Tag: North Korea

President Trump has completely flipped the script on the Kim regime.  The North Koreans are used to being the ones canceling talks and making the other parties make concessions to get them to come back:

President Donald Trump called off his summit with Kim Jong-un on Thursday after North Korea hurled insults at Vice President Mike Pence.

Trump said it would be ‘inappropriate’ to hold talks at this time after the Kim regime again tested the limits of his patience.

‘You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never be used,’ he said in a letter to Kim that the White House distributed.

North Korea‘s vice foreign minister had slammed Pence for his ‘unbridled and impudent remarks that North Korea might end like Libya.’

Choe Son Hui also said the future of the summit between Pyongyang and Washington is ‘entirely’ up to the United States, as she condemned an interview Pence gave to Fox News.

Trump said in his letter to Kim that as a result of the ‘tremendous anger and open hostility’ demonstrated by North Korea in the latest back and forth, he was pulling out of the June 12 meeting to discuss Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

‘I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting,’ Trump said hours after North Korea publicly destroyed much of its Punggye-ri nuclear test site. ‘Therefore, please let this letter serve to represent that the Singapore summit, for the good of both parties, but to the detriment of the world, will not take place.’

The U.S. president went on to say that he hopes to meet Kim one day and that the good dialogue that was building up between the two nations prior to the recent provocations remains promising.

Trump’s letter to Kim followed a string of threats from the North to call off the summit that had been brokered to discuss a commitment to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

The president told DailyMail.com on Wednesday that he’d know whether he was moving forward with the Singapore summit ‘next week.’ That was before North Korea’s latest volley, which included the assault on Pence.

‘We will neither beg the U.S. for dialogue nor take the trouble to persuade them if they do not want to sit together with us,’ said Choe Son Hui, according to a report by North Korea’s central news agency on Thursday.

She added: ‘I cannot suppress my surprise at such ignorant and stupid remarks gushing out from the mouth of the US vice-president.  [Daily Mail]

You can read more at the link, but here is the letter that President Trump sent to Kim Jong-un:

I look at this as not being a cancellation of the talks, but instead part of the ongoing negotiations.  The Trump administration has put North Korea in its place by reminding them who they are and who they are dealing with; thus the description in the difference in nuclear capabilities in the letter.  I also think the message being sent is that the United States will not be pushed around by the North Koreans and they should be respectful towards the Trump administration and thankful for the opportunity to meet with the US President.  This is especially true considering President Trump has made very respectful remarks towards Kim Jong-un and even the cancellation letter is extremely polite towards Kim Jong-un.

We are about to see how serious the Kim regime is about holding these talks and reaching a denuclearization deal because the ball is now officially in their court.  President Trump’s letter leaves it very open for a future meeting if the Kim regime changes its tone.  If they apologize for the remarks towards Vice President Pence that is a signal that they really do want a deal.  However, if they begin another launch cycle or execute a provocation of some kind then that is a sign they were never serious about these talks in the first place.

However, it was good to see that for once the United States got something out of North Korea, the release  of the three American detainees for little to nothing in return.  It is usually the other way around where the US and South Korea makes concessions to North Korea for little to nothing in return.  Once again President Trump has flipped the script on the Kim regime.  It will be interesting to see how the North Koreans respond.

It looks like the North Koreans are satisfied that they made their point to South Korea about how unhappy they are about the Ningpo 13 and have folded and allowed South Korean reporters to cover the upcoming dog and pony show at Punggye-ri:

A group of eight South Korean journalists flew into North Korea on Wednesday afternoon after Pyongyang, at the last minute, accepted Seoul’s list of reporters to cover the dismantling of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site.

Eight journalists from two media outlets departed at around 12:30 p.m. from Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, Gyeonggi, on a South Korean government plane and flew directly to Kalma Airport in North Korea’s eastern port city of Wonsan.

After arriving in Wonsan, they joined journalists from four other countries – China, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States – to board a special train to head to the site of the demolition of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site to take place on Thursday or Friday.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Excellent piece our old friend, now based in Japan but with still Korea responsibilities, Alastair!

North Korea's Secret Army: How Operatives Abroad Aid the Regime
By… https://t.co/JvejHJl4rc

— tomcoyner (@tomcoyner) May 21, 2018

Leave it to the North Koreans to look for any opportunity to make a buck:

North Korea is demanding that each foreign reporter pay $10,000 for a visa to cover the planned dismantlement of a nuclear test site in Punggye-ri, Seoul government officials said Monday.

South Korean reporters were exempt, the officials said. But people familiar with the situation said the rule could be overturned anytime given the reclusive state’s unpredictability.

The North has invited an unspecified number of reporters from South Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and the U.K. to the dismantlement ceremony scheduled for sometime between Wednesday and Friday.

In the South, news wire News1 and broadcaster MBC were selected to cover the event. The two companies selected four staff ― two writers and two photographers from News1 and two reporters and two cameramen from MBC ― respectively. They arrived in Beijing in the afternoon of Monday.   [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but the reporters will take a North Korean plane to Wonsan where their lodgings are at.  From Wonsan they will take a train to the test site.  I wonder if this $10,000 visa includes transportation and lodging?  A suspect that will be a separate charge.  Would anyone be willing to use their credit card in North Korea to pay for it?

It appears that President Trump is determined to end the North Korean issue one way or another in his first term as US President according to Senator Lindsey Graham:

U.S. President Donald Trump wants to end the North Korean nuclear crisis during his current term, and will likely use military means if diplomacy fails, an American senator said Sunday.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) made the remark on Fox News, citing his conversation with the president three days earlier.

“He says he’s going to end this conflict within his first term, that every other president has been played,” Graham said. Trump’s term ends in early 2021.

“President Trump told me three days ago that he wants to end this in a win-win way,” the senator continued. “He thinks that’s possible, but if they pull out, they play him, that we’re going to end North Korea’s threat to the American homeland in his first term and I’ll let you surmise as to what that might look like.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

North Korea buying time to hide nukes with threat to cancel U.S. summit, intel officials say https://t.co/PWmPdevrka

— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) May 17, 2018

The dismantling of the nuclear test site in North Korea is not a significant measure because it is easily reversible.  The Kim regime at a time of their choosing can easily go and drill more shafts into another mountain if they want to do more nuclear testing.  This is just another example of how the Kim regime tries to give up little to nothing in return for aid and the dropping of sanctions:

North Korea on Sunday stressed the importance of its dismantling the Punggye-ri nuclear test site this week and called it a “significant measure” amid reports the North has disregarded South Korea’s roster of journalists planning to cover the dismantlement.

The decommissioning of the site is “a very meaningful and significant measure” undertaken voluntarily by the North to achieve the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula based on the spirit of an agreement reached at a historic inter-Korean summit, North Korea’s propaganda website DPRK Today said.

DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North’s official name. The leaders of the two Koreas met on April 27 at the truce village of Panmujom on the inter-Korean border.

DPRK Today referred to the May 12 announcement by the North’s foreign ministry that it will hold a ceremony for the dismantling of the nuclear test site between Wednesday and Friday and invite journalists from China, Russia, the United States, Britain and the South to cover it.

On Saturday, another North Korean propaganda website, Uriminzokkiri, carried a commentary in which the North said it does not give the slightest consideration to “a mental patient’s grumble” in the South. “The international community as well as the United States and South Korea is giving a great deal of support to the dismantlement,” it said.

In the commentaries carried by the two propaganda websites, the North lambasted conservative forces in the South, including the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, for underestimating the planned closure of the site. Pyongyang apparently aims to stress the importance of the dismantlement by raising the issue again.

South Korea’s unification ministry handling inter-Korean affairs said Friday the North had not responded to the list of South Korean journalists chosen to attend the ceremony.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

South Korea's Unification Minister confirms what we already knew — that the Ningpo 13 came to SK of their own free will. Now let the SK government do its duty to protect their privacy & safety.
조명균 ˝탈북 여종업원, 자유의사로 한국 왔다˝ https://t.co/L1As6VMm92

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) May 18, 2018

Considering the current attitude towards defectors that the current South Korean government has it will be interesting to see what their response to this is:

Two North Koreans defected to South Korea early on Saturday and were found in the Yellow Sea, Seoul-based news agency Yonhap reported, citing a government source.

Yonhap said that South Korean military spotted two people in a boat near the inter-Korean sea border, one of whom was a military officer, and they showed willingness to defect to the South.

South Korea’s unification ministry was not immediately available for comment.

The defection came after North Korea declined to accept a list of South Korean journalists hoping to observe the closure of its nuclear test site on Friday, raising new questions about the North’s commitment to reducing tensions in the region.  [Business Insider]

Kim Yo-jong sure did a good job not showing she was eight months pregnant during her visit to South Korea:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s younger sister gave birth to a baby not long after she visited South Korea in February to attend the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

Kim Yo-jong was already about eight months pregnant when she came to Seoul on Feb. 9. She is believed to have given birth before the inter-Korean summit on April 27, intelligence authorities here said.

During the summit the signs of her pregnancy were already gone and she wore tight-fitting clothes.

She also accompanied her brother to a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Dalian on May 8-9.

Intelligence authorities believe she had her first child in 2015. Her husband is thought to be the son of a low-ranking Workers Party official and a classmate of hers at Kim Il-sung University.

The North Korea Strategic Information Service Center, a defector group, has identified him as U In-hak.

Kim Yo-jong is increasingly playing the role of her brother’s chief secretary, but it remains to be seen whether she will be by his side at the North Korea-U.S. summit in Singapore next month.  [Chosun Ilbo]