Tag: North Korea

The North Korean sent off some fireworks after President Biden left the region:

 North Korea fired three ballistic missiles Wednesday morning off its eastern coast, prompting the United States and South Korea to respond with a show of force of their own launches.

North Korea’s missiles, fired hours after President Joe Biden wrapped up his first presidential trip to Seoul and Tokyo, came from the Sunan area, where the regime’s airport is located, according to the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

The three missiles were fired at 6 a.m., 6:37 a.m. and 6:42 a.m. The first, believed to be an intercontinental ballistic missile, flew roughly 224 miles at a peak altitude of 336 miles; the second “disappeared” at an altitude of 12 miles; and the third, believed to be a short-range ballistic missile, flew about 472 miles at an altitude of 37 miles, according to South Korea’s military.

Stars & Stripes

Here is what the US and the ROK did in response:

Following the launches, U.S. Forces Korea announced in an unsigned press release that it had fired surface-to-surface missiles toward its eastern coast “to demonstrate the ability of the combined [U.S.-South Korea] force to respond quickly to crisis events.”

USFK, which is responsible for roughly 28,500 troops on the Korean Peninsula, said in the release it used the Army’s Tactical Missile System and South Korea’s Hyunmu-2 missile system for the live-fire exercise.

South Korea’s military also conducted an armed exercise consisting of 30 South Korean F-15K jets, the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement Wednesday.

You can read more at the link, but the missile tests are what I thought was the most likely provocation the Kim regime would do. What to watch for next is a nuclear test. I think this will be tied to any increased rhetoric from the US and ROK condemning the North in the coming days. I guess we will see what happens.

However, if you ask someone on the Korean left they will say that the ROK has not appeased the Kim regime enough. If you just appease them a bit more than peace in our time will break out:

President Yoon Suk-yeol said the time for appeasing North Korea is over in an interview with CNN, and that he expects any new inter-Korean talks to be initiated by leader Kim Jong-un.    
   
“I think the ball is in Chairman Kim’s court,” Yoon told CNN’s Paula Hancocks in an exclusive interview aired Monday. “It is his choice to start a dialogue with us.”  
   
The remarks followed Yoon’s first summit with U.S. President Joe Biden in Seoul Saturday, an opportunity for the allies to coordinate the policies on Pyongyang amid increased missile threats from the North. Some military analysts believe North Korea could be preparing for a possible seventh nuclear test or an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch.    
   
Yoon said that he is against bending over backwards to please North Korea. “Just to escape North Korean provocation or conflict temporarily is not something that we should do,” said Yoon. “Many call it servile diplomacy, but the policy of being over-concerned about the other side’s feelings does not work and has proven to be a failure in the past five years.”  
   
He was referring to the policy of his predecessor Moon Jae-in, whose emphasis on dialogue and peaceful reconciliation led to the first North-U.S. summit in 2018. Talks collapsed in February 2019 after a second North-U.S. summit in Hanoi. Yoon has taken a more hard-line stance, more in line with the Biden administration’s “calibrated and practical” approach to the North.    
   
But Yoon stressed, “I do not want North Korea to collapse. My hope is for North Korea to prosper alongside South Korea.”  
   
Yoon said he wants a “shared and common prosperity on the Korean Peninsula” but underscored that enhancing North Korea’s nuclear capability is neither helpful nor conducive to “maintaining international peace.”  

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but all the decades of North Korean appeasement has accomplished is provide funding for the Kim regime’s nuclear and missile programs. Besides providing regime security, the Kim regime is now using these same programs to try and extort money from the ROK and the international community.

I guess we will see if the North Koreans conduct a nuclear test during President Biden’s trip to South Korea. I doubt they will because that would be extremely provocative, however I would not be surprised if they did one shortly after such as during the Memorial Day weekend. However, I would not be surprised if they did a missile test during President Biden’s visit:

Excavation work at North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear testing site suggests the regime is gearing up for a seventh nuclear test, according to a U.S.-based think tank.    
   
Beyond Parallel, a North Korea analysis portal operated by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said that Pyongyang is making preparations at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in Kilju County, North Hamgyong Province based on satellite images captured on Tuesday.  
   
Photos of Punggye-ri – the only known nuclear testing facility in North Korea – shows “continued activity outside the new portal” for a tunnel leading into an underground test site. Support equipment around the tunnel’s entrance indicates ongoing work inside the tunnel.  
   
Further evidence cited by Beyond Parallel for the possibility of an upcoming test included changes in lumber piles, the renovation of existing buildings, and construction of new buildings in the main administration and support areas in and around the test site, suggesting a continued expansion of the support infrastructure. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest scam by North Korea to avoid sanctions on the country because of their nuclear and missile programs:

The U.S. warned businesses Monday not to be fooled into hiring IT staff from North Korea taking advantage of the anonymity of remote working.  
   
In an advisory issued by the State Department, Treasury Department and the FBI, the U.S. government said the use of freelance IT staff by the North was a way for it to bypass U.S. and United Nations sanctions and earn foreign exchange for its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.  
   
“There are thousands of DPRK IT workers both dispatched overseas and located within the DPRK, generating revenue that is remitted back to the North Korean government,” the advisory stated, referring to the North by the acronym for its official name, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.  
   
“These IT workers take advantage of existing demands for specific IT skills, such as software and mobile application development, to obtain freelance employment contracts from clients around the world, including in North America, Europe, and East Asia,” the advisory said. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.