Category: Kim Jong Un

North Korea reaching out to Russia

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will send a special envoy, Choe Ryong Hae, to Russia next week, both countries announced Friday, in a trip expected to focus on how to boost ties at a time when his country faces deepening diplomatic isolation.

The ministry said in a statement that Russia hopes to discuss trade and economic ties, the situation on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia, and other international issues. Choe’s trip also appears aimed at easing North Korea’s diplomatic isolation, said analyst Cheong Seong-chang at the private Sejong Institute.

Choe, a senior Workers’ Party official, is considered as one of Kim’s close associates. He visited Beijing last year as a special envoy and told Chinese President Xi Jinping that North Korea would take steps to rejoin stalled nuclear disarmament talks.

Choe was also a member of a high-profile North Korean delegation that visited South Korea in early October and agreed to resume senior-level talks. The talks, however, haven’t moved forward because of tension over propaganda leaflets that South Korean activists send by balloon across the border into North Korea.

Russia and North Korea maintain cordial ties, but are not as close as they were during Soviet times, when Moscow provided significant aid and support to Pyongyang.

For North Korea, better ties with Russia could provide a much-needed economic boost because its ties with China are not as strong as they once were. Russia, for its part, has been seeking to bolster ties with North Korea amid a longtime effort to strengthen its role in Asia.

 [Associated Press]

Gruff former general the right man for North Korean mission

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The North Koreans passed word they wanted a high-ranking U.S. government official for the job, so President Barack Obama sent a gruff former general to spirit home two Americans held captive. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is no diplomat by training, and that’s perhaps just why he earned the clandestine call.

For past visits to the unpredictable and reclusive country, the United States has sent smooth-tongued luminaries such as former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, and former U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson. Or North Korean experts, one of whom was Sydney Seiler, a former intelligence official who is now with the State Department.

But analysts who follow North Korea say Clapper may have been perfect for the role. The spy chief was senior enough to convey a message of respect to the North Korean. But he is not a diplomat, so he could beg off any unrelated demands the North Koreans may have made. The two countries do not have diplomatic relations.

“The director of national intelligence was just the right person for this,” said Joseph DeTrani, who used to work for Clapper as his North Korean mission manager.

Matthew Miller arrives in US from North KoreaOn Saturday, Clapper landed on a U.S. government plane with the two Americans, Matthew Miller of Bakersfield, California, and Kenneth Bae of Lynnwood, Washington, at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Tacoma, Washington.

Many analysts suggested that the conciliatory moves, after years of bellicose rhetoric and inflammatory actions, were in response to recent pressure over North Korea’s human rights record.

DeTrani said he believed that report may have been a factor, but he saw the releases as a hopeful sign that North Korea “wants to come out of the penalty box. … The North Koreans want to come back to negotiations,” said DeTrani, who nows leads an intelligence contractor trade group. “They are going through a bad patch. The last two years have been a disaster. They are more and more of an isolated state. We’re seeing an outreach – the leadership in Pyongyang is saying, ‘we’ve got to change course, it’s not working.”

[Associated Press]

North Korea worried that Kim Jong Un could be accused in the International Criminal Court

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The release of Kenneth Bae and Matthew Miller is the latest twist in the fitful relationship between the Obama administration and the young North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, whose approach to the U.S. has shifted back and forth from defiance to occasional conciliation.

A senior Obama administration official said the president approved the mission last week and U.S. officials spent the next several days planning the trip. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, spent roughly a day on the ground and met with North Korean security officials — but not with Kim. Clapper went with the sole purpose of bringing home the two detainees, although the U.S. anticipated that other issues of concern to the North would come up during Clapper’s discussions, the official said.

Analysts who study North Korea said the decision to free Bae and Miller now from long prison terms probably was a bid to ease pressure in connection with its human rights record. A recent U.N. report documented rape, torture, executions and forced labor in the North’s network of prison camps, accusing the government of “widespread, systematic and gross” human rights violations.

North Korea seems worried that Kim could be accused in the International Criminal Court, said Sue Mi Terry, a former senior intelligence analyst now at Columbia University.

Bruce Klingner, a former CIA analyst now at the Heritage Foundation, agreed that efforts to shine a spotlight on the country’s human rights record “startled the regime and led to frantic attempts to derail the process.”

[Associated Press]

Kim Jong Un and relations with China

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Kim Jong-un’s vanity has been on display in the promotion of costly yet impractical construction projects that would be worthy of a pharaoh. These public works involve the mobilization of the masses—soldiers and students in addition to laborers—in “speed campaigns” to achieve hasty completion according to Kim Jong-un’s whim. The projects, including an elaborate ski resort, a refurbished amusement park, and an aquarium with a dolphin show, have done little to address the chronic malnutrition and meager living standards of a people isolated in an island of poverty in the midst of the most economically dynamic region of the world.

The projects, ostensibly undertaken to promote tourism, reflect the young general’s narcissistic lifestyle, as vividly described last year by retired basketball star Dennis Rodman. Rodman had made a visit with Kim Jong-un to the latter’s pleasure island, complete with horseback riding, free-flowing alcohol, and yachts.

The indulgent lifestyle probably also explains the use of a cane by thirty-something Kim Jong-un. He allegedly suffers from a series of debilitating illnesses—including obesity, gout, diabetes, and high blood pressure—usually associated with individuals twice his age.

In almost three years in power, Kim Jong-un, who once lived as a student in Switzerland where he was reportedly an avid fan of Western sports teams and rock music, has not left the country. This indicates a degree of insecurity and is in marked contrast to his father, Kim Jong-il, who is thought to have traveled three times to China and once to the Russian Far East during the last two years of his life. Kim Jong-un’s lack of an invitation to visit Beijing, North Korea’s sole ally in the world, has reached the point of embarrassment—especially after President Park Geun-hye of rival South Korea was invited on a state visit to Beijing in 2013, which was reciprocated by a visit to Seoul of Chinese president Xi Jinping this summer.

There is the question of the increasingly frosty relations between the two erstwhile allies. Kim Jong-un’s father was always careful to treat China, North Korea’s economic and energy lifeline, with a degree of respect, even traveling to China in May 2011, although in frail health, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between China and North Korea. Kim Jong-un, however, has treated China with barely veiled contempt, causing Beijing to lose face when he went forward in early 2013 with a nuclear test despite Chinese admonishments to cease and desist. He then publicly purged and executed his uncle, a key Chinese ally, after condemning him for “economic crimes” linked to a foreign power—obviously a reference to China.

[The Weekly Standard]

Kim Jong Un had ankle surgery

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South Korea’s spy agency said Tuesday it has solved the mystery of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s 6-week public absence.

The National Intelligence Service told legislators that a foreign doctor operated on Kim to remove a cyst from his right ankle, according to Park Byeong-seok, an aide for opposition lawmaker Shin Kyung-min. The aide said the spy agency also told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing that the cyst could recur because of Kim’s obesity, smoking and heavy public schedule.

The agency also said North Korea has expanded five of its political prisoner camps, including the Yodok camp, which was relocated to the northwest city of Kilchu, according to Lim Dae-seong, an aide to ruling party lawmaker Lee Cheol-woo, who also attended the briefing. The spy agency believes the camps hold about 100,000 prisoners, Lim said.

He said the agency also believes that North Korea recently used a firing squad to execute several people who had been close to Kim Jong Un’s uncle, Jang Song Thaek, who was considered the country’s No. 2 power before his sudden purge and execution in December 2013.

South Korea’s spy agency had correctly predicted that Jang had been dismissed from his posts before North Korea officially announced his arrest.

[Newsmax]

North Korea officials disappear from public view

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Last year Kim Jong Un executed his uncle and other officials. And now the JoongAng Daily reports that a number of key officials within Kim’s
cabinet have not attended important events for several weeks, and rumors abound that these six minister-level officials may have been executed.

Sim Chol-ho, the telecommunication minister, is among the six
 officials currently missing from public view.

Also not seen for some time is Ma Won-chun, a prominent
 architect and construction official, who is director of the National Defense Commission Design Department
and was appointed to deputy director of the Workers’ Party in May 2012.

General Ri Pyong-chol, the commanding officer of North Korea’s air force, has not been seen at any public events since
 the end of September when he was elected to the National Defense
 Commission at the Supreme People’s Assembly.

Rumor is also growing that sports official Chang Ung, a member of
 the International Olympic Committee, has been purged due to his
 prolonged absence in state media over the past few weeks.

Ri Yong-gil, chief of the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army, did not attend a meeting with gold medalists, an event where military leaders are expected to be present as many athletes are also
 soldiers.

Aidan Foster-Carter, an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Sociology
and Modern Korea at Leeds University, said JoongAng Ilbo is a reputable daily paper, making reports of a purge more
 credible. He added: “At this stage I am reluctant to go further. Two months is not long
 to be absent – remember Kim Jong-un disappeared himself recently. North Korea elites do go in and out of the limelight.”

The alleged purge follows what Kim described as the removal of
 “Factionalist filth” in December when he executed his own uncle Jang 
Song Thaek and other prominent figures in the capital Pyongyang.

[Daily Mirror]

Anti-North Korean leaflets launched from S.Korea amid concerns from locals

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South Korean activists launched balloons on Saturday to send leaflets to North Korea with messages critical of its leader, ignoring threats of military action from Pyongyang and a plea by Seoul not to jeopardize efforts to improve ties with the North.

Anti-North activists clashed with residents of the border area and leftist group members advocating engagement with North Korea. Local people tried to block the balloon launch, saying it threatened peace. A string of incidents appear to have turned many in the South against the leaflet campaign.

But a small group of mostly North Korean defectors broke away and launched balloons carrying about 20,000 leaflets from the nearby city of Gimpo after nightfall. Speaking to Reuters by telephone, the leader of the group, Pak Sang-hak, confirmed the launch.

“Things like this will trigger artillery firing at us,” said Kwon Soon-wan, 63, who said he was born and raised in Munsan, the northern-most area of Paju. “Safety is top priority because it’s our lives that are hanging in the balance,” he added.

On Saturday, the North’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper repeated a warning that inter-Korea ties will forever collapse if the South Korean government continued to allow the leaflet campaign, which it called “an act of war.”

The propaganda printed on the leaflets infuriates Pyongyang. The messages often single out the North’s young leader Kim Jong Un, questioning his legitimacy to rule a country where people struggle with poverty while his family lives in luxury and scarce resources are channeled to arms programs.

[Reuters]

A slightly more open North Korea?

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Just like that, Kim Jong-un was back. Despite his disappearances, this latest incident does reveal that the present leader is relatively more open than his father, Kim Jong-il, and grandfather, “Eternal President” Kim Il-sung. Neither ever publicly acknowledged so much as having a wife, let alone any other human frailties. The first Kim was always carefully photographed to avoid showing the huge goiter on his neck, while the second suffered a series of maladies – including an apparent stroke in 2008 – that were never mentioned in the North Korean press.

But in last Tuesday’s reports, there was 31-year-old Kim Jong-un propped up on a cane at the apartment complex, holding the cane as he rode around on an electric cart, leaning on it as he sat on a couch.

“There is a pattern here of being more forthcoming, a little less cryptic,” said John Delury, a North Korea watcher at Yonsei University in Seoul. “His father was always restrained, keeping his distance, but Kim Jong-un is shown shaking hands, with his arms around people, slapping their backs. He’s more like a Bill Clinton or Tony Blair.”

Of course, none of this is to suggest that North Korea has suddenly become an open, liberal democracy. But it is part of a pattern of marginally greater transparency that began when Kim succeeded his father at the end of 2011.

When a satellite intended to celebrate the centenary of the founding president Kim’s birth failed to reach orbit in 2012, Pyongyang immediately conceded that the launch had been a failure – something that would have been unthinkable in the second Kim’s “military first” era.

Last year, state media reported in vivid detail that Kim’s uncle, Jang Song-taek, had been purged and later executed. This year, the official mouthpieces said that an apartment building, part of a great construction boom under Kim, had collapsed.

More recently, North Korea has admitted to running “reform through labor” camps, although its description was a far cry from the brutal gulags described by defectors. It is even engaging with the United Nations on human rights, albeit in the very limited way.

[South China Morning Post]

South Korean activists vow to send more leaflets over border

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South Korean activists vowed to launch balloons next week carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border into North Korea, days after their campaign triggered gunfire between the rival Koreas.

North Korea considers leaflets an attack on its government and has long demanded that South Korea ban activists from sending them. South Korea refuses, saying the activists are exercising freedom of speech.

Last Friday, North Korea opened fire after propaganda balloons were floated from the South. South Korean soldiers returned fire, but there were no reports of casualties. North Korea has warned it would take unspecified stronger measures if leafleting continues.

South Korean activist Choi Woo-won said Thursday his group won’t yield to the North’s threats and plans to send about 50,000 leaflets on Oct. 25. “Our government and people must not be fazed even though North Korea, the criminal organization, is blackmailing us,” said Choi, a university professor.

He said his leaflets will urge a military rebellion against North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “The leaflets will tell North Korean soldiers to level their guns at Kim Jong Un, launch strikes at him and kill him,” Choi said.

Another activist Lee Min-bok said he was also ready to fly millions of leaflets, which describe South Korea’s economic prosperity. “No one can block my rights” to send leaflets, said Lee, whose leafleting Friday from a South Korean border village was believed to have directly caused North Korea to start firing.

The leafleting was high on the agenda when military generals from the two Koreas met in a border village on Wednesday in the countries’ first military talks since early 2011.

[AP]