Category: DPRK Government

Military showdown off North Korean shores

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The US, Japan and South Korea sent a pointed message to North Korea on Tuesday, dispatching high-tech missile defense ships to the same area where Pyongyang fired four missiles just eight days ago.

Aegis warships from the US, South Korea and Japan began exercises Tuesday to improve their capability to shoot down enemy ballistic missiles, the US Navy said in a statement.

China’s Foreign Ministry reacted sternly Tuesday afternoon, calling on all sides to end “a vicious cycle that could spiral out of control. … North Korea has violated UN Security Council resolutions banning its ballistic missile launches; on the other hand, South Korea, the US — and now Japan — insist on conducting super-large-scale military drills,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.

In response, Pyongyang accused the US of preparing a “preemptive strike”, according to North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency, KCNA. “If they infringe on our sovereignty and dignity even a bit, our army will launch merciless ultra-precision strikes from ground, air, sea and underwater,” read the statement.

The US has also declared it will permanently station missile-capable drones in South Korea. The US military in South Korea took the unusual step of publicly announcing the deployment of a company of Grey Eagle drones, the army’s enhanced version of the Predator drone, designed to carry Hellfire missiles. Together with the deployment of THAAD anti-ballistic missile defenses in South Korea, they represent a significant build-up of US military muscle in response to an accelerated program of missile and nuclear testing by the North Korean regime.

[CNN / The Guardian]

Time for Trump to talk with North Korea?

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North Korea’s recent missile tests will put new pressure on the Trump administration to choose a strategy for dealing with this pesky proliferator.

The standard playbook is well known to those who have worked on the problem of North Korea: pressure China to pressure North Korea, toughen sanctions, reassure allies and push them to build missile defenses.  Mr. Trump can follow this well-worn path, but he will likely get the same result: failure.

Instead, Mr. Trump, simply by virtue of being the new president, has another option. He can talk to the North Koreans and negotiate. North Korean officials have said that they are willing to turn the page and start fresh with President Trump. If he is open, they would be open. Or so they say.

Kim Jong Un previously floated the idea that he would freeze some of its weapons tests, if the U.S. called off its joint military exercises with South Korea. More recently, Pyongyang suggested that it would normalize relations, if the U.S. withdrew its troops from the South. Both offers are complete and utter non-starters.

But here’s the thing: they are offers. Negotiations start with offers, and rarely does the first offer represent the final deal.

[From Fox News Opinion by Dr. Jim Walsh, Senior Research Associate at MIT’s Security Studies Program]

UN urged to bring North Korea before International Criminal Court

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A veteran investigator urged the United Nations to appoint an international legal expert to prepare judicial proceedings against North Korea’s leadership for documented crimes against humanity.

Marzuki Darusman, a former Indonesian attorney-general who served on the U.N. commission of inquiry on North Korea, said the U.N. Human Rights Council must pursue North Korean accountability during its current session. His call came amid an international furore over the murder of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

A U.N. commission of inquiry, in a 2014 report issued after it conducted interviews and public hearings with defectors, recommended North Korea be brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC).The landmark 2014 report, rejected by Pyongyang, said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un might be personally responsible for crimes against humanity.

“If North Korea is able to do this to the older brother of Kim, to the uncle of Kim (Jang Song Thaek executed in 2013), and all the elite purging left and right, can you imagine what life might be like if you are a prisoner in a North Korean prison camp, with over 100,000 of them?” Lee Jung-Hoon, South Korean ambassador for North Korean human rights, said.

Evidence recorded over the past decade or more by U.N. investigators should be given to a new U.N. mechanism for prosecution, Darusman said, adding: “Let us prevail in the end-game.”

[Reuters]

Diplomat defector compares North Korea’s Kim Jong Un to Roman emperor Nero

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The senior North Korea diplomat who defected to the South from Pyongyang’s embassy in London described Kim Jong Un as a “21st century Nero” in a recent interview.

In an interview with South Korean newspaper Kukmin Ilbo, Thae Yong-ho said Kim Jong Un is a despot who cannot tolerate those who disagree with him.

Thae then provided an anecdote about Pyongyang Folklore Park, which he ordered destroyed after assassinating his uncle Jang Sung Taek, who managed the park.

“After [Kim Jong Un] killed Jang Song Taek, he said he kept seeing Jang’s face each time he passed the areas surrounding the folklore park and recruited military units to have the park destroyed.”

Thae compared Kim Jong Un to the Roman emperor Nero, who according to historical records began a fire in Rome to make room for a new palatial complex.

Thae said Kim Jong Un lacks trust in others and his existence was completely unknown to most North Koreans until 2009. The former diplomat also said Kim is not well rooted in North Korean society because he grew up in Switzerland, a background that amplifies his distrust of people in the regime, according to the report.

[UPI]

China warns Trump he is facing a ‘head-on collision’ with North Korea

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The United States and North Korea are racing towards a catastrophic “head-on collision”, China’s foreign minister has warned, amid Chinese fury at America’s deployment of a controversial anti-missile system. Speaking in Beijing on Wednesday, Wang Yi said a “looming crisis” was brewing on the Korean peninsular.

Wang scolded Pyongyang for ignoring international opposition to its nuclear and missile programs but also accused the US of stoking regional tensions by holding “military exercises of enormous scale” with South Korea.

“The two sides are like two accelerating trains coming towards each other with neither side willing to give way. The question is: are the two sides really ready for a head-on collision?” Wang told reporters, painting China as a signalman attempting avert the disaster.

Wang was speaking after the US angered Beijing by announcing it had begun delivering its controversial Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to South Korea on Monday night.

The deployment came one day after North Korea launched four ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan in what its state media called a bid to “mercilessly retaliate against the warmongers” in Washington and Seoul. US president Donald Trump, who has accused China of not doing enough to rein in North Korea, responded by warning that Pyongyang’s threat had entered a “new phase”. China, however, views the THAAD project as part of a broader US attempt to stifle its rise.

[The Guardian]

Malaysia expels North Korean ambassador over Kim Jong-nam killing

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Malaysia says it has expelled the North Korean ambassador over the death of Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of the North Korea’s leader. Kang Chol must leave Malaysia within 48 hours, the foreign ministry says.

The move comes after the envoy said his country “could not trust” Malaysia’s handling of the investigation. Mr Kang, who has become a fierce critic of his host country, said the probe into the killing had become “politicised” and was being interfered with.

Malaysia has not directly blamed North Korea for the attack, but there is suspicion Pyongyang was responsible.

The Malaysian Foreign Minister, Anifah Aman, declared the ambassador “persona non grata”, and said his country had demanded an apology for the comments, but none was forthcoming. “Malaysia will react strongly against any insults made against it or any attempt to tarnish its reputation,” Mr Anifah said in a statement.

The decision also follows reports suggesting that North Korean intelligence agencies used shell companies in Malaysia to cover an illicit arms sales operation.

Malaysia was one of very few countries that had relatively friendly relations with North Korea. It had already recalled its ambassador in Pyongyang as it investigated the case.

[BBC]

North Korea boosts efforts to hack defectors’ computers

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North Korea has drastically stepped up its efforts to hack into the computers of defectors since last August when an outspoken, senior diplomat defected to the country’s mortal enemy South Korea, a Korean computer expert with knowledge of the situation said.

There were hardly any hacking incidents of the computers of North Korean defectors last June and July, but after the defection Thae Yong Ho, North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom, there were 15 hackings in August, said Choi Sang-myong, head of the Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center (CERTCC) at the privately owned South Korean internet security company HAURI Inc.

North Korean agents sent emails to defectors with file attachments called “Thae Yong Ho interview,” “North Korea democratization,” and “Balloons sent to North Korea,” Choi said. When the recipients opened the attachments, their computers became infected.

“It is believed that Free NK, an online news outlet run by a North Korean defector in the United Kingdom, was hacked because it has links to Thae Yong Ho,” Choi said.

North Korea has been known to have trained professional computer hackers since the early 1990s. Experts now assume that the country’s hackers number about 6,000 to 7,000.

Choi predicts that North Korea may try to hack and manipulate South Korea’s computer network for traffic and communication in order to divert attention away from the controversy surrounding the assassination of Kim Jong Un’s estranged half-brother Kim Jong Nam in Malaysia in February.

[Radio Free Asia]

South Korean Intelligence concludes North Korean government killed Kim Jong Nam

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South Korean intelligence officials announced that officials from North Korea’s secret police and Foreign Ministry were involved in the killing of the estranged half brother of the country’s leader.

Speaking in a closed-door parliamentary hearing, Lee Byung-ho, the director of the National Intelligence Service, said that four of the eight North Koreans identified as suspects by the Malaysian authorities were agents from North Korea’s Ministry of State Security, the country’s secret police.

Mr. Lee said that two other suspects worked for the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and another was affiliated with Air Koryo, the North’s state-run airline company.

Mr. Lee, the South Korean intelligence chief, was quoted by the lawmakers as saying that the eight North Koreans, working as two four-member teams, converged in Kuala Lumpur to carry out the Feb. 13 assassination. Malaysian authorities have said that the North Koreans had hired and trained two women, one from Indonesia, the other from Vietnam, to attack Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

Hyon Kwang-song, a senior diplomat at the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, and three other North Koreans worked as a support team, Mr. Lee told the lawmakers. Mr. Hyon and the Air Koryo employee, Kim Uk-il, remain at the embassy in Malaysia.

[New York Times]

North Korea defectors fear for their lives after Kim Jong Nam assassination

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North Korea defectors who now live in South Korea are being warned against traveling overseas after the assassination of Kim Jong Nam, the older half-brother of ruler Kim Jong Un.

Kim Jong Nam may have been killed on the orders of the North Korean leadership, and many defectors believe they could be next.

That’s according to Ahn Chan-il, a North Korea defector and president of the World Institute for North Korea Studies, who fled the regime in 1979 – and became the first North Korea refugee to earn a doctorate in the South.

Kang Chol-hwan, another prominent defector-activist who grew up in a North Korea prison camp and later wrote a memoir of his experiences, was originally scheduled to speak at a conference in the Philippines. But in the wake of the deadly chemical attack against Kim Jong Nam in nearby Malaysia, The Aquariums of Pyongyang author was advised to stay in Seoul, Ahn said.

[UPI]

Diplomatic activity concerning North Korea

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China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi met U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday in the highest-level contact between the world’s two biggest economies since the election as concerns over North Korea’s nuclear program overshadow campaign tensions over trade. Yang relayed greetings from President Xi Jinping in the meeting with Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and senior adviser Jared Kushner at the White House, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Tensions between the U.S. and China on how to handle North Korea have escalated since Trump accused Beijing of not doing enough to curb Kim’s nuclear ambitions. North Korea has accelerated its development of nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles since 2009, when it walked away from six-party talks involving China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the U.S.

The U.S. is considering branding North Korea as state sponsor of terrorism, Yonhap News reported Tuesday, citing a high-level South Korean government official. Representatives of the U.S., Japan and South Korea met in Washington to discuss the situation Monday.

Beijing’s leaders have called for a new round of talks on North Korea as they seek to rein in Kim Jong Un and halt American plans to deploy a missile-defense system known as Thaad in South Korea, in part on concerns that it will undermine China’s own security. North Korea hit out at China last week after it banned coal imports, saying it was “dancing to the tune of the U.S.”

Meanwhile, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Ri Kil Song arrived in Beijing on Tuesday for possible talks with Chinese officials, Japan’s Kyodo News reported, citing one of its journalists. It marks the first known visit to China by a high-ranking North Korean official since around June last year.

[Bloomberg]