Tag: North Korea

Furthering the discussion of North Korea's probable UDMH production, 38 North analysts suggest three additional facilities where this is likely taking place. https://t.co/LGhR8WXyWE

— 38 North (@38NorthNK) October 25, 2017

I don’t get what the supposed smart people in the diplomatic community are getting excited about after these comments from a North Korean official.  Basically the official said that if the US backs off and gives the Kim regime everything they want then there may be an exit from the current nuclear crisis.  Does anyone think President Trump is willing to settle this current crisis by signing some agreement that leaves Pyongyang with nuclear tipped ICBMs pointed at the United States?:

Choe Son-hui, the North Korean Foreign Ministry’s North American affairs bureau chief, recently said there “may be an exit” from the North Korean nuclear crisis if the US “makes the right choice to abandon its hostile policies and co-exist with North Korea as a nuclear state,” it was reported on Oct. 24.

The message is being interpreted as suggesting Pyongyang is leaving the possibility of dialogue open.  Choe’s remarks were made during a closed-door session on “Detente on the Korean Peninsula” at the Moscow Nonproliferation Conference on Oct. 21, a South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs official reported.

When asked what was specifically meant by the US “abandoning its hostile policies,” Choe reportedly replied, “For a diplomatic and peaceful resolution to happen, the right atmosphere must be formed, but North Korea cannot sit down at the negotiating table when there are threatening tweets from President [Donald] Trump every day.”“North Korea will not move an inch if the US’s policies of pressure with military and nuclear threats and economic sanctions continue,” she was also quoted as saying.“We will not be bound by the Sept. 19 Joint Statement [of 2005] stipulating denuclearization, nor will we return to the Six-Party [Talks] framework.”

Choe’s remarks differ little from Pyongyang’s other recent statements of principle on the international stage. But her use of the terms “exit” and “right atmosphere” are drawing notice, as they could be seen as a signal that Pyongyang may pursue negotiations.“Choe’s remarks could be taken a signal that [North Korea] is starting to negotiate,” said University of North Korean Studies (UNKS) professor Koo Kap-woo.  [Hankyoreh]

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest expert, Michael Green from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) to weight in with his opinion on what to do with North Korea:

A preventive military strike by the United States would not remove all of North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, a renowned American expert on the North Korean issue has said, while proposing economic sanctions as the most viable tool to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

“A preventive military strike would not destroy all of North Korea’s capabilities. It would risk a wider war that would inflame South Korea and Japan and potentially cause millions of casualties,” Michael Green, vice president for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said last week in Washington, D.C. in his meeting with South Korean journalists.

Previously, he served as a senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council under former U.S. President George W. Bush.

“It would also threaten the U.S. because North Korea has an ability even without ballistic missiles to transfer nuclear weapons to terrorist groups, so a preventive military strike would not get all of North Korea’s nuclear capabilities and would risk an unacceptable war,” Green noted.

Diplomatic negotiations with Pyongyang would also not warrant resolution of North Korea’s nuclear problem, given the country’s track record of breaking previous agreements, he said.

“We shouldn’t end sanctions or military exercises in order to have dialogue with Pyongyang because then we will prove there’s no cost to North Korea for the path it’s on,” Green said, suggesting that the U.S. build “infrastructure of sustained consequence” for North Korea to facilitate diplomacy work with the regime. “We now have to restore deterrence and restore credibility if we have any chance in medium to long run diplomacy.”

Getting China to exert its influence in North Korea is crucial in the long run, he also highlighted.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but basically what he is advocating for is arguably what prior administrations have done and all it has lead to is the slow motion acquisition of North Korean nuclear weapons that will soon be mounted on ICBMs pointed at the US.

Like I have said before I have little sympathy for these companies that lose money conducting business with North Korea.  Good luck trying to get this money back:

 

Sweden reminds North Korea twice every year about its 43-year-old debt to the publicly-funded Swedish Export Credit Agency (EKN), a government agency serving as credit insurer for company’s trade deals.

Back in 1974 North Korea began importing equipment from Western industrialized countries to expand its access to foreign capital and technology. The country promised to pay their creditors either with future production or mining products, but it soon became clear the regime had no intention of honouring its debts.

An original order of 1,000 Volvo 144 model and other mechanical equipment from Swedish companies worth the equivalent of $73 million has been left unpaid and over the last four decades has quadrupled to around $330 million.

North Korea is the biggest debtor to the Swedish agency, as the EKN end of year 2016 report show. EKN says it has has agreements with all 13 countries that have outstanding claims, with the exception of Syria, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

“During the year the countries with which there are agreements have paid under these. The exception is North Korea, where interest has been capitalised for many years but practically no payments have been made,” the report reads.  [Newsweek]

You can read more at the link.

Still going strong. One of the Volvo's from yr 1974 still unpaid for by DPRK. Running as taxi in Chongjin w almost half million km on odo! pic.twitter.com/2FaMpnPow7

— Sweden in Pyongyang (@SweEmbassyinNK) October 21, 2016

It looks like this defector couple may have repatriated themselves back to North Korea:

South Korea is looking into the whereabouts of a North Korean defector couple amid speculation that they may have voluntarily returned to North Korea via China, Seoul’s unification ministry said Monday.

A local cable TV channel reported Sunday that the 30-something defector couple could not be reached after they left for China in mid-October.

“As they fell out of touch after leaving for China, authorities are investigating the case,” Baik Tae-hyun, ministry spokesman, told a regular press briefing.

It cannot not be confirmed if they voluntarily re-entered North Korea unless they appear on the North’s propaganda outlets to say so.

The ministry said that 26 North Korean defectors have gone back to the North so far. The number of North Koreans coming to South Korea stood at 31,093 as of end-September.

In mid-July, a North Korean female defector appeared in a propaganda video, saying she returned to North Korea in June after suffering “physically and mentally” in the capitalist South.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

At 93 years old it would be pretty amazing if former President Carter ends up making a trip to Pyongyang to negotiate an end to the latest nuclear crisis:

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said he is willing to go on a diplomatic mission to North Korea on behalf of President Donald Trump, saying that China’s influence on the Pyongyang regime is “greatly overestimated.”

“I would go, yes,” Carter, 93, told a New York Times columnist at his home in Plains, Georgia, about whether he would go to Pyongyang for the Republican Trump administration.

According to an article published Saturday, Carter said that he has spoken with H. R. McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser, whom he called a good friend, and said, “I told him that I was available if they ever need me.”

But so far, he has gotten a negative response.

“I’m afraid, too, of a situation,” Carter said, remarking on the concern in Washington over the bellicose exchanges between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. “I don’t know what they’ll do. Because they want to save their regime,” referring to the North.

He voiced concern that the young leader Kim may try pre-emptive action if he thinks Trump would act against him, and added, “I think he’s now got advanced nuclear weaponry that can destroy the Korean Peninsula and Japan,” as well as outlying territories in the Pacific and maybe even parts of the U.S. mainland.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest of the link.

Here is what retired General and former CIA Director David Petraeus had to say about President Trump’s rhetoric towards North Korea:

The United States is unlikely to go to nuclear war with North Korea despite the recent escalation in tensions, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency said Sunday.

David Petraeus, who served in the Barack Obama administration from 2011-2012, said he thinks U.S. President Donald Trump has been using tough rhetoric with North Korea to get the attention of the leadership in China, not in Pyongyang.

“This is about getting President Xi’s attention … so that China will really clamp down on the umbilical cord through which 90 percent of the trade that goes to and from North Korea transits,” Petraeus said in an interview on ABC News.

China is able to “bring North Korea to its senses,” he added, alluding to Beijing’s leverage as Pyongyang’s main ally and economic benefactor.

North Korea carried out two long-range missile tests in July and a sixth nuclear test in September. Trump declared shortly thereafter that he would “totally destroy” the North if it posed a direct threat to the U.S.

Petraeus said a nuclear war is still unlikely.

“I don’t think likely. No,” he said. “I think, in fact, that again all of this is a communications strategy that is trying to make sure that China understands that this administration is in a very different situation from any of its predecessors, that North Korea on this president’s watch could have the capability to hit a city in the United States with a nuclear weapon.”  [Yonhap]

Meet the Koksan: North Korea’s Super Big ‘Gun’ That Could Strike Seoul https://t.co/mcGVbnfuyv

— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) October 21, 2017

A ROK defense source is saying that the North Koreans may have tested their way out of a viable nuclear test site:

Even if North Korea wants to conduct another nuclear test, it may be facing a big hurdle to preparations at its testing site amid signs of topographic damage from the previous experiment, an informed South Korean defense source said Monday.

“The possibility of North Korea’s additional provocations remains open all the time,” the source said in response to the weeks-long break in its belligerent acts, as the South’s Defense Minister Song Young-moon visited the Philippines to participate in the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM)-Plus session.

The Kim Jong-un regime may be weighing the technological aspects of its nuclear and missile program and political timing, added the source.

The North passed the Oct. 10 founding anniversary of the powerful Workers’ Party and the opening of China’s communist party congress last week with any provocation.  (……)

But it remains unclear whether the North will be able to carry out a seventh nuclear test in the near future amid reports of continued natural earthquakes near the Punggye-ri test area following the Sept. 3 hydrogen bomb test there with the destructive yield of more than 50 kilotons, according to the source.

“If it tries to send a meaningful message to the world with another nuclear test, it would require a more powerful bomb,” added the source. “North Korea will consider whether it will keep testing nuclear weapons there, including a review of topography.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Offered for your consideration: pic.twitter.com/LlJ9RvVdpC

— Curtis Melvin 커티스 멜빈 (@CurtisMelvin) October 20, 2017