If the White House settles for something less than full denuclearization a deal can likely be reached with North Korea:
U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday he will make deals with North Korea “very quickly” if reelected in November.
Trump was referring to his administration’s stalled efforts to get North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for concessions.
“If and when we win, we will make deals with Iran very quickly. We’ll make deals with North Korea very quickly,” he said during a press conference in Bedminster, New Jersey.
“Now whatever happened to the word North Korea? You haven’t seen that, have you?” he continued. “If I didn’t win the election in 2016, our country would now be — maybe it would be over by now — but in war with North Korea.”
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but the best deal North Korea will ever agree to is “pretend denuclearization“.
The faces in the Unification Ministry may change but the goal remains the same, find a way to avoid sanctions to send bulk cash transfers to North Korea:
“I’ll actively look for ways to restart the Mount Kumgang tour project,” he said while visiting Jejin Station in Goseong, northeast of Seoul, near the Demilitarized Zone that separates two Koreas. “The resumption of the tour program will send a message of peace on the Korean Peninsula and revive the economy of border regions.”
The minister also said he will go ahead with plans to reconnect the rail network to North Korea in a bid to create a new economic order on the Korean Peninsula.
During his confirmation hearing earlier this month, Lee said he would look for a “creative solution” to restart the tour program to North Korea’s scenic mountains in the form of individual tours as a way to improve inter-Korean relations without violating international sanctions imposed on Pyongyang.
Started in 2003, the project was suspended after a South Korean tourist was shot dead near the mountain resort in 2008. The program’s formal resumption requires a sanctions waiver, as it involves bulk cash transfer to the North.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
It looks like North Korea has found a way to blame South Korea for coronavirus cases in their country:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un convened an emergency politburo meeting of the Workers’ Party and adopted the “maximum emergency system” against coronavirus after a defector returned home from South Korea with virus symptoms, state media reported Sunday.
During the meeting held on Saturday, Kim also said he took “the preemptive measure of totally blocking Kaesong” after the “runaway” returned to the border city on July 19 after crossing the military demarcation line, three years after fleeing to the South, the Korean Central News Agency said.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but the coronavirus has likely entered North Korea a long time ago from North Koreans moving back and forth across the Chinese border. The Kim regime claims there has been no coronavirus cases which few people believe. Now they can come out and claim they actually do have coronavirus cases and the South Koreans are to blame for it.
By the way has DMZ border security gotten so weak that people can just walk across over to Kaeseong now?
It looks like the North Korean gulags will have a few more people in them:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un strongly criticized officials for carrying out the construction of a large-scale general hospital “in a careless manner” and ordered the replacement of all of those responsible, state media said Monday.
Kim made the remarks during a “field guidance” trip to the construction site for Pyongyang General Hospital, one of his top-priority projects he has vowed to complete by Oct. 10, the 75th founding anniversary of the ruling Workers’ Party. He attended its groundbreaking ceremony in March, calling it a “crucial task” for the country’s public health.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
I think it is safe to say that investigation this will go nowhere:
South Korean prosecutors have begun an investigation into North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sister and the North’s military chief on charges of blowing up an inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong last month, officials said Thursday.
The unprecedented and symbolic probe into Kim Yo-jong, the sister now serving as the first vice department director of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Central Committee, and Army Gen. Pak Jong-chon, chief of the General Staff of the North Korean army, came after a South Korean lawyer filed a criminal complaint against them over the Kaesong office demolition in mid-June.
Seoul-based lawyer Lee Kyung-jae filed the complaint against the North Korean figures with the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office on July 8, and the case was assigned to the office’s public investigation division on Monday, according to the officials informed of the case.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
South Korea’s Unification Minister nominee has essentially said that he plans to find ways to work around sanctions to pay off North Korea:
The government has hinted that it will seek to revamp the beleaguered South Korea-U.S. working group, a forum to coordinate North Korea-related issues, as part of its plan to push for more inter-Korean cooperation.
Korea Times
The organization, set up in November 2018, has taken flak for allegedly hindering progress in inter-Korean ties due to its excessively harsh standards adopted on Pyongyang, and there have been growing calls here for restructuring its operation or even dismantling it.
Lee In-young, the unification minister nominee, said Monday that he plans to distinguish what the government can do on its own with the North from what it can do under the format of the working group.
“If I take office, I will review what the working group has done so far and take additional measures (to promote inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation), based on my ideas regarding inter-Korean affairs,” Lee told reporters upon arriving at the Office of Inter-Korean Dialogue to prepare for his National Assembly confirmation hearing.
You can read more at the link, but as I have been saying this is why the Kim regime blew up the Inter-Korean Liaison Office; to force North Korea to separate from the U.S.’s North Korea policy and violate sanctions. If South Korea finds ways to violate sanctions that will be a green light to other nations to do so as well.
