Category: DPRK Government

Trump and Kim make history, but despite the theatrics tremendous challenges remain

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With 20 steps over the military demarcation line at the Korean Demilitarized Zone Sunday, US President Donald Trump made history, the first sitting US President to set foot on North Korean soil.

Those 20 steps were, indeed, a remarkable achievement. The fact that US officials and the notoriously rigid North Korean bureaucracy were able to pull together such a momentous meeting in around 24 hours, after Trump proposed the idea on Twitter, is a testament to the warm personal relationship that has developed over the last year between the two leaders.

It is also highly significant that the two were able to go beyond a simple two-minute handshake previewed earlier by the US President to speak privately for nearly an hour — announcing they would form teams with the goal of resuming working level denuclearization talks by mid July.

Both Kim and Trump seem to be banking on their personal relationship as the solution that will help them overcome the huge divide that remains between the US and North Korea.

But as the buzz wears off, a far longer and more difficult march lies ahead. It was noteworthy that Trump never once mentioned the word denuclearization on Sunday. The US has thus far failed to achieve its ultimate goal of getting North Korea to relinquish any of its nuclear weapons, or even agree upon a definition of denuclearization. Kim has so far been unable to achieve his ultimate goal of relief from crushing sanctions. If anything, Sunday’s meeting buys Kim time to prove to skeptics inside his country that he is capable of striking a deal with the US, despite the breakdown of talks in Hanoi.

[CNN]

Trump of Kim Jong Un: “He understands me, and I believe I maybe understand him”

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Taking an unprecedented step onto North Korean soil, President Donald Trump announced Sunday that Washington and Pyongyang will relaunch stalled nuclear talks. Trump deemed the meeting a victory, announcing that nuclear talks would resume “within weeks” and that the two countries were designating teams of officials to take the lead.

Both Trump and Kim offered invitations to the other to visit their capitals, with Trump saying, “I’ll invite him to the White House right now.” Kim said it would be a “great honor” if Trump visited Pyongyang. Neither of those are likely to occur in the short term.

“He understands me, and I believe I maybe understand him,” Trump said. “Sometimes that can lead to very good things.”

For all the fanfare, there were no signs that the U.S. and the North had made any concrete progress on denuclearization, the issue that has led to North Korea’s estrangement from the world. And veteran nuclear negotiators and North Korea experts immediately questioned whether Trump, by staging a high-profile photo-op absent nuclear concessions, was bestowing legitimacy on Kim and undermining global pressure to force the North to accept a denuclearization deal.

“We can only call it historic if it leads to something,” said Victor Cha, a former Asia director at the White House and an NBC News contributor.

[NBC]

US President Trump and Kim Jong-un share historic handshake in North Korea

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US President Donald Trump has shared a symbolic handshake with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in the heavily fortified zone dividing the two Koreas.

Mr Trump became the first sitting US president to cross into North Korea after meeting Mr Kim at the demilitarised zone (DMZ).

Critics have dismissed it as pure political theatre, but others say it could set the scene for future talks.

With no time for the all-important backroom diplomacy, it is expected to be largely a photo opportunity. However, it will be seen as a sign of their ongoing commitment to the denuclearisation talks.

[BBC]

President Trump meets Kim Jong Un at the DMZ

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US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met and shook hands at the demilitarized zone (DMZ), the border that separates the two Koreas.

President Trump then made history as he became the first sitting US president to step foot on North Korean soil. Trump crossed over the demarcation line separating North and South Korea at the invitation of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“This is a historic moment,” Kim Jong Un said of President Trump stepping into North Korea.

“Stepping across that line was a great honor,” Trump said, adding that his and Kim’s was a “great friendship.”

After President Trump walked over the border into North Korea, he shook hands with Kim Jong Un before the two turned back and walked into South Korea.

North Korea jockeys for a third summit

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On Wednesday, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said it won’t surrender to U.S.-led sanctions and accused Washington of trying to “bring us to our knees.” U.S. officials have said the sanctions will stay in place unless North Korea takes significant steps toward nuclear disarmament.

A statement from North Korea’s foreign ministry today said the U.S. “viciously slandered” the country, citing the recent release of US State Department reports about human trafficking and religious freedom that rank North Korea poorly, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s comments on Sunday reiterating that 80 percent of North Korea’s economy remains under U.S. sanctions.

North Korea also said that South Korea must stop trying to mediate between Pyongyang and Washington, as it stepped up its pressure on the United States to work out new proposals to salvage deadlocked nuclear diplomacy. The North Korean statement was an apparent continuation of its displeasure with Seoul and Washington over the stalled diplomacy.

Artwork courtesy San Diego Union Tribune

Talk of a revival of diplomacy has flared after Trump and Kim recently exchanged personal letters. South Korean President Moon Jae-in said earlier this week that U.S. and North Korean officials were holding “behind-the-scene talks” to try to set up a third summit between Trump and Kim.

Meanwhile, fears are growing that North Korea has detained an Australian student living in Pyongyang, Alek Sigley, potentially complicating efforts among some Group of 20 nations to get Kim Jong Un back to nuclear talks.

[AP]

Human rights related to North Korean nuclear talks Part 2

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Recent reports from Human Rights Watch and the United Nations confirm that a thriving North Korea exists only in propaganda promoted by President Kim Jong Un. Yet as U.S. and South Korean officials seek to persuade him to halt North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, they have seldom broached the issue of human rights.

The omission has drawn scrutiny from advocates as much for the proximity and shared history of the countries as for South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s background as a human rights lawyer. Chung-in Moon, a special adviser to President Moon, asserts that pushing human rights to the fore would sink negotiations.  “You can’t raise human rights with North Korea. If you do, they won’t listen after that,” Chung-in Moon says. He views defusing the nuclear threat as a necessary first step. “Once we solve that, then we can address the issue of human rights, and North Korea will be more open to doing its part.”

Brad Adams, executive director of the Asia division for Human Rights Watch, considers the silence from U.S. and South Korean officials on North Korea’s living conditions a form of abandonment. “A nuclear deal might be good for the rest of the world,” he says. “But it won’t change the lives of the North Korean people one bit.”

The Hana Foundation, established by South Korea’s Ministry of Unification in 2010, provides an array of resettlement services to refugees. Mindful of the ministry’s oversight, Gyoung-bin Ko the president of the Hana Foundation, demurs on the subject of whether government officials should press Mr. Kim on human rights. He says simply, “We have a long way to go.”

“Peace will mean the end of sanctions and bring outside investment,” says Spencer Kim, co-founder of the Pacific Century Institute, a nonprofit policy and research firm. “That will be the biggest driver of human rights.”

[Christian Science Monitor]

Two North Korean defectors arrive at South Korean port in fishing boat

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The South Korean Prime Minister apologized to North Korea late last week for a security lapse that allowed a North Korean fishing boat to spend two and a half days in its waters without being noticed.

A 33-foot wooden boat crossed the maritime border with South Korea last week with four North Korean men on board, and docked at Samcheok, a port 80 miles south of the border. One of the four North Koreans then came ashore, telling a South Korean villager that he came from the North and asking to borrow a cellphone so he could call an aunt who had earlier defected to the South.

During an initial interrogation by the South Korean authorities, two of the four North Koreans said they wanted to defect to the South. The other two were returned to the North on Tuesday over the land border.

The government’s apology came on the same day that President Xi Jinping of China arrived in North Korea for a state visit with Kim Jong-un.

South Koreans remain deeply worried about any breach of the border. Nearly two million troops on both sides of the border are on constant alert against possible intruders.

[New York Times]

North Korea’s trade relationship with China as “lips and teeth”

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Seoul’s Industrial Bank of Korea’s North Korean Economy Research Center said Tuesday trade between North Korea and its most important trading partner China increased year-on-year over the past three months, ending in May. The South Korean research report used trade statistics from the Chinese government, then parsed the gathered data.

North Korea’s import of goods from China has reached its highest level since November 2017, South Korean researchers said. North Korea imported more from China than it exported, causing a deficit. Exports in May were up 25.2 percent year-on-year, and imports were also up, by 18.9 percent, from same time last year.

International sanctions against Pyongyang for nuclear weapons development had significantly lowered bilateral trade, but rising economic activity indicates China has become more willing to “influence North Korea” in a period of improved ties, the analysts added.

North Korea is also turning toward a greater dependency on China, according to the research.

North Korea’s relationship to China has been historically described as “lips and teeth,” a blood alliance forged during the 1950-53 Korean War.

[UPI]

Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping agree to grow ties whatever the external situation

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and China’s President Xi Jinping reached a consensus on “important issues,” and agreed to build on their countries’ friendly relations “whatever the international situation,” North Korean state media reported.

Xi left the North Korean capital Pyongyang on Friday after a two-day visit, the first by a Chinese leader in 14 years. China is North Korea’s only major ally and Xi’s visit was aimed at bolstering the isolated country against pressure from United Nations sanctions over its nuclear and missile programmes and stalled denuclearization talks with the United States.

The visit comes a week before Xi and U.S. President Donald Trump are due to meet at a Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan, amid a trade dispute that has rattled global financial markets.

North Korea’s state-run news agency KCNA reported that during a luncheon on the final day of Xi’s visit the leaders discussed plans to strengthen collaboration, as well as their countries’ “major internal and external policies”, while exchanging views on domestic and international issues of mutual concern.

An editorial in the official China Daily on Saturday warned that Xi’s short visit to Pyongyang would not solve all the region’s problems, but pledges to help develop the North Korean economy the right way forward.

[Reuters]

No word on North Korean defectors apprehended in China

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Kim Jeong-cheol already lost a brother who tried to escape from North Korea, and now fears his sister will meet a similar fate after she was caught by Chinese authorities.

“My elder brother was caught in 2005, and he went to a political prison and was executed in North Korea,” Kim told Reuters. “That’s why my sister will surely die if she goes back there. What sin is it for a man to leave because he’s hungry and about to die?”

Reuters was unable to verify the fate of Kim’s brother or sister. Calls to the North Korean embassy in Beijing were not answered.

When another woman – who asked to be unnamed for her family’s safety – escaped from North Korea eight years ago, she promised her sister and mother she would work to bring them out later. Her 27-year-old sister was in a group of four defectors who made it all the way to Nanning, near the border with Vietnam, before being caught.

In January, their mother died of cancer. On her death bed, the mother wrote a message on her palm pleading for her remaining daughter to escape North Korea.

“It will haunt me for the rest of my life that I didn’t keep my promise,” said the woman, who now lives in South Korea.

Activist groups and lawyers seeking to help the families say there is no sign China has deported the recently arrested North Koreans yet, and their status is unknown.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry, which does not typically acknowledge arrests of individual North Korean escapees, said it had no information about the raids or status of detainees. “We do not know about the situation to which you are referring,” the ministry said in a statement when asked by Reuters. North Koreans who enter China illegally because of economic reasons are not refugees, it added.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on North Korea human rights,  Tomas Ojea Quintana, said Monday he has discussed the issue of detained North Korean defectors in China with South Korean officials.

[Reuters]