Author Archives for Grant Montgomery

Chinese leader urged Trump to ease North Korea sanctions ‘in due course’

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Chinese President Xi Jinping urged U.S. President Donald Trump last month at the G20 summit in Osaka to show flexibility in dealings with North Korea and ease sanctions on the country “in due course,” China’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday.

China signed up for strict U.N. sanctions following repeated North Korean nuclear and missile tests but also has suggested they could be eased as a reward for good behavior.

A senior U.S. official said U.S. policy continued to be to maintain sanctions on North Korea until it gives up its nuclear weapons.

After Trump recently met Kim at the Demilitarized Zone along the North’s border with South Korea, Trump announced that both sides would set up teams to push forward stalled talks aimed at getting North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, said they would likely happen “sometime in July.”

[Reuters]

North Korean defectors head back to school in the South to ‘re-educate’ themselves

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North Korea claims a 100 per cent literacy rate and boasts that its free compulsory education indicates the superiority of its socialist system. But those who escape from the impoverished country often struggle in the South from a lack of basic knowledge.

One of the first things North Korean defector Ri Kwang-myong, 31, did after reaching the South was to go back to school – 12 years after finishing his education.  Ri is among a handful of adult students at Wooridul School in Seoul, an educational haven for North Korean students too old, or lagging academically and so unable to go to appropriate state schools.

One of the most important subjects in the North Korean education curriculum is revolutionary studies, which focuses on the ruling Kim family. Lee Mi-yeon, a former kindergarten teacher in the North who fled in 2010, said: “The [Kim family] are taught as mythical, God-like figures who created the country and made grenades out of pine cones.”

And for many, education is also disrupted by grinding poverty or their long journey to freedom. Lee Song-hee, a 27-year-old student at Wooridul School, said that after only four months of junior school in the North she had to drop out to help her mother as they struggled to earn a living.

At the very least, once in South Korea re-education in culture, language, social studies and history is essential.

[South China Morning Post]

“Denuclearization Lite”

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Over the past couple of weeks, there have been increasing signs that the Trump administration – and particularly the president himself – is moderating its position on North Korea’s stockpile of nuclear weapons. Gone are the adamant statements that the U.S. will only accept complete, immediate and irreversible denuclearization.

No serious observer of the Korean situation in general and Kim Jong Un in particular would bet that the impetuous young leader would ever willingly surrender his nuclear weapons. They are obviously his best guarantee against U.S.-imposed regime change. As the certainty of this has sunk in for the Trump team, they are seeking another path to a demonstrable foreign policy “win” that can be touted in the run-up to the 2020 election.

While the ultimate shape of what might be termed “denuclearization lite” remains unclear, one can envision the general outline. For starters, the U.S. would likely demand a full, verifiable accounting of North Korea’s active nuclear and missile programs, with specific geographic positions identified. The U.S. could also push for a reduction in the total stockpile to a number that international inspectors could keep under permanent observation, say 50 warheads of a specified level of kilotons each. The warheads would be held in a small number of locations, three or so, each with a technical oversight system (cameras, electronic monitors) to alert inspectors if the facilities were breached. There could be a similar plan for the launcher systems, but they would be based different parts of the country than the warheads. All of this would be verified by international teams, which would have a mandate to inspect the facilities at any time.

In exchange, the North would receive sanctions relief and a large amount of development aid, although perhaps not of the kind Trump famously proposed for North Korea’s beaches in his first meeting with Kim: “Boy, look at that view. Wouldn’t that make a great condo?”

There are plenty of valid objections to such a scheme. One is that Trump wouldn’t be delivering fully on the problem he has correctly identified: Making sure Kim can’t attack the U.S. with a nuclear weapon. On the other hand, America and its allies live under that threat from Russia and China, and are “comfortable” with other nuclear-armed nations such as India, Israel and Pakistan.   

[Read James Stavridis’ full Opinion piece in Bloomberg]

What really happened at the North Korean Embassy in Madrid?

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[According to the Free Joseon official website:] In early 2019, Christopher Ahn, Adrian Hong, and their colleagues – as part of The Provisional Government of Free Joseon (formerly called Cheollima Civil Defense) – traveled to Madrid, Spain, to rescue North Korean diplomats who had requested their help to defect.

According to Spanish media reports, Adrian Hong, Christopher Ahn and others were welcomed into the embassy in broad daylight by a defecting North Korean diplomat. More footage obtained by Fox News reportedly shows the men interviewing diplomats who wished to defect to freedom. At this time, Spanish court documents indicate that a North Korean woman, who presumably sought to prevent her colleagues from defecting, jumped from a window and alerted local Spanish police to what she fabricated as an ‘assault’ and ‘raid.’

The North Korean diplomats who originally intended to defect witnessed a heavily armed Spanish police force positioning outside the embassy, and understandably abandoned their plans to defect out of fear of being repatriated back to North Korea to face certain torture and execution.

According to Spanish court documents and media reports, Ahn, Hong and others engaged in nearly 5 hours of conversation and interviews with the North Korean diplomats who had wished to defect. Given the likelihood that they were to be arrested by Spanish police for this rescue attempt, media reports then described how the rescue team escaped the embassy and immediately returned to the United States.

Adrian Hong then reportedly arranged a meeting with the FBI in New York where he volunteered the intelligence, including what is likely an encryption cipher used by the current North Korean regime to plan assassinations and arms sales abroad that threaten the United States homeland. Rather than demonstrating gratitude, the involved United States Government officials, who as per media reports have become increasingly desperate to appease the current North Korean totalitarian regime, allegedly took the critical intelligence and then leaked information on the identities of Christopher Ahn, Adrian Hong, and their fellow rescuers.

Spanish court documents show that Madrid then issued extradition warrants based solely on the information provided by the United States and the false testimonies of North Korean diplomats.

Christopher Ahn, Adrian Hong, and the rest of the rescue team risked their lives to deliver North Korean defectors to safety, and are now high priority targets of a regime that has committed countless acts of brazen assassination.

[Source: Freedom for Free Joseon]

North Korean refugee: Why is the US, Spain punishing us?

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The following is authored by a North Korean defector, and a member of the Free Joseon, who was part of the group who entered the North Korean Embassy in Madrid on February 22, 2019:

I am a North Korean refugee. After being orphaned as a child, I faced hunger daily and fled alone as a young teenager to China before getting captured, repatriated and sentenced to forced labor and starvation in an internment camp. I witnessed public executions, suicides, and mass starvation, the everyday atrocities in an evil totalitarian regime.

I am grateful to have experienced freedom and a full stomach. My friends and family and millions of my countrymen have not experienced such luxuries. The world has forgotten them.

When I learned of the existence of the North Korean dissident group  Provisional Government of Free Joseon, I was overwhelmed with joy and relief. Finally, I had discovered a group of people who felt a personal responsibility to stop the crimes against humanity in my homeland. …I found my purpose and my destiny: to use the privileges I had been given as an adult to help save those left behind. Those who still live in the hell I was freed from.

Fast forward to February 2019. I was at the North Korean embassy in Spain to help a North Korean diplomat defect. Stepping inside the embassy was like being transported back to North Korea. The walls were lined with propaganda singing praises to North Korea’s leaders. Each room had portraits of the leaders – watching your every move and thought, peering into your soul. … They were the faces of the leaders who had driven their people into poverty, oppression and starvation. Men who turned us into animals while growing fat off luxury goods and threatening the world with nuclear weapons.

I stepped on a chair, raised the portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, turned and smashed them on the ground. I cannot explain how that felt. It was as though I was striking a blow on behalf of millions upon millions of my people, dead, alive or yet unborn, against this evil injustice. The sound of the shattering glass felt as though the chains in my heart also shattered.

These men [Adrian Hong and Chris Ahn] are heroes. They and their families deserve better. Somehow, the United States is now hunting us on behalf of Pyongyang, via Spain. …I cannot fathom why Spain would take North Korean testimony at face value and issue arrest warrants. If the intent was simply to harm or steal, why not leave in minutes? Would a group seeking to attack or raid use their own passports, enter via the front gate in the middle of broad daylight with neighbors walking around, and stay for five hours?

I ask the Spanish courts to drop the charges against these men. I ask the United States to deny extradition.

[Read full article at Fox News Opinion]

Ex-Marine accused by Spain of North Korean embassy break-in freed on bail

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A former U.S. Marine accused of breaking into North Korea’s embassy in Madrid and assaulting diplomatic personnel was freed on $1.3 million bond in Los Angeles on Tuesday. As a condition of his release, Christopher Ahn must confine himself to his home in the Los Angeles suburb of Chino Hills ahead of his possible extradition to Spain and must wear an ankle monitor. Ahn can only leave his home for medical appointments and church.

Spanish authorities have charged Ahn, 38, who spent six years in the Marines and served in Iraq, with breaking into the North Korean embassy with five others on February 22. They said the group beat some embassy staff and held them hostage for hours before fleeing. The charges include breaking and entering, robbery with violence and causing injuries, according to U.S. court documents.

Ahn is said to be a member of Free Joseon, or the Cheollima Civil Defense, an activist group which supports North Korean defectors and seeks to overthrown North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Two people allegedly involved in the embassy incident are still at large, including Adrian Hong, a Mexican national and longtime U.S. resident who is the purported leader of the group.

Attorneys for Free Joseon said the allegations of violence are lies from Kim’s diplomats, who they say made up the story to save their own skins. They claim the group members were invited inside and that there were no problems.

Video obtained by Fox News shows the activists walking into the embassy and chatting with a member of Kim’s diplomatic corps. One activist takes official photographs of Kim and his father Kim Jong II from a wall and smashes them on the floor.

Ahn was arrested by U.S. agents in April in Los Angeles. His actions have made him a target of the Kim regime, the magistrate said in an order conditionally granting him bail. “The F.B.I. has confirmed that the North Korean government has threatened his life,” the judge wrote. “He is apparently the target of a dictatorship’s efforts to murder him.”

[Fox News]

Australian student expelled from North Korea denies spying

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An Australian student who was expelled from North Korea denied on Tuesday that he had been spying on the authoritarian state while he lived there. Alek Sigley, 29, was released last week after being detained for several days, with Pyongyang later accusing him of promoting propaganda against the country online.

“The allegation that I am a spy is (pretty obviously) false,” he wrote on Twitter, adding that he was “well both mentally and physically”. The tweets were the first comments addressing the incident from Sigley, who speaks fluent Korean and had been one of just a handful of Westerners living and studying in North Korea. His disappearance, which prompted deep concern about his fate, came just days before a G20 summit and a landmark meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

After he was released and flew to Japan, North Korean state media published a report saying the country had deported the student for spying.

“I may never again walk the streets of Pyongyang, a city that holds a very special place in my heart,” Sigley, who speaks fluent Korean, tweeted Tuesday. “I may never again see my teachers and my partners in the travel industry, whom I’ve come to consider close friends. But that’s life.”

From the capital, Sigley organized tours to the country and ran a number of social media sites which posted a stream of apolitical content about life in one of the world’s most secretive nations. His blog posts focused on everyday Pyongyang — from the city’s dining scene to North Korean app reviews.

He also wrote columns for specialist website NK News, which North Korean state media called an anti-regime news outlet in its report on Saturday.

[AFP]

Son of prominent former South Korean Foreign Minister moves to North Korea

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The son of the highest-profile South Korean to defect to North Korea has arrived in the North to permanently resettle, North Korean state media said, an unusual case of a South Korean defecting to the impoverished, authoritarian North.

The state-run Uriminzokkiri website reported that Choe In-guk, about 72, arrived in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, on Saturday to dedicate the rest of his life to Korean unification at the guidance of leader Kim Jong Un.

Choe said he decided to live in North Korea because it was his parents’ “dying wishes” for him to “follow” North Korea and work for its unification with South Korea, according to a written statement published on the website.

Some analysts say North Korea accepted Choe In-guk so it could use him as a propaganda tool to tell its citizens its system is superior to South Korea’s.

Choe is the son of former South Korean Foreign Minister Choe Dok-shin, who defected to North Korea with his wife in 1986, years after he was reportedly embroiled in a corruption scandal and political disputes with then-South Korean President Park Chung-hee. Before his 1986 defection to North Korea, the senior Choe had lived in the United States for about a decade and was a vocal critic of Park, who ruled South Korea with an iron fist from 1961 to 1979.

South Koreans have occasionally defected to North Korea in the past, but it has become a rarity in recent years, especially since the North suffered a crippling famine in the mid-1990s that is estimated to have killed hundreds of thousands of people.

[Associated Press]

Former North Korean ambassador may be new point man in US-NK talks

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North Korea appears to have appointed a long-time veteran of international diplomacy as point man in the new round of denuclearisation talks with the United States, a diplomatic source in Seoul confirmed on Friday.

North Korea has indicated that former ambassador to Vietnam Kim Myong Gil would act as counterpart to U.S. Special Representative Stephen Biegun, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Left: Former ambassador to Vietnam Kim Myong Gil

South Korean media, citing unnamed diplomatic sources, reported on Thursday that Kim Myong Gil would be taking over for Kim Hyok Chol, the North Korean diplomat who served as Biegun’s counterpart ahead of the Hanoi summit, which collapsed with no deal in February. [In June, CNN reported that Kim Hyok Chol, a former ambassador to Spain, was alive and in state custody, contradicting a South Korean newspaper report that he had been executed for his role in the summit breakdown.]

The collapse of the Hanoi summit was a major setback for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who, several sources said, was led to believe by hawkish aides like former general and spy master Kim Yong Chol that he was about to win sought-after sanctions relief in return for a promise to partially scrap nuclear facilities. Kim Yong Chol was also removed from his position as counterpart for U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, but has since appeared at some public events alongside Kim Jong Un.

After meeting Kim Jong Un on Sunday at the DMZ, President Trump said that the two sides had agreed to name teams to resume talks that have been stalled since the previous summit. According to a fact sheet by South Korea’s Unification Ministry, Kim Myong Gil was previously a member of delegations at the United Nations and the failed six-party talks, aimed at reining in North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes that it pursued for years in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions.

If the appointment is confirmed, Kim Myong Gil’s long experience as a diplomat could pose opportunities as well as challenges for Biegun, said Duyeon Kim, a Seoul-based adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “On the one hand, it will make Biegun’s conversations easier because Kim knows ‘diplomatic speak’ and the issues very well, but his knowledge and experience means that negotiations could also get tricky,” she said. “North Korean diplomats pride themselves for knowing the U.S. better than Americans.” Kim added, “At the end of the day, it almost doesn’t matter who the lead negotiator is because they get their marching orders from Kim Jong Un.”

[Reuter]

Former special envoy defends Trump’s North Korea visit

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Former special envoy Joseph Detrani on Wednesday said President Trump’s recent meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) has led to meaningful results on the negotiations front.

Detrani, who was special envoy for the six-party talks with North Korea under former President George W. Bush, said Trump secured a commitment that will help jumpstart denuclearization talks.

“He did get something back — he got a commitment from Kim Jong Un that we would now commence with working-level negotiations,” Detrani told Hill.TV. “That means all negotiators will come together and talk about complete verifiable denuclearization. The key now is to get all negotiators to sit down and talk about is there a path to getting complete verifiable denuclearization.”

Detrani advised the administration to “immediately” move forward with talks with North Korea. “We shouldn’t be waiting six months before negotiators sit down,” he told Hill.TV.

[The Hill]