Tag: North Korea

I was wondering as well if the North Koreans staying at the Walker Hill Hotel had some kind of symbolic meaning to it, but apparently is was all about security:

North Korea again chose Seoul’s Walkerhill Hotel for its high-level delegation’s lodgings during the delegates’ three-day visit. The North Korean leader’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, and other delegates stayed there three weeks ago.

A question then arises: why does the North prefer the hotel out of numerous luxury five-star hotels in Seoul?

An irony lies in the hotel’s name. It was named after U.S. Army general Walton Harris Walker, who died in an unfortunate car accident during the 1950-53 Korean War. Walker was credited with crushing North Korean troops in many battles, paving the way for the ultimate victory of the combined forces of South Korea and the United Nations.

Experts cite security as the first and foremost reason.

Unlike other luxury hotels in central Seoul with many access routes, Walkerhill is surrounded by Mount Acha and linked with only a handful of narrow roads.

For that reason, Walkerhill was a favorite venue for secret inter-Korean meetings in the 1980s and ’90s.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Where are his sources? And did he say this as head of PACOM or as the new US Ambassador to Australia? Does his Japanese roots influence his hardline stance? The Times: “[Harris] said it was crucial that the United States “bring Kim Jong-un to his senses, not his knees.”’ https://t.co/2p25i357xs

— Christine Ahn (@christineahn) February 19, 2018

The North Koreans are likely offering to hold talks now to get what they can get out of negotiations and then set conditions for their next provocation cycle:

A senior North Korean official said Monday that the reclusive state is willing to hold talks with the United States, noting the door for dialogue between the two countries remains open, according to an official from Seoul’s presidential office Cheong Wa Dae.

The remarks from Kim Yong-chol, the North’s point man on South Korea, came in a meeting with Chung Eui-yong, chief of South Korea’s National Security Council and the top security advisor to President Moon Jae-in.

“Kim said the door remains open for dialogue with the United States. He said the North has also repeatedly expressed such a stance,” a ranking Cheong Wa Dae official told reporters, while speaking on condition of anonymity.

Kim’s remarks came one day after he told the South Korean president in a meeting that the North has enough willingness to hold bilateral talks with the United States.

He, however, attached no conditions for the talks, according to the presidential official.

The U.S. seemed to remain cautious, with White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders saying Washington will first see if Kim’s remarks represented the North’s first step toward denuclearization.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the Kim regime has no intention of denuclearizing which means the talks will likely go no where.  However, before the talks go no where the Kim regime will try to get concessions out of the ROK.  The Moon administration is already floating the idea of suspending joint military exercises and economic aid for them suspending their nuclear and missile programs:

Moon has promoted a two-step roadmap to end the security crisis prompted by the North’s nuclear threats. According to his proposed first step, the North must place a moratorium on its nuclear and missile tests, freeze any further development of the technologies and join denuclearization negotiations. In return, the international community was to offer corresponding compensations. The second step would be actual nuclear dismantlement.

Moon, however, never made clear what Seoul and Washington would offer to Pyongyang in return for the first step, a freeze. Suspending or downsizing joint military exercises by South Korea and the United States has been discussed as a possible option, as well as an economic assistance package for the impoverished economy of the North.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

So basically the Kim regime gets significant concessions for doing nothing.  The economic assistance will likely include the reopening the Kaesong Industrial Complex, the restarting of Mt. Kumgang tours, and the opening of the Masik Ski Resort to tourism.  This would essentially shred all the sanctions that the US has been trying to leverage against the ROK.  That is why we will likely see a renewed push for a “freeze deal” in the coming weeks and months.

After the Kim regime gets all they can out of talks they will then restart their nuclear and missile programs and blame “US hostility” or some other made up reason.  Their leftist supporters will of course all fall in line with the narrative.  We have seen this all play out before.  Any freeze deal they sign the Kim regime will find a way to cheat on it.  I fully expect they will continue with short and intermediate range ballistic missile testing claiming this is okay because they are not ICBMs.  I suspect they will use space launches to test their ICBM technology and claim it is for peaceful purposes.  They have done this before.

They will also likely continue efforts to miniaturize their nuclear technology to put on ICBM warheads.  Without inspections this will be easy for them to conceal.  Even if they get called out for cheating they will just deny it and their apologists will come out in force to support them.  Supporters of past nuclear deals kept claiming that North Korea was in compliance despite clear evidence they were not.

It will be interesting to see which direction the Trump administration wants to go.  If they want to kick this can down the road to deal with later, the freeze deal is a way to do it.

Downtown Seoul today: Olympic spirit and right wing protest mash up pic.twitter.com/nSyQnqw54g

— Alastair Gale (@AlastairGale) February 24, 2018

Protesters including the bereaved families of the 46 crewmen killed in the 2010 sinking of the Cheonan warship stage a rally in Seoul on Feb. 24, 2018, to oppose the planned visit to South Korea by Kim Yong-chol, a vice chairman of the Central Committee of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party. Kim is set to cross the border on Feb. 25 for a three-day visit as the head of an eight-member delegation to the closing ceremony of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. He is believed to be behind the North’s sinking of the South Korean corvette and the shelling of a border island in 2010. (Yonhap)

Considering how little North Korea depends on the Internet that cyberattacks would be of limited value compared to other nations:

North Korea on Saturday denounced reported U.S. preparations for possible cyberattacks against the communist nation, saying it is ready and willing to respond to “any type of warfare.”

Earlier this month, U.S. media outlet Foreign Policy reported that for the past six months, Washington has been laying the groundwork in countries including South Korea and Japan for possible cyberattacks on the North. The process involved installing fiber cables as bridges into the region and setting up remote bases and listening posts.

“The United States must discard its silly dream of realizing its ambitions for invasion through cyberattacks on us,” the Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, said in a commentary.

“As (we) have everything we need, and we are prepared, we can respond to any type of warfare that the U.S. wants,” it added.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Something I have been advocating for, for many years the interdiction and inspection of North Korean ships may finally become a reality:

The United States is imposing a fresh set of sanctions on North Korea – the “largest ever”, President Trump says.

The measures target more than 50 ships and maritime transport companies in North Korea, but also China and Taiwan.

North Korea is already under a range of international and US sanctions over its nuclear programme and missile tests.

But it continued tests last year, including tests of a nuclear weapon and a long-range ballistic missile capable of reaching the US.

The US says the new sanctions are designed to put a further squeeze on North Korea, cutting off sources of revenue and fuel for its nuclear programme and clamping down on evasion of already existing restrictions.  [BBC]

Here is how the US may enforce the inspections:

The Trump administration and key Asian allies are preparing to expand interceptions of ships suspected of violating sanctions on North Korea, a plan that could include deploying U.S. Coast Guard forces to stop and search vessels in Asia-Pacific waters, senior U.S. officials said.  [Reuters]

It will be interesting to see how vigorously these sanctions are enforced by other nations because the US Coast Guard can’t be everywhere at all times to enforce these sanctions.  I fully expect the Chinese government will do what it can to help the Kim regime circumvent the sanctions.  If the sanctions don’t work President Trump says he is ready to implement Phase 2:

Speaking at a new conference on Friday, President Trump warned of serious consequences if the latest round of sanctions did not generate results.

“If the sanctions don’t work we’ll have to go phase two – and phase two may be a very rough thing, may be very, very unfortunate for the world,” he said.

“It really is a rogue nation. If we can make a deal it’ll be a great thing and if we can’t, something will have to happen.”

He did not specify what “phase two” would entail.  [BBC]

Here is what ROK Drop favorite One Free Korea has to say about this news:

If China claims the unilateral right to make artificial islands, we can claim the unilateral right to make some artificial reefs. https://t.co/o1E6F7DQ31

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) February 24, 2018

Unsurprisingly the Moon administration is claiming they can’t blame the North Koreans for sinking the Cheonan while the Kim regime rubs this sinking in their faces by sending the mastermind of the attack to the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics:

The South Korean government said Friday that it is difficult to pinpoint who led North Korea’s deadly sinking of the warship Cheonan in 2010, amid controversy surrounding a planned visit by a senior Pyongyang official widely suspected of masterminding the attack.

Kim Yong-chol, a top North Korean official, will come to the South for a three-day visit on Sunday as the head of the North’s high-level delegation to PyeongChang Winter Olympics closing ceremony later in the day. Conservatives and families of the 46 victims are strongly opposing his visit.

“It is clear that North Korea was blamed for the warship sinking and Kim was leading North Korea’s reconnaissance bureau at that time,” Baik Tae-hyun, spokesman at Seoul’s unification ministry, told a press briefing.

“But it is also the fact that there is a limitation in pinpointing who was responsible for the incident.”  [Yonhap]

The radical leftists in South Korea probably think that former Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye swam out and sunk the Cheonan before pinning the blame on North Korea.  This reminds me just like what happened in 2002 after the West Sea Naval Battle where six ROK sailors were killed by a North Korean attack.  The left wing Roh Moo-hyun administration deflected blame for the attack and actually blamed the sailors:

In commemoration of the second anniversary of the West Sea naval battle, memorial services were held at the headquarters of the Navy’s 2nd Fleet in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province on Tuesday. Hwang Eun-tae, father of the late Petty Officer First Class Hwang Do-hyun, weeps while reading a letter in front of his son’s portrait.

The father said, “My son is buried in the National Cemetery. But I’m going to take my son’s remains to my family burial site in my hometown.” Having watched the situation develop, he thought his son who was killed by North Korean soldiers was considered nothing more than a criminal.

Some parents said that they are more scared of people who consider the U.S. a bigger enemy than North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who killed their son. We lose courage to defend the country, when we hear that a wife whose husband fell in the battle is preparing to leave this country. Reading a condolence letter from the USFK commander to mark the second anniversary, the wife said, “The Americans remember my husband and his brothers-in-arms better than Koreans… Frankly, I hate Korea.”

I can only imagine the frustration the surviving family members of the 46 sailors who died on the Cheonan will experience when they see the red carpet laid out by the ROK government for a murderer like Kim Yong-chol.

Recent commercial satellite imagery indicates notable progress has been made on a new structure near the launch pad at North Korea’s Sohae Satellite Launching Station.https://t.co/gD7m0yIImh

— 38 North (@38NorthNK) February 22, 2018

Kim Jong-un’s older brother, Jong-chul who was passed over for the North Korean leadership supposedly lives a normal family life in Pyongyang:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s older brother Jong-chol is married and has a son, according to a North Korea source on Wednesday.

Kim Jong-chol was passed over for the leadership for various obscure reasons, with rumors ranging from a dangerous penchant for rock dinosaur Eric Clapton to “effeminacy.” But the source said he leads “a normal life.”

The source did not reveal when Kim tied the knot and had a child.

Kim Jong-un himself has two sons and a daughter and his sister Yo-jong a boy and is expecting another child.  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.