Tag: North Korea

North Korea is likely spending their limited resources on what is a prestige project instead of a real military capability for them. As Iranian found out, the U.S. military will sink the North Korean navy very quickly during any conflict:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has overseen a test-firing of strategic cruise missiles from a new destroyer ahead of its commissioning, noting that equipping the navy with nuclear weapons is making “satisfactory progress,” state media reported Thursday.

Kim inspected the Choe Hyon at a shipyard in the western port city of Nampho on Tuesday and Wednesday to review its crew members’ combat training and assess its operational capabilities, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Kim oversaw the launch of sea-to-surface strategic cruise missiles from the destroyer Wednesday, assessing the test as a “core” element of the warship’s operational capabilities.

North Korea’s reference to “strategic” weapons suggests that they could have nuclear capabilities.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Besides making money from sending their Soldiers to fight for Russia, selling them weapons has been quite lucrative for the regime as well:

North Korea is believed to have shipped some 33,000 containers of military supplies, including weapons and ammunition, to Russia as part of its support for Moscow in the war with Ukraine, a military intelligence unit said Sunday.

The shipped volume, in terms of ammunition, could amount to over 15 million 152-mm artillery shells, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) under the defense ministry said in a report submitted to Rep. Kang Dae-sik of the main opposition People Power Party.

The assessment marks an increase from the DIA’s announcement in July last year that about 28,000 containers of military supplies had been shipped from North Korea to Russia.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Once again North Korea is ignoring Lee’s call for talks because they don’t need anything from South Korea. Currently all their needs are being met by the Russians. Whenever the Ukraine war ends and the flow of money from Russia stops that is when you will see the Kim regime open to talks with South Korea in order to start a new revenue stream:

President Lee Jae Myung on Sunday urged North Korea to return to the negotiating table with the United States and join efforts to shape what he called a “new future,” vowing to work with relevant countries to turn the Korean War armistice into a peace regime.

Lee made the remarks in his first address marking the March 1 Independence Movement at the COEX exhibition center in southern Seoul as the nation commemorated the 107th anniversary of the nation’s 1919 independence movement, a watershed event during Japan’s 1910-45 brutal occupation of the Korean Peninsula.

“Since North Korea is formulating and implementing a new five-year plan, I hope that it will swiftly return to the negotiating table and join us in shaping a new future,” Lee said, stressing that “hostility and confrontation serve neither side’s interests.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I guess this reaction to the bombing of Iran from North Korea is to be expected, but the term “gangster-like conduct” is quite interesting coming from a regime known as the Sopranos State:

North Korea on Sunday strongly condemned military strikes against Iran by the United States and Israel, calling them “gangster-like conduct.”

The U.S. and Israel launched a joint attack on Iran on Saturday (U.S. time) in a large-scale military operation that the Iranian state media said killed its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, amid a stalemate in indirect nuclear talks between Washington and Tehran. 

In a statement carried by the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA), Pyongyang said Israel’s attack on Iran was conducted with the active support and backing of the U.S., and that Washington’s subsequent military actions constituted a “thoroughly unlawful act of aggression” and a “gross violation of sovereignty.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Kim Yo-jong had previously been in a cabinet level role five years ago and now she is back in a similar position. Analysts believe this is to solidify Kim family stewardship of the government. My guess is that she may have young kids she wanted to make sure she spent time with and now 5 years later she is ready once again for a more senior position:

Kim Yo-jong, the influential younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, has been promoted to department director of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, the North’s state media reported Tuesday — a move that elevates her to a ministerial rank and further consolidates her position within the inner circle of power in Pyongyang.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said the decision followed an expanded plenary meeting of the Central Committee held a day earlier. Although the report did not specify which department Kim would lead, analysts said she was likely to take charge of the influential propaganda and agitation department, which oversees messaging, ideology and the personality cult surrounding the leadership. Kim previously served as a deputy director in that office and has long been seen as a key architect of the regime’s public statements and media strategy.

The reshuffle also restores Kim as an alternate member of the Politburo, the party’s top decision-making body. She had held a seat there until 2020, and her omission from the leadership roster unveiled at a party congress in January 2021 was widely interpreted by outside observers as either a temporary demotion or a recalibration of her portfolio rather than a genuine fall from favor.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

 I definitely think of better place to spend Lunar New Year’s than in North Korea:

China’s Ambassador to North Korea Wang Yajun and other embassy officials have visited a beach resort area in North Korea on the occasion of the Lunar New Year, state media reported Sunday, raising views on whether Pyongyang is seeking to attract Chinese tourists.

Wang and other members of the Chinese Embassy in North Korea attended the friendly meeting that took place at the Wonsan-Kalma beach resort area the previous day, also attended by the North’s Vice Foreign Minister Pak Myong-ho, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Pyongyang’s foreign ministry hosted a banquet to mark the Lunar New Year at a landmark hotel in the coastal tourist district, the KCNA said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

You know things are bad on the North Korea engagement front when former President Moon’s point man on Kim regime appeasement, Moon Chung-in has largely given up on bilateral talks:

Prospects for inter-Korean dialogue are even more constrained, Moon said, noting that North Korea has formally labelled South Korea a hostile state and cut off nearly all communication channels. Symbolic or technical measures, he added, are unlikely to alter Pyongyang’s broader strategy.

“Suspending loudspeaker broadcasts or softening rhetoric will not change North Korea’s strategic calculus,” Moon said, “The problem is structural, not tactical.”

When assessing the Lee Jae Myung administration’s North Korea policy, Moon said that the government’s intentions matter less than the external environment that shapes Pyongyang’s choices. He pointed out that North Korea currently has little incentive to engage, given that it can withstand pressure with the backing of Russia and China.

“It’s not that Seoul is unwilling to talk,” Moon said. “North Korea simply does not feel the need to respond.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but I have been saying for months that these attempts to start talks with North Korea are pointless. They have no reason to pursue talks with the ROK when the Russians are currently filling all their economic and security needs.

At this point I don’t think there is much to talk about in regards to DPRK missile launches other than just confirming what was fired:

South Korea, the United States and Japan discussed North Korea’s latest missile launch and coordination efforts in three-way phone talks the previous day, Seoul’s foreign ministry said Wednesday. 

Baek Yong-jin, director general for the Korean Peninsula policy, spoke by phone with Dan Cintron, acting U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state, and Otsuka Kengo, deputy director general of the Japanese foreign ministry’s Asia and Oceania bureau, the ministry said. 

On Tuesday, South Korea’s military said the North fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles toward the East Sea, in yet another military muscle-flexing by Pyongyang ahead of its upcoming key party congress. 

North Korean state media said Wednesday it has test-fired an upgraded large-caliber multiple rocket launcher system, with leader Kim Jong-un in attendance.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.