Shown is a poster released by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on May 16, 2018, to encourage North Korea’s economic development. (Yonhap)
I have been saying this for years that any North Korea deal should include the return of the USS Pueblo. I am glad to see someone in Congress thinks so as well:
North Korea has displayed the captured U.S. spy ship Pueblo in Pyongyang and has retained the ship for more than five decades. File Photo by KCNA/EPA
As the White House prepares President Donald Trump for his meeting with North Korea‘s Kim Jong Un, a movement is building in Congress to return a U.S. Navy spy ship.
Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, of Colorado’s Third District, sent a letter to Trump last week, ahead of submitting a resolution in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, seeking the return of the USS Pueblo to the Navy, Voice of America reported.
In the resolution, Tipton said the ship did not violate the territorial waters of North Korea at the time of its capture on Jan. 23, 1968.
One crewmember, Duane Hodges, was killed during the attack and 82 others were held in North Korean captivity for 11 months.
In his letter to Trump, Tipton said he requests the president raise the issue of the Pueblo during his summit with the North Korean leader.
“The House of Representatives would welcome the return of the USS Pueblo as a sign of good faith from the North Korean people to the American people,” the resolution read. [UPI]
You can read more at the link, but since its capture the USS Pueblo has been used as part of the standard propaganda tour around Pyongyang for both domestic and international visitors. You can read more about the USS Pueblo Incident at this link.
Considering that JTBC was the lead network used to take out former President Park Geun-hye by finding the highly suspicious tablet computer, I would not be surprised at all if they are now trying to create a narrative that these defectors were kidnapped:
North Korean staff who fled a North Korean restaurant in China pose for a photo in this screen grab from CNN on May 12, 2016
The shift in the ministry’s attitude has made other defectors nervous. One woman who came to South Korea in 2008 and is raising a son here said, “I haven’t slept more than an hour a night since the inter-Korean summit. People like me who have been living quietly could be dragged off to North Korea any moment.”
Some 31,500 North Korean defectors live in South Korea, and many are feeling unsure of their status amid the thaw. They have been seen as having the potential to build bridges between the two sides if the two Koreas reunify but could now find themselves treated as obstacles to the smooth running of the political machine.
They are complaining about the South Korean government’s indifference and ostracism by other South Koreans. To them, it would be a devastating signal if some of the restaurant staff are sent back to the North. (……………)
Meanwhile, the women who appeared in the JTBC report are living in fear, scared that their identities and whereabouts may be exposed. They have claimed that their comments were taken out of context in the JTBC report.
Civic groups supporting North Korean defectors also said their comments were not portrayed accurately. They simply said they miss their homes and wish to see their parents, but the report made it sound as if they were forced to come to South Korea against their will.
Kim Byung-Jo at the Korea National Defense University said, “North Korean defectors really know the good and bad points of both Koreas. It is important for the government to ensure that they do not feel nervous.” [Chosun Ilbo]
Here are some details about the Max Thunder exercise that North Korea is complaining about:
An F-22 Raptor stealth fighter lands at a military base in Gwangju, Wednesday, amid Max Thunder, a joint military drill between the Air Forces of South Korea and the U.S. / Yonhap
Max Thunder, which North Korea claims is the cause of its decision to cancel high-level talks with the South, is a joint military drill between the Air Forces of South Korea and the United States.
It has been held every May since 2009, with this year’s drill starting May 11 and continuing for two weeks.
The drills include annual defensive exercises with mock combat, and the number of fighter jets and troops this year is similar to those in years past, with some 100 aircraft from both countries participating, according to the Korean Air Force.
This year, eight of the U.S.’s F-22 Raptor stealth fighters were deployed for the drills for the first time. It is said the Raptor fighters can penetrate North Korea’s radar fence and make surgical strikes against strategic facilities.
But unlike the initial plan, B-52 strategic bombers, one of the U.S.’s strategic assets, will not be deployed, amid ongoing talks about North Korea’s denuclearization. Pyongyang has been sensitive about the bomber which can carry nuclear weapons. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but this is a fairly low level exercise compared to the Key Resolve and UFG exercises. Plus as the article states this low level exercise was even further downgraded by not including the B-52’s. So it is pretty clear to me that it is just being used as an excuse by the Kim regime to send a message to the Trump administration to reign in officials bringing up suggestions to discuss forbidden topics such as human rights at the upcoming June 12th summit.
The pre-summit gamesmanship has already started by the North Koreans cancelling high level talks with the South Koreans yesterday and threatening to cancel the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore:
Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon enters his office building in Seoul, Wednesday, after North Korea cancelled high-level inter-Korean talks unilaterally. / Yonhap
Political analysts presume North Korea’s abrupt cancellation of high-level inter-Korean talks and threats to reconsider the Washington-Pyongyang summit are aimed at taking the lead ahead of talks over its denuclearization.
Most predict the North is unlikely to spoil the current mood for dialogue but is trying to strengthen its bargaining power before negotiations and send a warning ― to the U.S., rather than to South Korea ― not to underestimate the country.
About 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, Pyongyang notified Seoul that it had cancelled the high-level talks, which were to take place in less than 10 hours, citing the ongoing South Korea-U.S. joint military drills, which it sees as a rehearsal of war.
Later in the day, North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan also said in a statement the country would reconsider the summit between its leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump, slated for June 12, if the U.S. forces the North to unilaterally give up nuclear weapons.
Experts say the exercises may not be the true reason for the North canceling talks, considering that the drills started May 11 and the North suggested the meeting four days later. Kim Jong-un also earlier told South Korean envoys that he understood the allies’ joint military drills.
“With the drills as a pretext, Pyongyang is indirectly expressing discontent at the recent hard-line stances from Washington, such as moving the North’s nuclear weapons to the U.S., removing biochemical weapons and raising an issue of human rights abuse,” said Shin Beom-chul, senior fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. “The North is making use of the high-level talks as a chance (to express its discomfort).”
Indeed, Kim Kye-gwan said American officials’ remarks, such as “denuclearization first and reward later” and “complete abandonment of nuclear, missile and biochemical weapons,” are “thoughtless words that provoke its counterpart.” [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but what I suspect is happening is that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Kim Jong-un what the US expects of the regime from the summit during his recent trip to North Korea, but in the US media other things are being said that were not discussed previously. People bringing up that human rights should be included in the summit is an especially sensitive topic in North Korea. Threatening to cancel the summit sends a message to the Trump administration that these topics will not be discussed at the summit.
Unless something drastic happens I would be highly surprised if this summit does not happen because the Kim regime has too much to lose. South Korea’s Moon administration at least needs the Kim regime to pretend to denuclearize to justify the massive aid package they have planned to give to Kim Jong-un. They can’t attempt a denuclearization facade if they don’t even show up to the summit.
As I have been saying for some time, if a peace treaty is agreed to with North Korea, the South Korean left will then challenge the relevancy of the US-ROK alliance:
This photo, taken May 3, 2018, shows the two progressive civic groups, the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy and Minbyun-Lawyers for a Democratic Society, holding a forum on the evaluation of the Moon Jae-in government’s first year in Seoul. (Yonhap)
Two progressive civic groups on Sunday called for a review of the character of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) in line with the two Koreas’ efforts for reconciliation and peace on the Korean Peninsula.
The , and Minbyun-Lawyers for a Democratic Society issued the call, with Seoul and Washington set to hold a third round of negotiations this week on sharing the cost for the upkeep of 28,500 American troops in the South.
“As (the two Koreas) are in the process of implementing the Panmunjom Declaration and establishing a peace regime, the character and size of the USFK, and the scope of its activities should be reviewed,” the two groups said in a joint statement. [Yonhap]
ROK President Moon Jae-in has said that after a peace treaty he wants US forces to stay.
Moon, however, has said that the USFK is a matter of the Seoul-Washington alliance and that it has “nothing to do with” a peace treaty that the two Koreas agreed to pursue to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended only with a truce.
Remember though that Moon is a very skilled politician that needs to keep the Korean right at bay and public anxiety down. If he advocated openly for a USFK withdrawal that would give the South Korean right an issue to strongly attack him with and cause much public anxiety after decades of security guarantees provided by US forces. That is why I think it is a possibility that the Moon administration may publicly say they support USFK, but will then have their surrogates do things to make life difficult for USFK such as what Minbyun is proposing:
Regarding the allies’ talks on the cost of American troops here, the civic groups called for more transparency in spending procedures, more parliamentary oversight and a ban on the use of money for supporting the deployment of U.S. strategic assets.
Possibly the future of USFK could look a lot like the current THAAD site in Seongju. President Moon will say all the right things that he supports USFK, just like he supposedly supports the THAAD site, but will set conditions to make it difficult for its continued existence. Minbyun and PSPD’s current efforts could just be the start of a larger strategy to make life more difficult for USFK if a peace treaty is signed. All the while expect the Moon administration to say how much they support USFK.
South Korean soldiers walk over the tracks of the Gyeongui railway blocked by a barbed wire fence inside the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas at the western section of the inter-Korean border in Paju, north of Seoul, on May 15, 2018. The leaders of South and North Korea agreed to link cross-border roads and railways on April 27 when they held the historic inter-Korean summit at the truce village of Panmunjom inside the DMZ, raising prospects for South Korea’s project to build a railway connection with North Korea and Eurasia. The Gyeongui railway links Seoul with Sinuiju, a city on the Korean Peninsula’s border with China. (Yonhap)
