Tag: North Korea

That is what some people are wondering:

Today, North Korea faces the prospect of another significant food shortage and a purported loss of income from China, its largest trading partner and closest among precious few allies.

But are things so bad right now that Pyongyang will be willing to discuss its nuclear weapons program?

“North Korea says its nuclear program means its life,” said Kang Sung Kyu, professor of North Korea Studies at Korea University in Sejong-shi.

Kang is skeptical that North Korea is serious about negotiations, or that any agreements would stand — a valid concern, given how previous deals have fallen apart as Pyongyang repeatedly reneged on key points in the past.

It’s also unclear what role China might play in North Korea’s decision-making.  (……….)

Paik and Kang remain skeptical that talks at this point would accomplish much; Pyongyang agreed to abandon its nuclear program in 2007 after much negotiation, only to resume testing two years later.

However, it does appear that China and the other members of the “six-party talks,” a group of countries that negotiated several now-tattered accords in the 2000s, are ready to talk to North Korea once again.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry recently posted a photo of Russia’s deputy foreign minister and China’s representative for Korean affairs with the following caption: “The two sides exchanged views on the situation on the Korean Peninsula, and on the restarting of the six-party talks.”

China has not provided details on what those views entail.

South Korea, Japan, the U.S., China and Russia have reached “a certain degree of consensus” on how to restart the talks that fell apart in 2008, said Hwang Joon-kook, South Korea’s ambassador to the talks — again without providing details, according to Reuters.   [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link, but supposedly the US government is having talks with North Korea right now in regards to holding talks.  As I have been saying for years now the North Koreans will never give up their nuclear program.  What the North Koreans want in any nuclear talks is to be recognized as a nuclear power like Pakistan has become and with it the dropping of sanctions.  What would the US get out of such a deal?  The North Koreans would probably gives some vague promises of not building more nukes, but the big thing is that they would keep quiet for a few years like they have after past deals so the usual suspects can declare peace in our time and the outgoing administration can leave office without problems from North Korea.  Then later when a new US President takes office the North Koreans will start the cycle of provocations and negotiations all over again and by then North Korea will have a stronger hand with better nukes and missiles to make threats with.

The Black Panther Party’s relations with North Korea.

Here are incredible photos of the military drill that’s freaking out North Korea.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (C) tours a fish processing factory at Kumsan Port, South Hwanghae Province. North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency reported it on March 27, 2015, without elaborating on the timing of the visit. (KCNA-Yonhap)

Via One Free Korea comes the latest story of yet another group of rogue North Korean soldiers rampaging within China:

Two armed North Korean border patrol guards from Sinuiju in North Hamkyung Province reportedly escaped the country and crossed over into China’s Dandong on Tuesday, Daily NK has learned. Of the two, one was captured on Thursday by Chinese public security officials, while the other is still on the run, according to local sources.

Upon discovery of the incident, North Korea’s military authorities immediately alerted Chinese authorities in the border city of Dandong, leading to a large-scale manhunt on the same day and the plastering of posters featuring the soldiers’ images around heavily trafficked areas of Dandong. Going AWOL, particularly while armed, is considered an offense of great magnitude in both North Korea and China.

Three days into the search, one of the soldiers was arrested in a small rural village near Dandong. “A North Korean solider carrying a gun was apprehended in quiet village near Dandong Singu District,” a source based in the border city told Daily NK. “At the time, there were large numbers of public security officials and soldiers on the streets.”

He added, “The solider held a woman hostage shortly before he was captured, creating a standoff with security officials. But in the end he was subdued.”  [Daily NK]

You can read the rest at the link, but One Free Korea has much more on how this is a sign of how the crackdown on the border to prevent guards from accepting bribes from defectors could be leading to these crime sprees within China.

'No way North Korea' — DPRK refused entry to China-led AIIB http://t.co/eY0UBBNbo4

— Casper van der Veen (@caspervdveen) March 29, 2015

The North Koreans claim that the two South Koreans they have detained were not kidnapped from China, but instead detained inside of North Korea:

South Korea on Friday urged North Korea to immediately release two of its citizens detained in the country over alleged espionage, the latest in a series of arrests in the North of foreign nationals.

The North’s state media said late Thursday that the two were detained last year for allegedly collecting confidential state information and attempting to spread “bourgeois lifestyle and culture” in the North at the order of South Korea’s spy agency and the U.S. It identified the men as Kim Kuk Gi and Choe Chun Gil and said the two acknowledged their acts during what was described as a news conference in Pyongyang.

North Korea has occasionally detained South Koreans, Americans and other foreigners on accusations of spying in what analysts say are attempts to wrest outside concessions. Authorities in Pyongyang in the past staged news conferences, during which foreign detainees appeared before the media and made statements that they recant after their releases.

On Friday, South Korea’s Unification Ministry confirmed that Kim and Choe were South Korean citizens but denied they were engaged in espionage operations. Ministry officials could not explain how the two ended up in the North.

“We strongly demand North Korea to quickly release our citizens Kim Kuk Gi and Choe Chun Gil and repatriate them without hesitation,” ministry spokesman Lim Byeong Cheol told reporters in Seoul.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, the country’s main spy agency, denied the North’s accusations of spying.

The North’s Korean Central News Agency said Kim was detained in September in Pyongyang and Choe near the border with China in December.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link, but if true that they were detained inside of North Korea than I believe the ROK government shouldn’t feel pressured to have them released.  If people are stupid enough to travel inside North Korea than they need to be prepared to accept the consequences.

The United Nations is once again highlighting North Korea abysmal human rights record which includes the kidnapping of up to 200,000 foreign nationals:

The UN Human Rights Council on Friday strongly criticised North Korea for the “systematic abduction” of foreigners, after a UN investigation found the country had snatched up to 200,000 foreign nationals.

The resolution, he told the council, was “intended to bring down the system and ideology” of his country.

The adopted text decried North Korea’s “systematic abduction, denial of repatriation and subsequent enforced disappearance of persons, including those from other countries, on a large scale and as a matter of state policy”.

A UN-mandated investigation issued a searing report in February 2014 accusing North Korea of committing human rights violations “without parallel in the contemporary world”, including the abductions of an estimated 200,000 foreign nationals from at least 12 countries.

Most of them were South Koreans left stranded after the 1950-1953 Korean War, but hundreds of others from around the world have since been taken or disappeared while visiting the secretive Stalinist state.  [AFP]

You can read the rest at the link, but the report is timely since they have just kidnapped two more foreign nationals this past week.

Resettlement Program for Defectors Needs Total Overhaul – Editorial http://t.co/CiBZuoLiVS via @EnglishChosun

— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) March 26, 2015

Here is another example of how subversive media is continuing to spread within South Korea:

A $50 portable media player is providing many North Koreans a window to the outside world despite the government’s efforts to keep its people isolated – a symbol of change in one of the world’s most repressed societies.

By some estimates, up to half of all urban North Korean households have an easily concealed “notel”, a small portable media player used to watch DVDs or content stored on USB sticks that can be easily smuggled into the country and passed hand to hand.

People are exchanging South Korean soaps, pop music, Hollywood films and news programs, all of which are expressly prohibited by the Pyongyang regime, according to North Korean defectors, activists and recent visitors to the isolated country.

“The North Korean government takes their national ideology extremely seriously, so the spread of all this media that competes with their propaganda is a big and growing problem for them,” said Sokeel Park of Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), an organization that works with defectors.

“If Pyongyang fails to successfully adapt to these trends, they could threaten the long-term survival of the regime itself.”   [Reuters via the Marmots Hole]

You can read more at the link, but subversive media is better than any sanctions in my opinion at undermining the Kim regime.