Author Archives for Grant Montgomery

North Korea willing to take part in talks if US has ‘right attitude’

Posted on by

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has said he would take part in a third summit with Donald Trump – but only if the US brought the “right attitude”.

He urged Mr Trump to pursue a deal that was “mutually acceptable.” In response the president tweeted praise of Mr Kim.

After a February summit, Trump said North Korean officials had wanted economic sanctions lifted in their entirety in exchange for disabling a major nuclear site, provoking him to walk away. However, the North Koreans disputed the US account.

In recent comments, Kim said in a speech that the summit had created a “strong doubt” in him over whether the US genuinely wanted to improve relations. But he went on to say: “We are willing to give another try if the US offers to have a third summit with the right attitude and mutually acceptable terms.”

He said the US “mistakenly believe that if they pressure us to the maximum, they can subdue us” and called on them to cease “hostile” negotiating tactics.

[BBC]

China to use 5G technology to tackle flow of North Korean refugees

Posted on by

A Chinese border patrol unit plans to use 5G technology to help stem the flow of refugees from North Korea and smuggled goods between the two countries, according to mainland Chinese media.

The unit in Tonghua, Jilin province, signed an agreement with China Mobile – the largest wireless network operator –to build the country’s first 5G checkpoint at Unbong, or Yunfeng Reservoir in Chinese, Legal Daily reported.

“The Yunfeng checkpoint faces great difficulties in [border] control because it is in the mountains and covers a large area with many major road junctions, so [they] decided to set up China’s first 5G border checkpoint there,” the report said. Jian is a key border trading area between China and North Korea and a favorite crossing point for North Korean refugees and smugglers of food, goods and cash.

According to the Legal Daily  report, Yunfeng border police would trial the use of new technologies such as virtual reality glasses, simultaneously updating logbooks, drones and 4K night-vision monitors to patrol the border when the 5G network is fully established. The report did not say when the project would be completed.

[South China Morning Post]

Kim Jong Un summons ambassadors from Beijing and Moscow

Posted on by

North Korea’s ambassadors to China and Russia have been summoned back to Pyongyang, raising the possibility Kim Jong Un may have a big announcement he is likely to make at the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly this week.

Kim Jong Un is launching the second term of his rule on Thursday, according to the report. The North Korean leader was not found on a list of delegates newly elected to the assembly in March. His absence from the list is raising questions; some analysts, including high-profile defector Thae Yong-ho, have said Kim Jong Un is probably looking to be appointed titular head-of-state.

Kim Jong Un could also be calling in the diplomats in Beijing and Moscow to discuss a new strategy on resuming dialogue with the United States. Ji and Kim Hyong Jun are also the top diplomats in countries that have consistently supported easing sanctions against Pyongyang.

[UPI]

China and North Korea open new border crossing despite sanctions

Posted on by

China and North Korea opened a new border crossing over the Yalu River, signaling aspirations for deeper economic ties between the neighbors even as Pyongyang’s trade remains crimped by international sanctions.

The border checkpoint at the foot of a new bridge opened Monday, connecting the northeastern Chinese city of Jian with North Korea’s Manpo, Chinese state media reported. The China-DPRK Jian-Manpo highway connection is for passenger and cargo transport and hosts an advanced customs facility, the China News Service said.

An opening ceremony appeared to show that local Chinese officials were ready to step up trade and exchanges with North Korea in response to its call for economic development, according to Yonhap. China provides a lifeline to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his state has long been dependent on Beijing’s help to keep its meager economy afloat. It was unclear how the new border checkpoint — the fourth between China and North Korea — would operate under the sanctions, which ban or limit a broad range of goods from moving in or out of the country. The South Korean Unification Ministry declined to comment.

In 2017, China’s overall trade with North Korea declined by more than 10 percent to about $5 billion, as Trump secured Beijing’s backing for four escalating rounds of sanctions in response to North Korea nuclear weapons program testing. While official trade with China has slowed, North Korea has turned to other methods to evade sanctions, with a main source of activity being illegal high-seas cargo transfers with North Korean vessels, the U.S. and UN Security Council said in reports in March.

[[Bloomberg]

Vietnam starts deporting North Korean refugees back to China

Posted on by

Just a month after hosting a summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Vietnam has deported three North Korean refugees, sending them home via China to an uncertain future in their homeland.

The deportations mark a worrying new development for fleeing North Koreans, who previously had been safe if they managed to evade capture in China and reach a third country. Vietnam has been one of Southeast Asian countries that provide safe haven for North Korean escapees, helping them reach South Korea.

The deportations could also be an indication of North Korea’s growing diplomatic clout and lessening isolation since Kim Jong Un stepped onto the global stage over the past year.

Aid workers told South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper that the South Korean Foreign Ministry failed to respond to a request to assist the refugees, a claim the ministry denied. The ministry repeatedly told them to wait, but no assistance was provided before the refugees were sent to China on Wednesday, the aid workers told Chosun Ilbo.

The Foreign Ministry in Seoul denied the report, saying in a statement that the ministry “immediately got in contact with the local authorities and took a stand against forcible repatriation to North Korea.” The ministry declined to comment on the safety and whereabouts of the refugees.

[The Washington Post]

North Korean Defector Group vows further action

Posted on by

The defector group that calls itself Free Joseon (Free North Korea) could be the first organization to have successfully infiltrated a North Korean diplomatic mission.

Pyongyang’s first public acknowledgment of the incursion into its Madrid Embassy recently came when it complained North Korea had been the victim of a “grave terrorist attack”, calling it a “flagrant violation of international law.” It called on Spanish authorities to thoroughly investigate the incident and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Normally, says Sung-Yoon Lee, a Korean studies expert at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, North Korea would be loath to mention anything at all that might puncture “the myth of invincible, unassailable, infallible, omnipotent leadership.” But these days, too much information is flowing into North Korea for its government to keep the Madrid embassy incident a secret.

Free Joseon’s significance lies in “the symbolism of hope, perhaps even justice, created in standing up to, in defying the powerful, oppressive state,” says Lee.

Two years ago, under a different name, the group was apparently successful in spiriting away to safety a potential heir — or possible threat — to the Kim dynasty. Last month, rebranded as Free Joseon, it made a declaration of revolution and announced the establishment of a “provisional government” to take power in Pyongyang.

Free Joseon says on its website that after Madrid incident hit the news, it is suspending operations for now, due to negative media coverage. But it urges patience, and says it is planning big things for the future.

[NPR]

Kim warned his generals of inadvertent movement ahead of Trump summit

Posted on by

In one of the clearest signs of just how much Kim Jong Un wanted an agreement at what became the failed Hanoi summit in February with President Donald Trump, CNN has learned that the North Korean leader gave specific orders to his generals to not carry out any unplanned activity in the days and weeks leading up the meeting, according to a senior South Korean official and a US defense official.

The US official added that Kim was worried any inadvertent movement of his military units would raise tensions leading up to the summit. He issued specific orders that forces stay in place in a passive status, without any indication they were moving in the field. His goal was to ensure existing military confidence building measures would remain in place, especially in the demilitarized zone between North Korea and South Korea, with the aim of helping him convince Trump to ease sanctions on the regime.

The previously undisclosed orders by the North Korean leader and the subsequent failure to convince Trump to agree to a partial lifting of sanctions without a move towards denuclearization have underscored the assessment by the US that Kim thought he could convince Trump to agree. “He underestimated the President,” the official said.

North Korean forces subsequently returned to their regular deployment status. The orders did not involve missile and nuclear sites which are always under Kim’s strict controls, according to the official. The orders issued by Kim prior to the summit would have significantly reduced the ability of the units affected to suddenly fire their weapons. The US saw no evidence that North Korea was intending any provocation using its conventional forces, suggesting Kim’s order may have had more to do with his worries about a sudden mistake in the field.

[CNN]

North Korea calls for probe into ‘terror attack’ on embassy in Spain

Posted on by

North Korea called on Spanish authorities to investigate a Feb. 22 raid on its embassy in Madrid, calling it a “grave terror attack,” according to Reuters.

During the February incident, a group of 10 people led by U.S. resident Adrian Hong Chang stole computers and documents from the facility, claiming to represent the Cheollima Civil Defense, an activist group that claims to aid defectors from North Korea. The group gagged the embassy’s business envoy So Yun Sok when he turned down their offer to defect.

Adrian Hong Chang then traveled to the United States and contacted the FBI, offering them the materials stolen during the raid, according to Spanish officials. A Spanish judge has issued international arrest warrants for two of the intruders who forced their way into North Korea’s embassy in Madrid last month and are currently believed to be in the United States.

In its first official comment on the incident, North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called for a probe and said it was aware of rumors that the FBI helped organize the raid, although it did not go so far as to blame the U.S. for the incident, according to Reuters.

“An illegal intrusion into and occupation of a diplomatic mission and act of theft are a grave breach of state sovereignty and a flagrant violation of international law, and this kind of act should never be tolerated over the globe,” North Korean officials said, according to the news service.

The incident comes amid efforts to improve ties between the U.S. and North Korea, particularly after a second meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong Un ended without the two leaders reaching a deal.

[Reuters]

Dissident group linked to North Korean break-in suspends operations

Posted on by

A North Korean opposition group accused of a brazen raid of the North Korean embassy in Madrid last month announced that it is “temporarily” suspending operations in the wake of glaring media attention.

“Multiple actions targeting the North Korean regime were being prepared, but because of speculative attack articles in the media, the activities of action groups have been temporarily suspended,” the group, Cheollima Civil Defense, which is also known as Free Joseon, said in a Korean-language statement on its website. “We ask the media to refrain from taking interest in the identity of this group and its members.”

Earlier this week, a Spanish judge unsealed court documents related to the daylight embassy “assault,” as it was described by Spanish authorities, and named several individuals suspected to be involved including the purported ringleader, Adrian Hong Chang, a U.S. resident.

The assailants left the embassy with computers, hard drives and other electronics using embassy vehicles and, for Hong Chang and an associate, a ride-share car that had been arranged under the name Oswaldo Trump, according to the judicial report reviewed by ABC News.

On Tuesday, Cheollima Civil Defense claimed responsibility for the incident and apologized to Spain for involving the European nation in the group’s struggle against the North Korean regime.

“Our fight is only against the regime’s practices and on behalf of millions of our enslaved people,” reads a statement posted on a website that appears to belong to the group, whose involvement was first reported by The Washington Post.

[ABC]

LiNK founder heads shadowy group that raided the North Korean Embassy in Madrid

Posted on by
6

On February 22 of this year, Spanish media reported that police investigated a group of unidentified assailants who raided the North Korean Embassy in Madrid, and reportedly seized flash drives, two computers, two hard drives and a mobile phone.

On Tuesday, the Spanish High Court released a document that identified Adrian Hong Chang, a U.S. resident, as the leader of the raid. He was said to have been wearing a jacket with a pin of Kim Jong Un, and tricked police who arrived at the scene into thinking that he was a member of staff at the embassy.

Once the Executive Director of Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), an NGO supporting North Korean refugees, back in 2006 Adrian Hong was arrested in Beijing when helping defectors escape through Liaoning, a Chinese province that borders North Korea.

Hannah Song, the CEO of Liberty in North Korea, told TIME via email that Hong co-founded the group as a college student, and has had no involvement with it for more than 10 years.

A group called Cheollima Civil Defense has since claimed responsibility for the incident on its website, and said it shared information “of enormous potential value” with the FBI under “mutually agreed terms of confidentiality.” But the group denied that any intimidation was involved, and said claims that individuals brandished weapons and attacked embassy workers were false.

Cheollima Civil Defense (CCD), which also goes by the name ‘Free Joseon,’ calls itself an “organization of refugees who escaped North Korea” that aims to “shake the Kim Jong Un regime.” Its sporadically updated website states that the group has “already helped many North Korean people” and expects nothing in return for its services.

Last week, CCD embedded a video posted to its YouTube channel of a person, appeared blurred on camera, violently smashing portraits of the Kim family. The video description read, “Down with Kim family rule! For our people we rise up! Long live Free Joseon!”

According to NK News, Hong served as head of the Joseon Institute from 2015, described on its website as a “think tank conducting policy-relevant research and planning” on North Korean affairs. The organization’s Facebook page was last updated in August 2017. Adrian Hong is also identified as the Managing Director of consultancy firm Pegasus Strategies, a human rights advocate and writer based in the U.S.

Hong has also written on North Korea-related topics for publications including New York Times, Foreign Policy and The Atlantic.

According to the court document, the assailants flew to Portugal after the attack. From there, they took a flight to New York. Hong, however, split from the group and flew to New Jersey. Spain has issued international arrest warrants against him and another suspect, Sam Ryu, who is a U.S. citizen of Korean descent.

[TIME]