North Korea’s response to Australia’s announcement of sanctions enforcement perfectly justifies why they are enforcing sanctions in the first place:
Mike Pence with Julie Bishop in Sydney on Saturday. North Korea has criticised Bishop over her comments about further sanctions on the country. Photograph: Pool/Getty Images
North Korea has bluntly warned Australia of a possible nuclear strike if Canberra persists in “blindly and zealously toeing the US line”.
North Korea’s state new agency (KCNA) quoted a foreign ministry spokesman castigating Australian foreign minister, Julie Bishop, after she said the rogue nation would be subject to further Australian sanctions and for “spouting a string of rubbish against the DPRK over its entirely just steps for self-defence”.
“If Australia persists in following the US moves to isolate and stifle the DPRK and remains a shock brigade of the US master, this will be a suicidal act of coming within the range of the nuclear strike of the strategic force of the DPRK,” the report said.
“The Australian foreign minister had better think twice about the consequences to be entailed by her reckless tongue-lashing before flattering the US.”
Bishop had said this week on the ABC’s AM program that North Korea’s nuclear weapons program posed a “serious threat” to Australia unless it was stopped by the international community. [The Guardian]
As I have always said, from the Kim regime perspective it makes perfect sense to develop nuclear weapons and there is nothing anyone can do diplomatically that can change his mind:
North Korea said on Saturday U.S. missile strikes against a Syrian airfield on Friday were “an unforgivable act of aggression” that showed its decision to develop nuclear weapons was “the right choice a million times over”.
The response by North Korea’s foreign ministry, carried by the official KCNA news agency, was the first since U.S. warships in the Mediterranean Sea launched dozens of missiles at a Syrian air base which the Pentagon says was involved in a chemical weapons attack earlier in the week.
“The U.S. missile attack against Syria is a clear and unforgivable act of aggression against a sovereign state and we strongly condemn this,” KCNA quoted an unnamed spokesman for the North Korean foreign ministry as saying.
“The reality of today proves our decision to strengthen our military power to stand against force with force was the right choice a million times over,” KCNA said. [Reuters]
It figures the North Koreans would send a congratulatory message to a regime that likes to use chemical weapons on their own citizens:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has sent a congratulatory message to Syria over the founding anniversary of the country’s ruling party, Pyongyang’s media said Friday, amid global condemnation against Damascus’s suspected chemical weapon attack on civilians.
The North’s leader sent the message to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to mark the 70th anniversary of the creation of the controlling Ba’ath party, according to Rodong Sinmun, North Korea’s main newspaper.
The move is seen to be aimed at showing friendly ties between Pyongyang and Damascus as about 90 people were killed by the Syrian government’s suspected uses of chemical weapons Tuesday against a rebel-held area in the northern part of the country.
“The two countries’ friendly relations will be strengthened and developed, given their fight against imperialism,” Kim was quoted as saying by the newspaper. (…….)
The U.S. launched a barrage of cruise missiles at an air base on Thursday night (local time) in retaliation for the latest chemical weapon attack for which Washington blames Assad. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but long time ROK Drop readers may remember that in 2007 North Korean scientists were killed by an Israeli bombing strike into Syria that destroyed the nuclear reactor the Kim regime was helping the Syrians to construct. Now a decade later the North Korean nuclear reactor may be the next one facing a bombing strike.
A ROK Drop favorite Nicholas Eberstadt has an article published on the Fox News website that discusses his viewpoint in regards to what to do about the North Korean nuclear program:
Nicholas Eberstadt
As bizarre and satire-prone as the North Korean regime’s buffoonish-looking Kim Jong-Un and his servile courtiers may be, Pyongyang’s leadership is neither irrational nor suicidal. The rationale behind this confrontation would actually be to achieve a maximum of strategic gain with a minimum of actual destruction and violence.
The basic idea is to force Washington to blink in an escalating crisis on the Korean peninsula—a crisis of Pyongyang’s own making, at a time and under circumstances of Pyongyang’s own choosing.
If America hesitates or climbs down in the face of a future, stage-managed exercise in tactical North Korean aggression, Pyongyang will have undermined the credibility of the U.S. military alliance with South Korea.
The formal end to that alliance, and the exit of American troops from Korea, could quickly follow. (…….)
Likewise more and better missile defense: the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems against ballistic missiles that the U.S. has offered South Korea and Japan is a good step, and so is moving forward in earnest on missile defense for the USA.
As for weakening the DPRK’s military economy, the foundation for all its offensive capabilities: we should put Pyongyang back on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list—it never should have been removed in 2008. Sanctions with genuine bite should be implemented—the dysfunctional DPRK economy is uniquely susceptible to them.
The United Nations has already gotten a comprehensive report on North Korea’s grisly human rights record from its Commission of Inquiry on the situation in the DPRK: let governments of conscience now seek international criminal accountability for North Korea’s leadership.
Then there is the China question. It is by no means impossible for America and her allies to pressure the DPRK if China does not cooperate. That said: it is time for Beijing to pay a penalty for its support for the most odious regime on the planet today. [Fox News]
You can read more at the link, but I fully agree with Eberstadt’s statement that people need to understand that the Kim regime is not irrational or suicidal. From their perspective everything they have been doing makes sense. A nuclear deterrent ensures regime survival; their provocation cycles have historically been successful in getting concessions from South Korea and the US. Why stop now?
This was actually good advice which so far the Kim regime has been following:
Robert Gallucci
A former chief U.S. nuclear negotiator with North Korea said he advised diplomats from Pyongyang to refrain from greeting a new U.S. administration with nuclear or missile tests when he met with them in Malaysia in October.
Robert Gallucci, who negotiated a now-defunct 1994 nuclear freeze deal with the North, held meetings in Kuala Lumpur on Oct. 21-22 with senior diplomats from North Korea, including Vice Foreign Minister Han Song-ryol and Deputy U.N. Ambassador Jang Il-hun.
“When I met North Korean representatives for Track II discussions in Kuala Lumpur, I took the opportunity to advise them that they should avoid greeting a new American administration with new nuclear or ballistic missile tests, or any aggressive moves towards the U.S. or its allies,” Gallucci said.
“I suggested that whomever the next president turned out to be, they would not appreciate such a greeting and would undoubtedly respond with appropriate vigor and certainly not with an inclination to negotiate any time soon,” he said in a statement prepared for a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing set for Tuesday. [Yonhap]
Here is what else Mr. Gallucci had to say about what other North Korea experts have been advocating for:
Gallucci said that the U.S. should not seek anything short of North Korea’s complete denuclearization, voicing concern that too many analysts are now arguing that all the U.S. needs is to stop the North Korean nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs from growing.
Seeking such a freeze is “unrealistic and dangerous,” he said.
Entering into negotiations with the North without the U.S. declaring its goal of a non-nuclear North Korea would “appear to have the United States legitimize the North’s nuclear weapons status, and thus increase the likelihood that before too long South Korea and then Japan would follow suit,” Gallucci said.
The way I look at it is that Gallucci wants the US to negotiate for something the North Koreans will never give up. What deal could the US possibly offer for the Kim regime to give up their nuclear weapons? I have not heard one person give a realistic option on what the incentive would be for the Kim regime to give up its nukes. This is like going into negotiations with the Taliban and asking them to give up radical Islam, that is how important the nuclear weapons are to the Kim regime. Nuclear weapons is something that legitimizes and assures regime survival, just like radical Islam is to the Taliban.
There have been many North Korea experts arguing that President Trump should pursue a deal with North Korea to freeze their nuclear and ICBM programs. One US expert has now called any freeze deal with North Korea a “mirage”:
David Straub
Most proponents are more careful than Mr. Clapper and refer to a “freeze” rather than a “cap.” A cap suggests U.S. acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear weapons state for the indefinite future. Doing that would destroy U.S. credibility not only with its allies in Seoul and Tokyo but throughout the world as well. It would also undermine the global nuclear nonproliferation regime and signal to Iran that it could violate its own nuclear agreement with impunity.
Most cap proponents understand this and so talk publicly instead about a freeze, arguing that it would just be a steppingstone on the way to elimination. This is disingenuous because they themselves don’t believe Pyongyang will ever give up the nuclear weapons it already has or even fully stop its nuclear development activities under a freeze.
In truth, a freeze now would just be a cap in disguise. The entire international community would also regard it as such, unlike in earlier years when the North’s nuclear capabilities were not as advanced and their elimination was still considered possible.
A negotiated freeze is like a mirage, an illusion that recedes as quickly as one tries to approach it. That applies both to what we would need Pyongyang to do and what Pyongyang would demand of us in return for a freeze. [The Hill]
You can read more at the link, but the way I look at it is that any freeze deal should not include a peace treaty and only scaling down of US-ROK military exercises plus some lifting of sanctions. A peace treaty should only be offered in return for the complete dismantlement of their nuclear and ICBM programs which we know they will never do.
The freeze deal should then have strong language in it that any non-compliance by North Korea opens them to a bombing strike to ensure compliance. Including bombing strike wording then gives the US world opinion on its side if it needs to use force and makes it in the Chinese regime’s interest to ensure their benefactors in Pyongyang comply with the deal.
Here is the status of the unofficial talks between the US and North Korea going on in Malaysia:
In this two separate photos taken on Oct. 22, 2016, in a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, former U.S. deputy nuclear negotiator Joseph R. DeTrani (L) and North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations Jang Il-hun (R) talk to reporters on the sidelines of their informal dialogue held from Friday to Saturday over pending issues. (Yonhap)
A North Korean delegation led by its deputy foreign minister held talks with former government officials of the United States here for a second day on Saturday to discuss pending issues such as the North’s nuclear and missile tests.
The U.S.-North Korea contact, although it is informal or unofficial, came after North Korea conducted its fifth and most powerful nuclear test in September, just eight months after its previous nuke test.
“I came here through Beijing,” the North’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations Jang Il-hun told Yonhap News Agency. As for topics discussed during the dialogue, he said the two sides talked about several “pending issues and each other’s thoughts on them.”
Asked whether there was an offer from the U.S. to stop its nuclear and missile tests, he fell short of clarifying, but said, “hopely moving forward.”
North Korea’s vice foreign minister Han Song-ryol was also among the five-member delegation. The four-member U.S. delegation included Robert Gallucci, who negotiated a landmark 1994 nuclear freeze deal with Pyongyang; former U.S. deputy nuclear negotiator Joseph R. DeTrani; and Leon Sigal, director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) in New York.
Sigal told Yonhap News that the two parties mainly discussed the North’s nuclear and missile issues during the informal dialogue.
The North stuck to its stance that it wants to sign a peace treaty with the U.S. before it stops its nuclear and missile programs. But the U.S. reiterated its position that scrapping nuclear programs should be put before anything else, Sigal said. [Yonhap]
I wonder what the Chinese response would be to someone threatening to launch a preemptive nuclear attack on them?:
North Korea is prepared to launch the big one.
A top North Korean official is warning that the isolated nation is ready to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the US if necessary, NBC News reported Monday.
Lee said the US does not have a “monopoly” on pre-emptive nuclear strikes.
“If we see that the US would do it to us, we would do it first,” Lee said. “We have the technology.”
North Korea may also conduct more nuclear tests, including a “sixth, a seventh or an eighth” trial, Lee said, adding that the hardened stance comes amid “increasingly aggressive” drills by the US and South Korea. [New York Post]
