Tag: North Korea

The WHO is lending creditability to North Korea that they are in fact free of the coronavirus:

North Korea has conducted coronavirus tests on around 35,000 people so far but found no infections, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday, amid the global spread of the more contagious delta variant.

According to the WHO’s weekly report on COVID-19, 718 North Koreans underwent virus tests from June 25 to July 1, bringing the total number of tested citizens to 32,512, but none were found to have been infected.

Korea Times via a reader tip

You can read more at the link, but I guess it is easier to enforce quarantines when you have shoot to kill orders. Fortunately no other government has gone this far to enforce coronavirus restrictions.

The fact that China did not make a big deal out of this 60 year treaty anniversary with North Korea shows they maybe relations are not as tight as they may want people to think:

The leaders of North Korea and China pledged greater mutual assistance and cooperation on the 60th anniversary of their treaty of friendship through a letter exchange, according to the North’s state news agency on Sunday.  
   
The North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released on Sunday the full texts of the letters exchanged by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Chinese President Xi Jinping marking the 60th anniversary of the Sino-North Korean Mutual Aid and Cooperation Friendship Treaty, which was signed on July 11, 1961.  
   
In his letter to Xi, Kim described the friendship between the two countries as growing in vitality, especially in the face of what he called “hostile forces” around the world.  
   
“Despite the unprecedentedly complicated international situation in recent years, comradely trust and militant friendship between the DPRK and China grow stronger day by day,” Kim wrote, according to the KCNA.  
   
Xi wrote back that he looked forward to strengthening “strategic communication” between the two countries and called the 1961 treaty as laying “important political and legal foundations for consolidating the militant friendship” between China and the North. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Listening to Kim Jong-un it appears they have had an outbreak of COVID somewhere in North Korea:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said a “crucial case” has happened that could threaten the safety of his people and country in nationwide anti-epidemic efforts, state media reported Wednesday, spurring speculation that a coronavirus outbreak could have hit parts of the country.

Kim made the remarks as he presided over an extended politburo meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party on Tuesday, accusing senior officials of neglecting their duties in carrying out measures needed to fight the global pandemic, according to the Korean Central News Agency.

“Senior officials in charge of important state affairs neglected the implementation of the important decisions of the party on taking organizational, institutional, material, scientific and technological measures … associated with the worldwide health crisis, and thus caused a crucial case of creating a great crisis in ensuring the security of the state and safety of the people and entailed grave consequences,” Kim was quoted as saying by the KCNA.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but considering how the Kim regime can literally lock people down they will likely quickly get this under control.

Kim Yo-jong is out playing the bad cop again:

The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said Tuesday that the United States has “wrong” expectations after U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan called Kim’s comments about dialogue with the U.S. an “interesting signal.”

The statement from Kim Yo-jong also came a day after U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Sung Kim said the U.S. has offered to meet with the North “anywhere, anytime without preconditions” and looks forward to Pyongyang responding positively to the overtures.

“I heard the news that the U.S. National Security Advisor had mentioned that he regards the position towards the U.S. as an ‘interesting signal,'” she said in the statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency said.

“A Korean proverb says that ‘In a dream, what counts most is to read it, not to have it,'” she said. “It seems that the U.S. may interpret the situation in such a way as to seek a comfort for itself. The expectation, which they chose to harbour the wrong way, would plunge them into a greater disappointment.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but like I have said before, the Kim regime will meet when they feel like they will get something of value out of it for little to nothing in return. So far the Biden administration is not willing to offer that.

Good luck with this:

The United States has offered to meet with North Korea “anywhere, anytime without preconditions” and looks forward to a positive response from Pyongyang, the new U.S. special envoy for the North said Monday.

Ambassador Sung Kim made the remarks during trilateral talks with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts, Noh Kyu-duk and Takehiro Funakoshi, in Seoul, where they discussed North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s recent remarks that his country should be ready for both dialogue and confrontation.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the Kim regime will meet when they feel like they will get something of value out of it. Kim Jong-un met with former President Trump because Moon Jae-in gave him assurances that Trump was ready for a large deal. Trump was close to signing a deal, but Kim would only give up part of his nuclear weapons program and thus why diplomacy failed.

Moon now has little creditability with Pyongyang and the Biden administration is not offering anything new thus why diplomacy is currently at a stalemate.

Doug Bandow writes that it is time for the U.S. to give up its policy of denuclearizing North Korea:

After three decades of insisting that the DPRK can never be allowed to possess nuclear weapons, Washington must confront the failure of U.S. policy. American policymakers should consider accepting North Korea as a nuclear state and treating it as a normal country.

It no longer makes sense to talk of preventing the North from developing nuclear weapons. It already has them. There is great uncertainty as to how many nuclear weapons the Kim regime has or could potentially make—around sixty is a common estimate. However, that could be just the start. The Rand Corporation and Asan Institute figure Pyongyang could possess some two hundred by just 2027, a scant six years away. That would give it more nuclear weapons than currently possessed by India, Israel, and Pakistan. (………..)

Most realistic would be a focus on arms control, with the hope of developing a relationship that might lead to denuclearization. Even such a more limited objective would be advanced by developing a broader and more normal relationship. Meaning diplomatic ties—officials contacts are especially important with potentially dangerous adversaries—cultural exchanges, and economic ties.

The National Interest

You can read more at the link, but I agree with Bandow that denuclearization is now a fantasy. What is more realistic is negotiating away North Korea’s ICBM program, capping their number of nuclear weapons, and stopping nuclear proliferation. Without ICBMs their nukes cannot threaten the United States and it is in the US’s interest that North Korea not sell nuclear technology abroad like they have done in the past.

Here is the latest on Christopher Ahn who was a North Korean activist that broke into the North Korean embassy in Spain:

Warmbier, along with her husband Fred, appeared in a Los Angeles courtroom last week to ask the U.S. government to stop the extradition of Ahn, who served in Fallujah, Iraq, and was arrested when he returned from Spain in 2019.

He was part of an activist group that helps high-level North Korean diplomats and officials defect. Spanish authorities are asking the Biden administration to send Ahn back to face charges that he and his group broke into the North Korean embassy in Madrid. 

But Ahn and the group, Free Joseon, or Free North Korea, maintain that they were invited in as part of a planned mission to help Kim’s ambassador defect, but the diplomat got cold feet at the last moment. 

Fox News

You can read more at the link, but the fear is that be extraditing Ahn that he will be more vulnerable to being killed by North Korea. Considering Kim Jong-un had has own brother killed inside a international airport, it is easy to believe they could pull off a hit job on Ahn as well.

Considering the poor shape many North Korean ships are in, it is surprising more of the don’t sink like this:

 A North Korean ship presumed to be on a U.N. Security Council blacklist has sunk in waters off Japan, a source said Sunday. 

The 5,500-ton freighter Chongbong sank in waters off Shimane Prefecture in western Japan at around 2:32 p.m. on Saturday, according to the source from Japan’s maritime authorities.

The vessel appeared to have been on its way to Songrim Port in North Korea’s southwestern province of Hwanghae after leaving Chongjin, a port in its northeastern region.

It was said to have been carrying about 6,500 tons of iron when it sunk. All 21 crew members on board were rescued by a North Korean oil ship passing nearby, the source said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.