battle drill ready to issue weapons at a moments notice in response to this. Does anyone really think the North Koreans will not have weapons stashed on their side of the border? Will the UNC be allowed to conduct no notice inspections to verify? I doubt it.
States (here #SouthKorea) shall prevent (banks) from opening branches in North Korea–that's pretty clearly stated. Secondary #sanctions affect not only the banks, but their client firms as well. Moon Jae-in should not gamble with #SouthKorea's economy. https://t.co/daaRczIXUL
Retired General David Stilwell speaks Korean and has very close ties to US Ambassador Harry Harris because of their prior work together at US Indo-Pacific Command:
David Stilwell
U.S. President Donald Trump has nominated Air Force veteran David Stilwell as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, according to the White House on Wednesday.
The position covers diplomacy with the Korean Peninsula, China, and Japan. His predecessor Susan Thornton stepped down in July amid rumors that she was too moderate, whereas Stilwell is thought to be a hardliner.
It can be hard to tell why people come and go in the frantically revolving doors of the Trump administration, but Stilwell’s appointment may reflect the fact that hardliners are increasingly gaining the upper hand. Trump only recently described Defense Secretary James Mattis, who is thought to have been a steadying force, as “sort of a Democrat.”
The White House described Stilwell as “an Air Force veteran with more than 35 years of experience as a pilot, commander, and Korean linguist.”
He retired in 2015 with the rank of brigadier general and is currently the director of the China Strategic Focus Group at the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Headquarters in Hawaii.
He learned Korean in a military language school in California and served as a fighter pilot in Gunsan, North Jeolla Province, from 1993 to 1995. He also speaks Chinese and some Japanese. [Chosun Ilbo]
It appears the UNC is on board with letting this happen:
This photo, provided by South Korea’s unification ministry on July 24, 2018, shows officials from the two Koreas checking the North Korean side of the western Gyeongui railway. (Yonhap)
South and North Korea are likely to start their joint on-site inspection as early as this week for a project to modernize and re-link railways across their border, government officials said Sunday.
At high-level talks last week, the two Koreas agreed to begin field surveys of the western Gyeongui railway in late October and the Donghae railway along their east coast in November.
“The Koreas are known to be discussing ways to conduct the inspection (on the North section) of the Gyeongui line starting late this week,” a government official said.
“The schedule is flexible, depending on consultations between the government and the United Nations Command (UNC) over the passage of the Military Demarcation Line,” he added.
In August, the Koreas failed to carry out a joint railway field survey as the U.S.-led UNC did not approve the plan, citing “procedural” problems, a move widely seen as U.S. objection to the inter-Korean railway project on the basis that it might hamper sanctions. “As far as I’m concerned, Seoul’s consultations with Pyongyang as well as the UNC are smoothly under way,” the official said. [Yonhap]
It looks like President Moon’s attempt to lobby European governments to drop North Korean sanctions is not working:
French President Emmanuel Macron
President Moon Jae-in has told French President Emmanuel Macron that North Korea’s denuclearization needs to be stimulated further by easing UN sanctions if the North’s measures to scrap its nuclear program are believed to have reached an irreversible level.
But North Korea has not remotely reached a point where denuclearization is irreversible. It has not even started. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un flatly refused to give the U.S. even a partial inventory of its nuclear facilities and stockpiles when visiting U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pleaded with him, and instead demanded that the U.S. officially declare an end to the Korean War to “build trust.”
The first step to denuclearization must be reporting all nuclear facilities and fissile materials, because how else will anyone know whether North Korea is scrapping anything? This is a no-brainer. Yet the North is vehemently protesting before taking even the first step, claiming that the demand is tantamount to “mafia-like tactics.”
Yet the South Korean president labors under the delusion that North Korea’s denuclearization has progressed significantly. During his summit last month with U.S. President Donald Trump, Moon even said the North’s denuclearization had almost reached an “irreversible” level already. U.S. nuclear experts, by contrast, say Pyongyang’s gestures so far — dismantling a moribund nuclear test site in Punggye-ri and a static missile launch pad it no longer needs — do not qualify as denuclearization at all.
Moon hopes that North Korea’s denuclearization can reach an irreversible level in a few months and is going around the world asking global leaders to stimulate the process by easing sanctions. Macron quite rightly brushed him off, saying sanctions must continue until “concrete denuclearization steps are taken.” [Chosun Ilbo]
It looks like the Pope is willing to be a propaganda tool for the Kim regime to make it look like they really have reformed and are nice guys hosting the Pope. This charade is all in an effort to get sanctions lifted in return for doing little to nothing in return in regards to denuclearization:
South Korean President Moon Jae-in (L) holds hands with Pope Francis while paying a courtesy call on the pontiff in the Vatican on Oct. 18, 2018. (Yonhap)
Pope Francis expressed his willingness Thursday to visit North Korea if officially invited, also saying he will “certainly” respond to such an invitation from the communist state.
The remarks came in a meeting with South Korean president Moon Jae-in, who paid a courtesy call on the pope to deliver a verbal invitation from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for the pope to visit Pyongyang.
“The pope said ‘(I) will unconditionally give an answer if an (official) invitation arrives and I can go’,” Moon’s top press secretary, Yoon Young-chan, told reporters. [Yonhap]
Despite the Moon admin saying it's "routine, the #SouthKorean banks are deathly scared of potential secondary sanctions. So should Moon and his circle, if they care about #SouthKorean economy. https://t.co/Nzwy8i8Yz2
Ambassador Harris recently made a very subtle message to the Moon administration in regards to sanctions on North Korea:
South Korea and the United States should have a “common voice” in dealing with North Korea rather than putting priority on improving inter-Korean relations over denuclearization, U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Harry Harris said Wednesday.
“We are, of course, cognizant of the priority that President Moon Jae-in and his administration have placed on improving South-North relations. I believe this inter-Korean dialogue must remain linked to denuclearization, and South Korea synchronized with the United States,” Harris said during a seminar co-hosted by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies and the Wilson Center.
“There, of course, remains a lot of work to be done, but I believe that if the United States and South Korea continue to approach North Korea with a common voice, we can turn the commitments that were made in Pyongyang, Panmunjeom and Singapore into reality.”
He made his remarks amid the recent dissonance between South Korea and the U.S. in dealing with easing sanction against the North. He reiterated Washington’s stance of maintaining sanctions against Pyongyang, while expressing discontent over Seoul’s move to prioritize improving inter-Korean relations and easing the sanctions.
The two countries have been showing different approaches to achieving the denuclearization of North Korea. President Moon Jae-in, on a state visit to European countries, has urge them to ease the sanctions somewhat. Meanwhile, the U.S. has been warning South Korea that lifting them, along with related actions, should only take place with Washington’s approval. [Korea Times]
