Considering North Korea’s long criminal history it makes you wonder why the Malaysian government had a visa waiver program with North Korea in the first place?:
North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Malaysia has canceled its visa waiver arrangement with North Korea amid a diplomatic spat over the assassination of the half brother of the North’s leader, a news report said Thursday.
The cancellation will take effect on March 6, after which North Koreans entering Malaysia will be required to obtain a visa, Malaysian news agency Bernama quoted the country’s deputy prime minister, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, as saying. He cited national security as the reason.
This marks Malaysia’s first tangible action taken against Pyongyang following the assassination of Kim Jong-nam at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Feb. 13. [Yonhap]
Here is the other development regarding the Kim Jong-nam murder case:
Malaysia has decided to release and deport Ri Jong-chol, a 47-year-old North Korean suspect, due to a lack of incriminating evidence, AP reported.
Four North Korean suspects are believed to have fled Malaysia on the day of Kim Jong-nam’s death while three others, including Hyon Kwang-song, the second secretary at the North’s embassy in Malaysia, are wanted for questioning. [Yonhap]
I was curious to why Ri Jong-chol did not flee like the other North Korean agents if he was in fact part of the murder plot. Considering Malaysian authorities had no evidence to convict him it appears he was not involved.
The hypocrisy is quite stunning from the Chinese government considering they are criticizing the ROK for the deployment of the THAAD system for being against Chinese security interests while completely ignoring ROK security interests. If it wasn’t for the Chinese backing of their client state North Korea that has allowed them to pursue missiles and nuclear weapons to threaten the ROK with the THAAD deployment would not be necessary:
As Korea speeds along with the deployment of the U.S.-led Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) system by sealing a land deal with Lotte Group to acquire a golf course in Seongju County, North Gyeongsang, Beijing is threatening diplomatic, economic and possibly military retaliation.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said through a press briefing Tuesday that Beijing is “firmly opposed to and strongly dissatisfied with the fact that” Seoul is working with Washington to accelerate the deployment process of a Thaad battery and “ignoring China’s interests and concerns.”
He added Beijing will “resolutely take necessary actions to safeguard its own security interests,” without specifying what measures it will take.
The Korean Ministry of National Defense earlier that day signed a deal with Lotte International, the operator of the Lotte Skyhill Seongju Country Club, to swap the golf course with government land in Namyangju, Gyeonggi. Lotte’s board of directors agreed on the land swap deal on Monday, after much delay. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Here is where the Chinese threaten the ROK militarily:
Chinese military expert Song Zhongping, a former officer of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Second Artillery Corps, told the state-affiliated Global Times Wednesday that once the Thaad system is deployed to Korea, “Seongju County will appear on the list of the PLA missile system’s strike targets.”
So is the Chinese threatening the ROK with a military strike in support of North Korea because that is what this system is in the ROK to defend against.
So many people think of Kim Jong-un as a crazy madman, however I consider him to be a rational, but ruthless leader. The things he does may seem crazy, but they tend to always have the purpose of maintaining his regime’s survival. Understanding that Kim Jong-un is a rational actor instead of a crazy madman is basically what this Joong Ang Ilbo op-ed is stating:
That the younger Kim is ruthless is unquestionable. But he is not necessarily crazy. If he had an uncontrollable violent temper, his father would not have groomed him to succeed him. His economic policy alone shows him to be practical to an extent. It may be naïve to blame an instable temperament for his acts of brutality and to assume that they underscore the vulnerability of the North Korean state. Such a simple interpretation could distort our North Korean policy.
Tyranny could be his choice. It is certainly his inheritance. Kim Jong-un may be naturally ruthless, or strategically so. It could be a means to maintain power. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin resorted to an infamous reign of terror. Under his command, 5 percent of the Soviet population was killed. He ordered the execution of 700,000 from 1937 to 1938. Such sheer brutality reveal him to be a hideous madman. But such terror was also necessary to build his authority and transform the Soviet Union into a global superpower. Studies of confidential documents by Stalin paint him as a reasonable dictator. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read much more at the link.
Kim does not want to be the next Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi, dictators that were eventually executed by their own people. Kim’s inheritance is a mafia state which his father Kim Jong-il understood that only someone willing to be ruthless could run. That is why his oldest son Kim Jong-nam was passed over because he was simply too nice to run a mafia state. Kim Jong-un on the other hand was clearly the correct choice because he has shown he is willing to take whatever measures are necessary to ensure the regime’s survival. So Kim Jong-un is not crazy, he just ruthless.
The door of the North Korean tourist center in Kuala Lumpur is locked on Feb. 23, 2017, amid an international disturbance created by the recent assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s half-brother Kim Jong-nam in the Southeast Asian nation. (Yonhap)
I just don’t see how North Korea does not get put back on the State Sponsors of Terrorism List after this latest news that they used a weapon of mass destruction to kill someone within a busy airport:
A police officer checks his phone inside the forensic department at Kuala Lumpur Hospital in Malaysia Friday. Police announced the banned chemical weapon VX nerve agent was used in the murder of Kim Jong-nam last week at the airport in Kuala Lumpur. [AP/YONHAP]Malaysian police announced Friday that the poison used to kill Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was VX nerve agent, a type of chemical weapon.
“The chemical substance on the exhibits has been identified as VX nerve agent,” Inspector General Khalid Abu Bakar said in a press briefing on Friday. The inspector general added that the chemical was detected from swabs of Kim’s eyes and face, citing a preliminary toxicology test by the Malaysian government’s chemistry department.
The odorless and colorless VX nerve agent is classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) classifies VX as “the most potent of all nerve agents.”
The Malaysian authorities said they are investigating how the internationally banned chemical weapon made its way into Malaysia. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but something I am wondering is how did the VX kill Kim Jong-nam, but not the two women who had it on their hands when they attacked him? Have the North Koreans developed a new type of VX agent that only kills when it makes contact with the eyes perhaps?
Finally according to the article it is believed that North Korea has 5,000 tons of sarin and VX nerve agents. Seeing how effective this agent was with quickly killing Kim Jong-nam can you imagine what an aerial dispersal of this weapon would do if released in Seoul?
This likely for domestic consumption within North Korea because with all the evidence piled up against North Korea I don’t think anyone outside the country will believe this claim:
Members of Umno Youth, the United Malays National Organization’s youth wing, protest against the killing of Kim Jong-nam outside the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Thursday. North Korea denied Thursday being involved in the killing, saying a Malaysian investigation into the death of one of its nationals is full of “holes and contradictions.” [AP/YONHAP]After South Korean “conservative media” published reports that he was “poisoned to death by two women agents of the General Reconnaissance Bureau of North Korea,” the Malaysian police “recklessly made it an established fact,” the KCNA said.
It said Malaysia pushed for an autopsy of the body without any prior agreement with the North and its representatives.
“Moreover, the Malaysian side clamored for a second autopsy without publishing the results of the first autopsy,” the KCNA said, claiming “the unjust acts of the Malaysian side are timed to coincide with the anti-DPRK conspiratorial racket launched by the South Korean authorities.”
It claimed that South Korean authorities have shown “excessive responses” to the case and that they openly discussed the deployment of a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.
“This proves that the South Korean authorities have long expected the case since it worked out a scenario for it,” it said. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but you have to love the fact that the THAAD issue is even to blame for the murder of Kim Jong-nam. What else could possibly be blamed on THAAD?
