This page includes materials on the stationing of US forces in ROK,NMD, ROK reaction to US DPRK policy, etc. but does not attempt to go into wider US-ROK relations.
Nuclear reactors issue, KEDO, IAEA, etc. are currently on the nuclear programme page

2013

• December
• November
• October
• September
• August
• July
• June
• May
• April
• March
• February
• January

• NK-US relations 2012
• NK-US relations 2011
• NK-US relations 2010
• NK-US relations 2009
• NK-US relations 2008
• NK-US relations 2007
• NK-US relations 2006
• NK-US relations 2005
• NK-US relations 2004
• NK-US relations 2003
• NK-US relations 2002
• NK-US relations 2001
• NK-US relations 2000

• Maher Blasts U.S. 'War Monger' Response To North Korea And The Military Industrial Complex (VIDEO)
  The Huffington Post | By Ross Luippold Posted: 04/13/2013 11:04 am EDT | Updated: 04/13/2013 11:04 am EDT Bill Maher ended Friday's "Real Time" by saying that he's concerned about North Korea. Not about Kim Jong Un's nuclear capabilities, but rather the way American politicians overreact to foreign threats by using them as an excuse to start expensive wars. "With Afghanistan winding down, America is dangerously close to not having a war," Maher said. And when we don't have a war, he continued, the country "gets a little sad. A little introspective. It begins thinking about poverty, schools, our crumbling infrastructure." [MISCOM] [Threat]
• Behind North Korea’s political crisis
  23 December 2013 The summary trial and execution of North Korea’s no. 2 leader, Jang Song-thaek, on December 12 points to a deep internal crisis within the Pyongyang regime. Since the death of leader Kim Jong-il two years ago, his son and successor Kim Jong-un has removed around 100 of the country’s top 218 officials, including all but two of the seven who accompanied his father’s hearse. The clearest indication of the turmoil inside North Korea comes from Jang’s supposed “confession,” which declared that he was planning to seize power “when the economy goes totally bankrupt and the state is on the verge of collapse.” Jang is being made the scapegoat for a stagnant, crisis-prone economy that is generating profound social tensions and instability in the police-state regime. Whatever the immediate reason for the factional infighting, the chief responsibility for the political turmoil lies not in Pyongyang, but in Washington. [Jang Song Thaek] [US global strategy] [China confrontation] [Sanctions] [Destabilisation] [US NK policy]
• These Are a Few of My Fav-Or-Ate Words
  By James Church 24 December 2013 It was a cold morning, and I wasn’t happy sitting on a bench alone in the park across the street from the White House, but that was the arranged meeting place so I was there on time. Five minutes after the appointed hour, someone walked up behind me, singing softly. I didn’t turn around. Inspector O put his hands on my shoulders. “Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens” “Catchy tune,” said O as he indicated I should slide over to give him more room. “You’re in the wrong key,” I said. “Several wrong keys.” “I sing because I’m happy,” he said. “Aren’t you happy? It’s the holiday season for you, isn’t it? Everything on sale, they’re practically giving things away. Another sign of how well things are going, I’m sure.” “How did you get a visa?” O smiled. “Whiskers on kittens.” “OK, never mind. Let me ask a more pertinent question. Why are we out here? It’s freezing.” “I wanted to make sure we could be heard. All these big trees are wired, aren’t they? I thought about sending an email, but it might get lost under all the others.” “We don’t read all emails. That’s a myth.” “So is Santa Claus.” O glanced around distractedly. “You’ve heard the news, I take it.” “Sure, I heard the news, who hasn’t? Your boardroom lineup has changed. One washroom key permanently revoked.” [Jang Song Thaek] [Hypocrisy]
• Yongusil 22: Record Group 242
  By Benjamin Young | December 18, 2013 As an accompaniment to Sino-NK’s Roundtable Review on Dr. Suzy Kim’s book “Everyday Life in the North Korean Revolution 1945–1950?, itself an analysis of the once impenetrable, opaque, and unobtainable narratives of the revolutionary everyday for citizens and residents of the northern half of the Korean peninsula, the Research Room thought it necessary to focus on the current repository for those narratives, within which Dr. Kim undertook the research that made up that fine work. In this Yongusil, Benjamin Young, graduate of State University of New York, Brockport takes us just inside the beltway to the US National Archives to explore potentialities and challenges presented by Record Group 242 (or the Captured Documents Archive), the immense cache of material obtained by US forces during the heady days of counterattack in 1950 and from which Dr Kim has extracted her fascinating work. — Robert Winstanley-Chesters, Director of Research Yongusil 22: Record Group 242 Record Group 242 (RG 242) located at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland is a preeminent source of historical knowledge on the construction of the North Korean state and the origins of the Korean War. Modern Korean historians such as Charles K. Armstrong, Wada Haruki, Dae-Sook Suh, Bruce Cumings, and Suzy Kim have used the captured North Korean documents extensively in their research. However, there remains a large amount of material yet to be explored as RG 242 contains some 1.6 million pages. In addition to exploring the details of the archive, this Yongusil will discuss the challenges presented by this material to the researcher and analyst. Furthermore, its ultimate goal is, with RG 242 as exemplar, a conception of the archive beyond that of a simple repository for and of historical information. Rather, an archive should be perceived as temporal, historical, constructed space itself. In analyzing, engaging, and comprehending an archive’s unique history and narrative, scholars can better utilize its contents to support and extend their research. [History] [Korean War]
• US and China weighing response to developments in N. Korea
  Posted on : Dec.17,2013 15:45 KST Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi converses with US Secretary of State John Kerry before their bilateral meeting in Washington D.C., Sept. 19. (AFP/Yonhap News) Both countries hoping for denuclearization but mentioning no changes in policy By Park Hyun and Seong Yeon-cheol, Washington and Beijing correspondents The US and China are discussing a response to what they see as a highly unstable situation in North Korea following the execution of onetime second-in-command Jang Song-thaek. The Chinese foreign ministry announced that US Secretary of State John Kerry and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi shared opinions on the North Korean nuclear issue during a telephone call on the evening of Dec. 15. Other topics reportedly included US-China relations and Middle East issues. The Chinese foreign ministry briefly described the discussion as “the two ministers trading views on the issue of resuming the six-party talks [on the North Korean nuclear program].” [F&E]
• North Korea’s Irrational Approach to Diplomacy—Is There Any Hope?
  By Joseph R. DeTrani 17 December 2013 This has been a dreadful year for North Korea and its relations with the outside world. Indeed, during his two years at the helm in North Korea, after the death of Kim Jong Il in December 2011, Kim Jong Un, has managed to plunge his country to the lowest point in its relations with the international community, including China. Tragically, North Korea does not see it this way. Pyongyang says its missile tests in April and December 2012 were satellite launches, for which it has a sovereign right, regardless of the United Nations resolutions prohibiting them. The North’s February 2013 nuclear test was in response to additional sanctions imposed due to these launches. The harsh rhetoric from Pyongyang from March to June 2013, threatening the US, South Korea and Japan with pre-emptive nuclear attacks and posting a video of a simulated nuclear attack on New York were, the North said, in response to the yearly joint US-ROK military exercises. [US NK policy] [Inversion] [Preconditions] [US NK Negotiations]
• Allies apart over USFK cost-sharing
  By Chung Min-uck Seoul and Washington still remain poles apart in working out how to share the cost of American troops stationed here for the next five years. “With the negotiations moving into the final stage, we have made agreements in some areas, but mostly we still remain apart,” a government official said on condition of anonymity. The ninth round of the South Korea-U.S. talks in Seoul last week to renew the Special Measure Agreement (SMA) on splitting the costs of United States Forces Korea (USFK) ended without much progress. [USFK] [SOFA] [Tribute]
• Dongducheon wants to have US forces out
  By Nam Hyun-woo The Eighth U.S. Army Commander Lt. Gen. Bernard Champoux’s letter hinting U.S. troops might remain north of the Han River for years to come sparked a backlash from the municipal government of Dongducheon, a northeastern city home to two American military installations. According to the city government on Wednesday, Champoux sent a letter on Dec. 4 to Dongducheon Mayor Oh Se-chang containing details of U.S. forces’ plan to stay in the city. Champoux wrote: “At this time, our alliance is considering, but has not made any decisions, regarding a residual of U.S. forces north of the Han River. “We continue to explore options to align our forces for the optimal position to defend against threats,” he wrote. “Should the alliance determine a revision to the Land Partnership Plan (LPP) or Strategic Alliance 2015 is required, our governments will consider many options in order to provide the greatest mutual benefit to our alliance and to the defense of South Korea,” the commander added.
  The Dongducheon City Council is also strongly opposed to the U.S. Army staying in town. On Tuesday, council members and civic groups held a protest at Gwanghwamun, central Seoul, and delivered a written protest to the U.S. Embassy to Korea. [USFK] [Public opinion]
• Translator's Error or Another Biden Gaffe?
  Bae Sung-kyoo Washington is blaming an interpreter's error after reports here that gaffe-prone U.S. Vice President Joe Biden told President Park Geun-hye in Seoul on Friday that betting against the U.S. is a bad bet, or words to that effect. The U.S. has spent the last two days trying to explain the gaffe, attesting to how sensitive the matter is for both sides. Biden's exact words were, "It's never been a good bet to bet against America" and America would continue to place its bets on Korea. The comment, distributed to the press, came across as a warning not to side with those who are opposed to America. But when asked whether the comments were a veiled threat to Korea against siding with China, both Seoul and Washington frantically tried to quell the controversy by blaming the hapless interpreter. [Dilemma] [US dominance]
• Putting People Before Plutonium
  By Frank Jannuzi 11 December 2013 The recent leadership shake-up in Pyongyang has thrust the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) back onto the front pages. And while it is too soon to fully assess what impact the removal of Jang Song Thaek will have on the course of the country, his purge should remind all that North Korea is not a one-dimensional problem. It requires a multi-dimensional solution and an approach by the United States that is more “can-do.” Until recently, one of the less appreciated facets of the conundrum posed by the DPRK was its human rights record. Yet there should no longer be any doubt about the scale of the unfolding human catastrophe there or that it merits urgent attention. Amnesty International has chronicled the DPRK’s endemic human rights abuses. Millions suffer extreme forms of repression and violations across nearly the entire spectrum of human rights. The government severely restricts freedom of movement, expression, information and association. Food insecurity is widespread, and there are persistent reports of starvation in more remote regions. As confirmed by recent Amnesty International satellite analyses and eye-witness reports, roughly 100,000 people—including children—are arbitrarily held in political prison camps and other detention facilities where they are subjected to forced labor, denial of food as punishment, torture, and public executions. In January 2013, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said that North Korea had “one of the worst—but least understood and reported—human rights situations in the world.” And last March, the UN Human Rights Council launched a Commission of Inquiry to examine allegations of “systemic, widespread and grave” human rights violations inside the DPRK, including crimes against humanity. The Commission will report its findings next spring. But, of course, the real question is not whether there are human rights abuses taking place in the North. The question is what can be done about them. Much the same can be said about the North’s nuclear conundrum. [NGO] [US NK policy]
• N.Korea 'Forced American to Read Confession'
  Octogenarian Korean War veteran Merrill Newman, who was freed after 42 days' detention in North Korea on Saturday, says he was forced to read an apology that had been written for him. Asked by the Santa Cruz Sentinel on Sunday about the video clip that showed him reading the apology, he said, "Obviously, that's not my English." North Korea's official KCNA news agency released the clip on Nov. 30. It showed Newman apologizing for "offensive actions" during the Korean War, but the English was unnatural and contained a lot of grammatical errors. Newman was arrested at Pyongyang airport on Oct. 26 while waiting for his plane to take off after a 10-day visit to the country. englishnews@chosun.com / Dec. 10, 2013 12:14 KST [Newman]
• Korean War veteran Merrill Newman gives details of detention by Pyongyang
  Ben Margot/AP - Merrill Newman speaks with reporters beside his wife, Lee, after arriving at San Francisco International Airpor on Saturday. By Anne Gearan, Tuesday, December 10, 12:16 PM E-mail the writer The 85-year-old Korean War veteran released after more than a month in a North Korean jail said Monday that he was detained because he had asked questions about anti-communist partisans he had helped train more than 60 years ago. Merrill Newman also said a televised confession he read and signed was fabricated by his North Korean jailers. “Anyone who has read the text of it or who has seen the video of me reading it knows that the words were not mine and were not delivered voluntarily,” Newman said in a statement issued by his family. “Anyone who knows me knows that I could not have done the things they had me ‘confess’ to.” Newman was freed by North Korea on Friday — authorities in Pyongyang said he was deported — and returned to his California home over the weekend. “I just didn’t understand that, for the North Korean regime, the Korean War isn’t over and that even innocent remarks about the war can cause big problems if you are a foreigner,” Newman wrote. “I’m a Korean War veteran and I’m proud of my military service, when I helped train Korean partisans. The North Koreans still harbor resentment about those partisans,” and other anti-communist guerrillas, Newman added. He said he did not hide his military service from North Korean authorities and had asked to visit the area near Mount Kuwol where the wartime training took place. Newman said that the visit was on his itinerary at first but that he was later told he could not go because a bridge had washed out. “Before they told me this, I innocently asked my North Korean guides whether some of those who fought in the war in the Mount Kuwol area might still be alive, and expressed an interest in possibly meeting them if they were,” Newman wrote. “The North Koreans seem to have misinterpreted my curiosity as something more sinister.” [Newman] [Myopia]
• North Korea releases 85-year-old American
  AP/Kyodo News - U.S. tourist Merrill Newman arrives at Beijing airport on Saturday after being released by North Korea. By David Nakamura and Chico Harlan, Published: December 7 E-mail the writers DMZ, South Korea — An elderly U.S. veteran of the Korean War headed home on Saturday after being released by North Korea, the country in which he’d arrived as a tourist and was held for six weeks as a prisoner. “I am very glad to be on my way home,” Merrill Newman told reporters at the airport in Beijing, his stopping point for a flight to San Francisco. Newman added that he felt “good” and wanted to see his wife. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden praised North Korea’s release of an elderly U.S. tourist on Saturday, but admonished the North for detaining him in the first place. Newman, 85, traveled to Pyongyang in October on a 10-day private tour but was removed from a plane by North Korean authorities just before returning home. The North last week accused Newman of a long list of “indelible crimes” committed during the war six decades ago and released a videotaped confession in which Newman read an awkwardly written four-page apology. [Newman] [Korean War]
• Making Trouble - and Alternatives - in Asia
  Friday, 06 December 2013 10:33 By Dr Joseph Gerson Biden and Jinping.Xi Jinping and Joe Biden. (Photo: Antonio R. Villaraigosa / Flickr)The Obama administration's provocative decision to send a veiled nuclear threat to China in late November with B-52 flights over the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands grew out of a complicated set of issues with deep historic roots. Not the least of them is the Obama administration's campaign to preserve the United States' Asia-Pacific hegemony in the era of US decline and China's rise. There are few good guys in this dangerous game - which brings to mind my first international relations professor's maxim that the study of international relations is analogous to studying the rules of the game among mafia families. (Such was the world view taught at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service when Bill Clinton and I were students there.) The crisis didn't begin last week. It was initiated a year and a half ago with a very calculated right-wing Japanese semi-coup, reminiscent of those that brought militarists to power there in the early 1930s. In the spring of 2012, Shintaro Ishihara, then Tokyo's extreme right-wing governor, set the coup in motion by moving to purchase the uninhabited Senkaku/Diayou islands, which had been administered by Japan since the US military occupation of Okinawa came to an end, from their private owner. This he understood would lead Beijing to over-react, and that, in turn, would reinforce right-wing and militarist political forces in Japan's coming national election [China confrontation] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Detained US veteran deported from DPRK
  Xinhua, December 7, 2013 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said on Saturday that it had deported a U.S. Korean War veteran accused of hostile acts against the country under the guise of a tourist. Since Merrill Edward Newman had admitted to his wrongdoing and apologized, the DPRK deported him from the country from "a humanitarian viewpoint," the official KCNA news agency reported. Newman, 85, from Palo Alto, northern California, had apologized for alleged crimes during the 1950-53 Korean War and "hostile acts" against the DPRK during a recent trip. "He masterminded espionage and subversive activities against the DPRK and in this course he was involved in killings of service personnel of the Korean People's Army and innocent civilians," the KCNA said in a report last Saturday. Newman had been held in Pyongyang since DPRK officials took him off a plane that was scheduled to leave the country on Oct. 26, media reports said. [Newman] [Korean War]
• US veteran Merrill Newman 'delighted to be home' after North Korea ordeal
  White House official hails 'heroic' Swedish embassy and says 'all efforts' now focused on securing release of Kenneth Bae theguardian.com, Saturday 7 December 2013 18.31 GMT A tired but smiling 85-year-old veteran of the Korean War who was detained for several weeks in North Korea landed a free man Saturday at the San Francisco airport. His United Airlines flight landed shortly after 9am local time, a witness said. Holding the hand of his wife and accompanied by his son, Merrill Newman thanked the Swedish embassy in Pyongyang and US embassy in Beijing for helping to secure his release. He told the assembled media he was "delighted to be home" but declined to answer any questions after making a brief statement. "It's been a great homecoming," he said. "I'm tired, but ready to be with my family.” Aside from an awkwardly worded alleged confession last month, Newman had not spoken publicly since being taken off a plane by North Korean authorities on 26 October while preparing to leave the country after a 10-day tour. His visit came six decades after he oversaw a group of South Korean guerrillas during the 1950-53 war. North Korea deported him on Friday. "I am very glad to be on my way home," a smiling Newman had told reporters earlier, after arriving in Beijing from Pyongyang. "And I appreciate the tolerance the [North Korean] government has given to me to be on my way." [Newman] [Korean War]
• Biden seeks Seoul’s support on US ‘rebalancing to Asia’ policy
  Posted on : Dec.7,2013 14:04 KST US Vice President Joe Biden clasps hands with President Park Geun-hye at the Blue House before Biden signs the visitor’s book, Dec. 6. (Blue House photo pool) While in Seoul, US vice president says Washington will “continue to place its bet on South Korea” By Seok Jin-hwan, Blue House correspondent US Vice President Joseph Biden emphasized a strong alliance with South Korea in a meeting with President Park Geun-hye at the Blue House on Dec. 6, saying the US will “continue to place its bet on South Korea.” He also specifically requested Seoul’s support on the US “rebalancing to Asia” policy, which is putting Asia front and center in Washington’s diplomatic efforts in order to strengthen the country’s dominant role in Northeast Asia. “I want to make one thing absolutely clear. President Obama’s decision to rebalance the Pacific Basin is not in question,” Biden told Park. “The United States never says anything it does not do.” He went on to say, “As I said in my visits thus far in the region, it has never been a good bet to bet against America.” Analysts took this as a call for Seoul to cooperate actively with the policy effort, which involves stronger collaboration with South Korea and Japan to check China’s growing influence in the Asia-Pacific region. [China confrontation] [Dilemma]
• Biden vague on Korea's ADIZ plan
  President Park Geun-hye shakes hands with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden before a meeting at Cheong Wa Dae, Friday. / Yonhap By Kim Tae-gyu President Park Geun-hye talked about the expansion of the nation’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in a meeting with visiting U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, Friday. Biden neither showed support or made objections to Park’s plan. “President Park explained our stance regarding the zone and Vice President Biden appreciated the explanation and our efforts. The two agreed to continue close cooperation on the matter,” Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se told a press conference. Asked whether or not Biden was positive about Korea’s expansion plan, Yun said, “It is significant that the U.S. side appreciated our detailed explanation and efforts.” The tone of his remarks may indicate that the United States will not actively object to the expansion, Biden choosing to be strategically vague about the U.S. position so as to leave it to Korea’s discretion. Seoul’s follow-up measure appears to underpin such an interpretation [ADIZ] [Sidelined] [US dominance]
• U.S. Envoy Davies on North Korea Policy in Japan
  25 November 2013 U.S. Department of State Remarks by Glyn Davies Special Representative for North Korea Policy Tokyo, Japan November 25, 2013 Remarks to Press at Ministry of Foreign Affairs AMBASSADOR DAVIES: What I would like to do very much – first of all, let me thank you all for coming out. I appreciate that very much. I would like to say something at the beginning since it’s been a long visit here to North Asia and I’ve had good talks in Tokyo. First of all, I want to thank Director General Ihara and Assistant Chief Cabinet Secretary Kanehara for giving me so much time today here in Tokyo. We had very in-depth and useful talks, and I believe that our visit here today and the talks I’ve had in Tokyo today demonstrate our close collaboration on North Korea. We talked of course about the nuclear issue. Japan and the United States are in complete agreement, complete sync about that. We also talked about North Korean human rights – we’ll do more of that in a minute at lunch – and touched on the abductions issue. And we’ll again have more to say about that at lunch. I want to reiterate again, as I always do here in Tokyo, about how we in the United States share the pain and the suffering of abductee families and the Japanese people and pledge once again that we will work tirelessly in cooperation with Japan to try to resolve this important matter. But as I wrap up a very productive week in the three key North Asian capitals – Beijing, Seoul, and Tokyo – I want to report a strong convergence of views on North Korea. All of us are in quite close alignment, and I believe Russia, an essential partner in the Six-Party process, agrees that we will not accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state. There are of course some differences among the five – but not at all among the three allies, who are in complete solidarity – but some differences over secondary issues such as the precise threshold or timing of talks, but there is unanimity on what North Korea must do: North Korea must abandon its nuclear weapons and agree to begin that process. So we are looking for concrete indications from Pyongyang of its commitment to do that. This is because the core purpose of the Six-Party process is the complete, verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula on a clear and quick timetable. [US NK policy]
• Detained US vet in NKorea oversaw guerrilla group
  KCNA via KNS/Associated Press - FILE - In this Nov. 9, 2013 file photo released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and distributed Nov. 30, 2013 by the Korea News Service, U.S. citizen Merrill Newman, 85, reads a document, which North Korean authorities say was an apology that Newman wrote and read in North Korea. Six decades before he went to North Korea as a curious tourist, Newman supervised a group of South Korean guerrillas during the Korean War who were perhaps the most hated and feared fighters in the North, former members of the group say. By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, December 3, 9:04 PM SEOUL, South Korea — Six decades before he went to North Korea as a curious tourist, Merrill Newman supervised a group of South Korean guerrillas during the Korean War who were perhaps the most hated and feared fighters in the North, former members of the group say. Some of those guerrillas, interviewed this week by The Associated Press, remember Newman as a handsome, thin American lieutenant who got them rice, clothes and weapons during the later stages of the 1950-53 war, but largely left the fighting to them. . North Korea apparently remembered him, too [Korean War] [Special forces]
• Korea Foundation Fellowship at Pacific Forum CSIS
  Applications are being accepted from Nov. 29, 2013 through Dec. 31, 2013. In partnership with the Seoul-based Korea Foundation, Pacific Forum CSIS announces a new resident and nonresident fellowship beginning in 2014. Exclusively for Korean nationals, the Korea Foundation Fellowship is to assist graduate and Ph.D. students obtain research and professional experience in one of the world’s leading foreign policy and security studies think tanks. Fellows will have the opportunity to meet and learn from globally recognized academic, business, government, and military leaders, as well as leading policy experts, to help shape their thinking about the critical security challenges faced by Korea, and the larger Asia-Pacific region. Fellows will also connect with and build their peer networks with their counterparts from across the region. We encourage those who meet the following criteria to apply: [Softpower]
• Veteran's detention in North Korea highlights wartime guerrilla unit
  Merrill Newman, shown in a 2005 photo, has been detained for over a month in North Korea. (Nicholas Wright / Associated Press / November 20, 2013) By Barbara Demick This post has been updated. See the note below for details. November 30, 2013, 6:32 p.m. BEIJING -- Merrill Newman is the newest POW from the Korean War -- no matter that the war ended 60 years ago. The 85-year-old veteran and retired tech executive from Palo Alto was arrested Oct. 26 at the end of a 10-day visit to North Korea. After a month of holding him incommunicado, the North Koreans on Saturday released a videotaped confession from Newman, revealing details of clandestine and still partially classified anti-Communist guerrilla activities in which Newman was involved during and possibly after the 1950-1953 war. “Given Mr. Newman's advanced age and health conditions, we urge [North Korea] to release Mr. Newman so he may return home and reunite with his family,” said Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the National Security Council. [Korean War] [Special Forces]
• Korea Caught in a Bind Between China and U.S.
  China's unilateral announcement of an air defense identification zone has heightened tensions between Beijing and Washington and put South Korea in a bind since it relies on the two superpowers for business and security. In the summer of 2010, South Korea and the U.S. held a massive joint military exercise on the West Sea as a show of force against North Korea after the sinking of the Navy corvette Cheonan. The drill included U.S. aircraft carriers. China protested vehemently, prompting the South and the U.S. to hold the drills in the East Sea instead. The incident demonstrates the ramifications that clashing Chinese and U.S. interests can have on South Korean policies. [Allegiance] [Sidelined]
• Merrill Newman: North Korea says detained American has confessed
  Statement released by state media is purported to be from 85-year-old Korean war veteran held since 26 October Associated Press in South Korea theguardian.com, Saturday 30 November 2013 05.00 GMT North Korea has claimed an elderly US tourist detained for more than a month has apologised for alleged crimes during the Korean war in which he fought and for "hostile acts" against the state during a recent trip. There was no direct word from 85-year-old Merrill Newman, and his alleged apology, which was dated 9 November, could not be independently verified. Pyongyang has been accused in the past of coercing statements from detainees. North Korean authorities released video showing Newman reading the apology. The statement, carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency, said the war veteran allegedly attempted to meet with any surviving soldiers he had trained during the Korean War to fight North Korea, and that he admitted to killing civilians and brought with him an e-book criticising North Korea. It was not clear what would happen to Newman next. But the statement said he had undertaken to tell the truth about North Korea upon getting back to the US – a possible indication that he could be released. The apology could be seen as Pyongyang taking steps needed to release Newman, said Yoo Ho-Yeol, a professor of North Korea studies at Korea University in Seoul. North Korea likely issued the confession in the form of an apology to resolve Newman's case quickly without starting legal proceedings, Yoo said.
• N. Korea releases information on U.S. tourist held for more than a month
  KCNA/AFP/Getty Images - This photo released by North Korea's official news agency shows Merrill Newman inking his thumbprint onto a written apology for alleged crimes both as a tourist and during his participation in the Korean War. By Chico Harlan, Saturday, November 30, 8:02 PM E-mail the writer TOKYO — North Korea on Saturday acknowledged holding an elderly United States citizen and said he’d apologized for a “long list of indelible crimes” during the Korean War six decades ago. The North did not indicate whether the citizen, Merrill E. Newman, would be released. Newman, 85, has been held in the North for more than a month. He was pulled off of an outgoing plane at the end of a tourist trip he’d taken with a friend from his retirement community. Following weeks of silence, the North’s state-run news agency on Saturday released a flurry of information on Newman’s case, including what it described as a letter from Newman detailing his violations during the war. The North also released a brief video of Newman, wearing khakis and a green button-down shirt, reading from the letter and pressing it with an inked thumbprint. Though there was no immediate way to gauge the letter’s authenticity, previous detainees in the North have said they were coerced into writing apologetic letters. Newman’s letter, filed with grammatical errors and perplexing run-on sentences, appeared to be written by a nonnative English speaker.

• US pivot to Asia isolates S. Korea
  2013-11-27 17:17 Beijing's pursuit of hegemony emboldens Abe By Chung Min-uck Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is thriving amid growing uncertainty in the region. Experts say the trend is likely to continue, unless the United States reprimands Japan for denying its wartime history, for instance. However, the U.S. engrossed in a duel with rival China can’t afford to alienate Tokyo. Rather, it is encouraging Abe to become bolder, which he has done [Sidelined]
• U.S. Slammed for Blocking Resumption of Six-Party Talks with Unreasonable Preconditions: Spokesman
  Pyongyang, November 26 (KCNA) -- The spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK gave the following answer to a question raised by KCNA Tuesday in connection with the fact that the special representative for north Korea policy of the U.S. State Department toured countries around the DPRK: What the special representative said and did while touring countries around the DPRK proved that the U.S. remains unchanged in its attitude set to check the resumption of the six-party talks while persisting in absurd preconditions. This clearly proved once again that the U.S. has had no interest in the resumption of the six-party talks from the beginning. The six-party talks aim at removing the root cause of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula and denuclearizing the whole of the peninsula in the spirit of respect for sovereignty and equality. But the U.S. has not fulfilled the commitments it made at the six- party talks in the past and now rejects the talks by raising the brigandish demand for the DPRK's unilateral concession first. [Six Party Talks] [Preconditions]
• The Mysterious Case of Merrill Newman: The Perils and Pitfalls of Traveling to the DPRK
  By Ruediger Frank 25 November 2013 The arrest of Merrill Newman on October 26 has been a great shock. It is tough enough to hear that the North Korean authorities took an 85-year-old into custody. But to make things even worse, they did it in a dramatic way—by escorting him off an airplane just about to leave Sunan airport for Beijing, which, on an ironic side note, suddenly appears like a beacon of freedom and a safe haven. What was the reason? So far, nobody seems to be willing to leak any details. We are therefore left to speculation and guesswork. What do we know about the specific case of Mr. Newman? Very little, actually. He is a citizen of the United States and a Korean War veteran. His relatives describe him as adventurous, whatever that means. He took a short tour organized by a company that is relatively new in the North Korean tourism market. He was about to leave when he got arrested literally at the last minute. No reason for his detention has yet been provided. That’s all. Our general information about travel to North Korea is slightly better. Rather than speculating about what Mr. Newman might have done or what the North Korean authorities might suspect him of having done, it makes more sense to look at previous experiences. These can serve as a guide for your own speculation, though at your own risk. Until we get an official statement from the North Koreans, the US government or from Mr. Newman himself, despite all the speculation, we actually know nothing.
• Some USFK Troops to Stay Near Frontline
  Part of the U.S. Forces Korea needs to remain north of Seoul near the frontline after headquarters relocates south of the capital, USFK commander Curtis Scaparrotti said Monday. "In terms of the residual in what we call Area I, there may be a need operationally to leave some residual in those areas just for proper defense and response," Scaparrotti told the Defense Ministry press corps. It was his first meeting with the reporters after he was inaugurated as the new USFK commander last month. The plan so far has been for the entire USFK to retreat to a new base in Pyeongtaek in southwestern Gyeonggi Province by 2016. [USFK] [Fall back]
• Rodman Poised for Christmas Trip to N.Korea
  Dennis Rodman is getting ready for a Christmas visit to North Korea next month, the former NBA star told AP Saturday. Rodman will be accompanied by seven other current and former NBA players on his third trip to the Stalinist country. They plan to stage a basketball game during the trip. "Let's go over there because this is a great opportunity for everyone to see a different culture... 'This country is so bad. This city is so bad.' OK, great, come see it and tell the world when you come back, 'Hey, it's not as bad as you think.' And that's why I'm taking NBA players over there, to show them, so they can come back and talk about it," Rodman said
• South Korea found as key partner helping the US and Australia spy
  Posted on : Nov.26,2013 16:05 KST Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald reports on South Korea’s partnership in the “Five Eyes” network By Jeon Jeong-yun, Lee Soon-hyuk and Park Byong-su, staff reporters South Korea served as a key listening and surveillance partner for the “Five Eyes” network, a report revealed. “Five Eyes” refers to five English-speaking countries - the US, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada - that agreed to assist each other’s spying efforts as members of a surveillance alliance. These countries were reportedly monitoring high-speed fiber cables in twenty locations around the world. The Sydney Morning Herald of Australia reported on Nov. 25, “Singapore and South Korea are playing key roles helping the United States and Australia tap undersea telecommunications links across Asia.” The paper cited a top-secret map from the US National Security Agency (NSA) that was leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden as the basis for the claim. On the NSA map, South Korea is labeled as a key point for listening and surveillance. South Korea’s undersea high-sea cables pass through Busan and extend to China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. It appears that the US intelligence agency used Korea as a hub to monitor the telecommunications information from these countries. [Surveillance] [Allegiance] [Subordinate]
• U.S. Concerned About Seoul-Tokyo Conflict
  Senior U.S. officials worry about icy relations between Seoul and Tokyo over the Japan's attempts at military expansion. The Financial Times on Friday quoted a White House official as saying them said, "We want to create the conditions where both sides can find a solution to this." But the official admitted it is not easy to "mediate between them." "This has now emerged as the biggest strategic challenge to American interests in Asia," the daily quoted ex-State Department official Kurt Campbell as saying. Joseph Nye, an ex-Pentagon official, said, "Two allies not co-operating increase our military risk." Washington supports Japan’s efforts to assert its right to so-called collective self-defense, where its troops can operate abroad if an ally is in some way under attack. A U.S. Defense Department official last Thursday said it is important for Washington and Tokyo to "coordinate closely with South Korea to promote common security interests." He attempted to allay Seoul's worries that Japanese troops could under certain circumstances once again set foot on Korean soil. The Pentagon in a press release said recent news reports that the U.S. decided to include the Korean Peninsula in the scope of Japan's collective self-defense "mischaracterized U.S. policy with respect to Northeast Asia." [Sidelined]
• US: No dialogue if North Korea keeps nuclear programme
  Washington will not negotiate with Pyongyang while nuclear programme remains in operation, National Security Adviser says . PUBLISHED : Thursday, 21 November, 2013, 9:25am UPDATED : Thursday, 21 November, 2013, 9:24pm Associated Press in Washington . US National Security Adviser Susan Rice (left) confers with Secretary of State John Kerry at the White House. Photo: EPA The Obama administration said on Wednesday it wants to make Asia more stable and won’t negotiate with North Korea while it keeps critical elements of its nuclear weapons programme running. National Security Adviser Susan Rice also warned Pyongyang could face tougher sanctions if it acts provocatively. She made the comments on Wednesday in an Asia policy speech where she underscored US commitment to the region and announced President Barack Obama would visit in April. [Preconditions] [US Negotiations]
• ‘Treasury’s War: The Unleashing of a New Era of Financial Warfare’ by Juan C. Zarate
  By Jordan Chandler Hirsch,September 28, 2013 The popular image of the war on terrorism involves counterinsurgency and drones, with soldiers hunting militants in dusty desert villages and on mountainsides. In his part-history, part-memoir “Treasury’s War,” Juan C. Zarate adds a new cast of characters to the picture: bureaucrats, bankers and illicit moneymakers. His thorough, thoughtful insider’s account of the U.S. Treasury Department’s post-Sept. 11 battle to cut off funding to terrorist groups and rogue regimes is at once self-congratulatory and self-aware: the story of a gifted innovator both proud and wary of his creation. Zarate, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, plays the role of the bureaucrat. He joined the Treasury Department just weeks before the 2001 attacks to aid the agency’s enforcement wing. At the time, it oversaw many of the most iconic U.S. law enforcement agencies: the Secret Service, Customs, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — as well as a lesser-known entity called the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), responsible for sanctions. [Subcritical] [Financial Sanctions]
• Can US and North Korea Cooperate Against the Drug Trade?
  Geoffrey K. See | Thursday, November 21st, 2013 | No Comments » There have been many reports on the prevalence of methamphetamines in North Korea. For some background, I would recommend this really good report by Isaac Stone Fish. For many years, North Korea’s government has been suspected of state-sponsored production of the drug. After reported government attempts to crackdown on its production, it is alleged that production has moved out of state control, fueling trafficking at the border as well as consumption back home. [Drugs] [Naiveté]
• American Held in N.Korea Is Korean War Veteran
  An American who was arrested in North Korea on Oct. 26 has been identified as Merrill Newman, an 85-year-old Korean War veteran from Palo Alto, California. Newman was about to leave North Korea when he was asked by a North Korean officer to step off the plane. "He's always wanted to go to North Korea; it's been a lifelong thing," his son, Jeffrey Newman, told the San Jose Mercury News on Wednesday. "My dad got off, walked out with the stewardess, and that's the last he was seen." Merrill Newman went to the North last month with friend Bob Hamdla for a package tour arranged by a Beijing-based travel agency. After studying zoology at the University of California at Berkeley, Newman joined the Army in 1950 and served as an infantry officer during the Korean War. He obtained a master's degree in education from Stanford University after the war and worked as an accountant for tech companies. On retiring in 1984, he moved to Palo Alto with his wife, the paper said. The day before he was detained, Newman and a local tour guide talked with a North Korean official about his experience of the Korean War. Calling Newman's detention "a terrible misunderstanding," his travel companion Hamdla said in a statement, "I hope that the North Koreans see this as a humanitarian matter and allow him to return to his family as soon as possible."
• U.S. warns against travel to North Korea, citing risk of ‘arbitrary arrest and detention’
  Nicholas Wright/AP - This 2005 photo provided by the Palo Alto Weekly shows Merrill Newman, a retired finance executive and Red Cross volunteer, in Palo Alto, Calif. The 85-year-old American veteran of the Korean War has been detained in North Korea since last month. The son of Merrill Newman told the San Jose Mercury News on Wednesday his father was taken off a plane set to leave North Korea on Oct. 26. By Anne Gearan, A blunt warning from the State Department this week, telling Americans not to travel to North Korea for any reason, was the first clue that something in the perpetually difficult U.S. relationship with North Korea had suddenly gotten worse. The State Department warned of “arbitrary arrest and detention” but gave no details about the case that apparently prompted the advisory. An 85-year-old Korean War veteran from California has been in a North Korean jail for more than a month after being forcibly escorted off a plane during a visit.
• Elle Got North Korean Fashion All Wrong -- Here's Why
  Posted By Catherine A. Traywick Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - 5:11 PM Share Elle magazine's creative director, Joe Zee, has been getting a lot of flack for characterizing a military-inspired runway trend as "North Korea Chic" in their August issue. The spread, which featured an assortment of olive drab menswear, a single gold stiletto, and a photo of a man in an approximation of a North Korean military uniform, read: "Some iteration of the military trend stomps the runways every few seasons. This time, it's edgier, even dangerous, with sharp buckles and clasps and take-no-prisoners tailoring." The Washington Post and ThinkProgress (among many others) were quick to attack Zee for invoking North Korea so casually and exploiting the country's notoriety to sell luxury goods. North Korea does, after all, have a horrendous human rights record and a reputation for military brinkmanship. The criticisms are certainly valid, but they miss another important point: Elle, a fashion magazine, got North Korean fashion totally wrong -- and no one even noticed! (Admittedly, that could be due to the fact that there is no internet in North Korea.) [Media]
• Elle magazine names ‘North Korea Chic’ as a top fashion trend for fall 2013
  By Max Fisher ? November 19 at 12:53 pm In February 2011, when Vogue magazine published a fawning profile of Syrian first lady Asma al-Assad, I asked the story's editor whether his magazine would consider profiling the wife of North Korean then-dictator Kim Jong Il. I assumed he would answer "no," opening a conversation on what, in Vogue's view, makes Syria's ruling family fair game. To my surprise -- I was young and innocent then -- he did not rule out an equivalent profile of North Korea's first lady. "That's the kind of hypothetical that -- we really do that on a case-by-case basis," he said. Vogue is apparently not alone in seeing the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as an appropriate subject for fashion-related coverage. Elle magazine, in an article posted today on its Web site, names "North Korea Chic" as one of its "top fashion trends" for the autumn of 2013. Just in case the article disappears mysteriously from Elle's site, just as the Asma al-Assad profile did from Vogue's site when backlash mounted, here is a screenshot of the first page on North Korea Chic: [Media]
• North Korea Chic? ELLE Responds
  November 19 11:45 AM ELLE | The edition of Joe Zee's A to Zee column that ran in the September 2013 issue of the magazine stirred some controversy that was addressed in the Letters section of the November issue. Here is the official statement from ELLE regarding the story, with the full text of the initial response below: We regret the reference to North Korea in our post on the season’s military trend, and have removed the image. We apologize to those we offended. "Joe Zee nails it with his A-to-Z roundup of designers’ motley references—zebras! Wednesday Addams! SweeTarts!,” gushed the New York Post in their August 12 review of our biggest-ever September issue. But while some applauded our Creative Director’s cheeky, by-the-letter seasonal digest, “All The Trends That Fit,” others felt that one of his 26 observations missed the mark: “Joe Zee’s column this month was a riot—and a lazy girl’s dream! Glad to know that my bedhead, boyfriend jeans, and penchant for wearing pajama camis as daytime attire are finally in fashion!” Read more: North Korea Chic - Joe Zee A to Zee - ELLE Follow us: @ElleMagazine on Twitter | ellemagazine on Facebook Visit us at ELLE.com [Media]
• Susan Rice calls for negotiations on “the entirety” of NK nukes
  Posted on : Nov.22,2013 17:05 KSTModified on : Nov.22,2013 17:05 KST Speaking at Georgetown, Susan Rice reiterates line of credible steps towards denuclearization before talks with Pyongyang By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent White House National Security Advisor Susan Rice has said it is prepared to reopen talks with North Korea if Pyongyang is willing to have sincere negotiations about its whole nuclear program. But it also warned that the North would pay a steep price if it carries out any new provocations. Delivering a talk titled “America’s Future in Asia” at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. on Nov. 20, Rice said the US was “prepared for negotiations, provided that they are authentic and credible, get at the entirety of the North’s nuclear program, and result in concrete and irreversible steps toward denuclearization.” Rice went on to say, “Pyongyang’s attempts to engage in dialogue while keeping critical elements of its weapons programs running are unacceptable, and they will not succeed.” Analysts took her remarks to mean that Pyongyang will have to put its entire nuclear program on the table - including both plutonium and enriched uranium - if it hopes to get the six-party talks resumed, and that it would have to halt all nuclear testing and freeze its nuclear facilities once they began. [US NK Negotiations] [Preconditions]
• US Korean War vet detained in N. Korea for more than three weeks
  Posted on : Nov.22,2013 17:09 KST Elderly man taken off plane 5 minutes before it was to leave; reasons for detention not known By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent North Korean authorities are holding an American Korean War veteran who visited the country last month, US news outlets reported. Merrill Newman, 85, has reportedly been under detention for more than three weeks since being escorted off an airplane by North Korean authorities after taking a tour of the country last month. Newman’s son Jeffrey was quoted as saying his father had boarded the plane on Oct. 26 to leave North Korea after a nine-day trip with a friend and two guides, but disembarked five minutes before department at the request of local authorities. No information was available about why only Newman was prevented from leaving.
• Ex-USFK commander backs OPCON delay
  By Kang Seung-woo Former Gen. John Tilelli A former top U.S. military commander in Korea said Tuesday he supports a delay in the planned transfer of the wartime operational control (OPCON) here. South Korea is scheduled to take over the OPCON in December 2015 from Washington, but the Park Geun-hye administration has asked the U.S. to review that plan given the continuing threats posed by North Korea. “Realistically, the U.S. must take that request very seriously,” retired Gen. John Tilelli said in a roundtable discussion hosted by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a Washington-based think tank. Tilelli served as commander of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) from 1996 to 1999. [OPCON]
• 5 extradited in plot to import North Korean meth to U.S.
  By Sari Horwitz, Thursday, November 21, 2:05 PM E-mail the writer Five men have been charged with conspiracy to import 100 kilograms of nearly pure North Korean-produced methamphetamine into the United States, and federal officials said the case illustrates the emergence of North Korea as a player in the global drug trade. The men were part of a sprawling international drug trafficking ring led by a former American soldier, Joseph Manuel Hunter, who has separately been charged with conspiring to murder a Drug Enforcement Administration agent and with importing cocaine into the United States, federal officials said. Federal officials say the case illustrates North Korea’s emerging role in the global drug trade. “These guys worked for and with Joseph Hunter in a transnational criminal organization that involved drugs, weapons, chemicals, murder and a close involvement with rogue nations,” said a senior federal law enforcement official, who was not authorized to discuss the case publicly. The five men — including British, Chinese and Philippine nationals — were arrested in Phuket, Thailand, in September and were extradited to the United States on Tuesday night. They appeared in federal court in New York on Wednesday. [Drugs] [Evidence] [Media] [Extraterritoriality]
• North Korea’s Dilemma
  Posted on : Nov.18,2013 13:09 KST John Feffer By John Feffer, co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus By all usual standards of measurement, the regime in North Korea seems quite secure. The worst consequences of the famine and industrial collapse of the 1990s have abated. Although far from robust, the North Korean economy has marginally improved, having expanded by 1.3 percent in 2012 after a .8 percent increase in 2011. Politically, Kim Jong Eun appears to have consolidated his power with relative ease. He is not as beloved as his grandfather, but he is also not as disliked as his father. He has shaken up the upper tier of the military, most likely to ensure its loyalty.
• President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry: End the Korean War
  Petition by National Campaign to End the Korean War Moderator Today, the Korean War remains the longest ongoing U.S. military conflict. The time is right to recognize the human costs of the ongoing Korean War, which was never settled with a peace treaty. At a time when many Americans struggle to pay their bills, vital U.S. dollars are directed into further militarizing the Korean peninsula. The Korean peninsula remains tragically divided, and millions of Korean and Korean American families remain separated from their loved ones. We must honor them and all those who fought in the war by replacing hostilities with genuine peace within their lifetimes. [Peace treaty]
• N.Korea Refuses to Act on Earlier Nuclear Pledges
  North Korea has refused to take any steps toward denuclearization unless six-party talks on its nuclear program start first. The North "will take no preliminary steps" to seek resumption of the six-party talks, said the official Rodong Sinmun daily said Monday. The refusal comes in response to insistence from Japan, South Korea and the U.S. that Pyongyang must make good on pledges from previous rounds of the talks if they are to resume. [Preconditions] [US NK Negotiations]
• The Case of the Rescinded Invite
  by Roger Cavazos September 6, 2013 What happened to Ambassador Robert King’s invite to North Korea? In the late afternoon of August 27th (early August 28th Korean time) the U.S. State Department sent out a press release stating Ambassador Robert King would go to North Korea and return with the American Kenneth Bae. Kenneth Bae is an American of Korean descent who ran a tourist agency in China. In November of 2012 Kenneth Bae was arrested in North Korea, convicted in April 2013, and in May sentenced to fifteen years of compulsory labor. [1] [2] The State Department announced Robert King's visit was cancelled on August 30th. [3] What could have so disastrously derailed this seemingly done deal within 72 hours? Considering possible answers raises some interesting deterrence insights and also many questions about future engagement with North Korea--in particular, the Six Party Talks could now be a much more difficult sell. There are likely many reasons for canceling the visit which will never be fully known, but what we do know is that North Korea on August 30th complained of the U.S. flying B-52 bombers in Korean airspace. We already know B-52s strike a particularly discordant note in the collective North Korean psyche (as Peter Hayes articulated here based on personal interactions with North Koreans). [4] On the 31st of August (Korea time), North Korea explicitly tied the decision to cancel the visit to the B52 flights. North Korea also clarified that this information was relayed via their New York channel. On the 30th of August, North Korea via their official press complained that the U.S. flew three separate missions of B52s on the 15th, 21st and 27th of August. KCNA’s excerpt for the relevant portions state: On August 27, the U.S. imperialist aggressors flew two B-52H nuclear strategic bombers to the sky above South Korea from an air force base in the U.S. mainland to stage a nuclear attack drill targeting the DPRK before their deployment on Guam. ... At night on August 15 and during the day on August 21, a few days after they started Ulji Freedom Guardian, they flew Guam-based B-52H to the sky above Jik Islet in South Korea, two planes each, staging DPRK-targeted nuclear strike drills. [5] There are three particularly interesting phrases hidden in the above statement (bolded) indicating the North Koreans (or at least a finite subset of them) have a fairly good idea of what goes on outside of North Korea’s borders. [Joint US military] [Provocation] [B52] [Dissension]
• Hankyoreh to partner with Huffington Post
  Posted on : Nov.11,2013 16:18 KST US online media outlet chooses the Hankyoreh as local partner in setting up a Korean-language version with local news By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent in New York The Hankyoreh is partnering with the Huffington Post, a US website with a global audience. The Hankyoreh’s CEO, Yang Sang-woo, exchanged letters of intent with Huffington Post Media Group chairperson Arianna Huffington on the afternoon of Nov. 7 at the website’s offices in Manhattan. The two media agreed to sign a contract by the end of the year and establish a joint Huffington Post Korea corporation, with plans to begin providing Korean-language online news services by early 2014. The Huffington Post was launched by Huffington in 2005. In less than ten years, it has moved past the New York Times to become the US’s most-visited online news site. It boasts around 50,000 bloggers, including US President Barack Obama as well as Great Britain’s Prince Charles, US Secretary of State John Kerry, noted scholar Noam Chomsky, and film director Michael Moore. Its independent network allows it provide in-depth news coverage and information.
• S.Korea, Japan, U.S. Reject Unconditional Nuke Talks with N.Korea
  The chief nuclear negotiators of South Korea, Japan and the U.S. on Wednesday reiterated that North Korea must make good on earlier promises to dismantle its atomic program if six-party nuclear talks are to resume. This suggests that they rejected a compromise suggested by China's top nuclear envoy Wu Dawei, who was in Washington recently, whereby the talks would restart first while North Korea acts on its pledges. [Preconditions]
• Facing the Facts: Towards a New U.S. North Korea Policy
  By: Evans J.R. Revere For two decades, the United States has sought to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Occasional success in freezing elements of that program, together with pledges by Pyongyang to end it, inspired hope that denuclearization could actually be achieved. Hope also grew from the belief that there existed a collection of incentives, including diplomatic normalization, security guarantees, and food assistance, which would convince Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear ambitions. These hopes have been dashed. U.S. policy has failed to achieve its objective. [US NK policy] [MISCOM]
• Report: S. Korea key intelligence target for US eavesdropping
  Posted on : Nov.5,2013 13:26 KST Leaked document shows S. Korea among list of allies and enemies eavesdropped on for military, technological and intelligence info By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent and Park Byong-su, staff reporter South Korea‘s foreign and military policies intelligence organizations, and strategic technology were classified as key targets for US National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence gathering in 2007, a document released on Nov. 4 reveals. South Korea was one of 33 allies and enemies listed as the subjects of intelligence gathering. The information comes from the New York Times online edition, which disclosed a portion of secret documents it received from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The documents show the NSA carrying out wide-scale surveillance not only on enemy countries and terrorist groups but also key allies with shared diplomatic and economic interests. The inclusion of a specific list of surveillance targets is already drawing major attention. [Surveillance]
• Diplomat emphasizes S. Korean “ownership” of N. Korean nuclear issue
  Posted on : Nov.5,2013 13:23 KST Cho Tae-yong, special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs Comment comes at a time of increasing US-China contact on possibly resuming the six-party talks By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent A South Korean diplomat made waves by saying that South Korea will hold discussions with other countries about North Korea since it is in a position of ownership on the issue. The remarks were made by Cho Tae-yong, South Korea’s special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, who visited the US on Nov. 3 to discuss the question of resuming the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program. While Cho’s remark may sound obvious, it is unusual for South Korea’s representative to the six-party talks to emphasize “ownership” even as the US and China pursue detailed discussions about how to restart the talks. “Recently, a lot of diplomatic deliberation has been taking place between the countries involved in the six-party talks,” Cho told reporters immediately after arriving at Dulles International Airport, which serves the Washington D.C. area. “It is true that the North Korean nuclear weapons program is the greatest challenge facing global efforts to stop nuclear proliferation. However, from the point of South Korea, the North Korean nuclear issue is only one of the challenges posed by North Korea,” Cho said. “For this reason, it is the opinion of the South Korean government and the expectation of the South Korean people that South Korea should take ownership of the nuclear issue and take a central role in resolving it.” [Sidelined]
• [Editorial] US needs to come clean on eavesdropping
  Posted on : Nov.5,2013 13:19 KSTModified on : Nov.5,2013 13:26 KST Shocking details have been emerging about the illegal gathering of intelligence from various world governments by the US National Security Agency (NSA). The revelations of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden paint an Orwellian picture. Making matters worse is the fact that the South Korean government was apparently one of the key targets of the country’s intelligence gathering efforts. The New York Times revealed a portion of Snowden’s classified documents that listed South Korea in four “focus areas,” namely foreign policy, foreign intelligence activity, risks to US troops, and strategic technology. Focus areas are places of crucial interest where Washington feels the need to collect intelligence. The document, which was drafted in January 2007, specified activities for a period of twelve to eighteen months, coinciding with the end of the Roh Moo-hyun administration and the beginning of the Lee Myung-bak administration in South Korea (Feb. 2008). It seems that Seoul’s position on sensitive issues like the South Korea-US Free Trade Agreement, the transfer of wartime operation control, and the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear program were the subject of focused surveillance. From this document, it appears very likely that South Korea is still a key intelligence target for the US. After all, there is no shortage of sensitive foreign policy and national security issues on the peninsula right now. The chances are also very strong that the South Korean President was one of 35 national leaders subjected to NSA eavesdropping. [Surveillance]
• [Editorial] The US should apologize for its illegal wiretapping
  Posted on : Oct.29,2013 15:16 KSTModified on : Oct.29,2013 15:16 KST The controversy about illegal American surveillance and wiretapping overseas just keeps getting bigger and bigger. In recent days, foreign media ran reports suggesting that the US listened in on the telephone conversations of the leaders of 35 countries. The reports drew upon classified documents from the US National Security Agency leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. On the list of these leaders is German chancellor Angela Merkel. One report suggested that the US was tapping her cell phone for more than 10 years. Germany and the other involved countries have shown that they won’t put up with American wiretapping. Germany said that it will send the highest official in its intelligence service to the US this week to demand an explanation and investigation into the alleged surveillance of Merkel. The administration of US President Barack Obama is facing a serious crisis of trust from its allies. Along with Brazil, another country mentioned in the reports, Germany is pushing for a resolution in the UN General Assembly that would block American spying. [Surveillance]
• Dennis Rodman: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is a 'good-hearted kid'
  Former basketball player describes visit to his friend's private island: 'Just normal people, drinking cocktails and laughing' theguardian.com, Saturday 2 November 2013 13.08 GMT Kim Jong-un and Dennis Rodman watch a basketball game in Pyongyang North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Dennis Rodman watch a basketball game in Pyongyang in March. Photograph: Jason Mojica/AFP/Getty Images Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, is a "good guy", a "good-hearted kid" who offers the best tequila to his guests on his private island, according to the former basketball player Dennis Rodman. Rodman talked about his friendship with the North Korean leader in London to promote a basketball game between a Rodman-selected team and a North Korean team to coincide with Kim's 31st birthday on 8 January. "They need money. I'm not doing it for the money. I'm doing it to open a gap between North Korea and the world. And North Korea has a lot to offer. They want to branch out," Rodman told the Times. "I'm not saying that the marshal of North Korea is in control. It's the system that's been built for years and years and years. And this young kid is trying to do one thing – to open that gap. To do something to make it work." [Kim Jong Un]

• No clear answer from Washington on alleged eavesdropping
  Posted on : Oct.30,2013 15:08 KST Officials in Washington don’t confirm or deny that S. Korea was among the countries allegedly wiretapped by the NSA By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent Diplomatic officials who asked the US to confirm if the South Korean president was among 35 heads of state allegedly eavesdropped on by the National Security Agency (NSA) received only a vague reply, sources said on Oct. 28. In its response, the US reportedly just said it “understood” Seoul’s position. According to accounts from various diplomatic sources, the South Korean government inquired with the US State Department through its embassy in Washington and other diplomatic channels to confirm the allegations after reports of eavesdropping surfaced on Oct. 24. The government also reportedly stressed the magnitude of the issue if the head of state was eavesdropped on. But the only reply from the US was to say it was “aware” of Seoul’s position, without giving a clear answer on whether any eavesdropping took place. Speaking at a briefing on Oct. 24, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Cho Tae-young said, “Our understanding is that this was not a final answer.” “We are still waiting for the final answer,” Cho added. The US is said to be examining the issue internally, but at the moment there is no way of knowing when it can offer confirmation. With the news coming in the wake of July’s revelations about NSA wiretapping of the South Korean embassy in Washington, there are concerns over South Korea’s ability to get all the facts of the situation. Meanwhile, Washington has responded to press reports by offering only a seeming admission of tapping in certain countries, including Germany. [Surveillance]
• Former US officials describe path back to dialogue with North Korea
  Posted on : Oct.29,2013 15:23 KST Stephen Bosworth, former US State Department special representative on North Korea policy Stephen Bosworth and Robert Gallucci emphasize an easing of preconditions by the US By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent A former US special representative on North Korean policy quoted senior diplomats from North Korea on Oct. 27 as saying that “everything is on the table” in possible negotiations. Speaking in an interview with the Hankyoreh, former US State Department special representative on North Korea policy Stephen Bosworth responded to a question on whether North Korea’s suspected uranium enrichment facilities outside the Yongbyon nuclear complex might be put on the negotiating table by saying “I assume so.” In July, Bosworth was named chairman of the US-Korea Institute at SAIS. [US NK Negotiations] [Engagement]
• U.S. Promises to 'Review' Snooping on Korean Embassy
  The U.S. government promised Korea to "review intelligence activities" after Seoul asked whether the National Security Agency wiretapped the Korean Embassy in Washington. This is seen as tantamount to an admission that it did. "Seoul had demanded that Washington verify rumors about wiretapping and make its position clear," Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Tae-young said Tuesday. "The U.S. has said it understands allies' worries and promised to review intelligence activities." Cho neither confirmed nor denied that this was an admission that wiretapping occurred but merely said, "It's up to the U.S. to answer the question concerning the interpretation of the words." In July, the Guardian reported based on documents disclosed by former NSA employee Edward Snowden that the NSA had eavesdropped on encrypted faxes and conversations among staffers of the embassies in Washington of 38 countries, including Korea, France, India and Japan. The ministry said it twice asked the U.S. to explain itself and conducted security checks of missions overseas, including the U.S., but reportedly found no bugs. Separately, the ministry has asked the U.S. to clarify if Korean presidents were among the victims of the NSA's bugging of the mobile phones of the leaders of 35 countries. [Surveillance]
• Panama to Repatriate Ship Crew to N.Korea
  Most crewmen of the North Korean ship Chongchongang, who were detained by Panamanian authorities after their ship was found to carry weapons parts from Cuba, will be repatriated to the North next week, the Associated Press said Tuesday. The Panamanian government said it will send 32 of the 35 crewmen to the North next week, holding only the captain and the political commissar, who have been charged with transporting illegal weapons. [Legality] [Subordinate]
• Seoul Wants to Know Whether U.S. Wiretapped Park
  The government has asked Washington to confirm whether Korean presidents were among 35 world leaders who were the target of wiretapping by the U.S. National Security Agency in 2006. A Foreign Ministry official said the Korean Embassy in Washington has sought clarification from the U.S. government. The allegation arises from an investigation by a German magazine that revealed that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had been the victim of wiretapping by the NSA for a decade and that 34 other world leaders were also targeted. If the allegations are confirmed, the official warned Seoul will take "strong" measures. After a flood of revelations that U.S. secret services snooped into the electronic communications of billions of people around the world, including close allies, the U.S. government now faces demands for a radical overhaul of its information-gathering activities. But the official said Seoul is merely seeking clarification and has no evidence that Korean presidents were bugged. The official added Washington has not yet responded and it is unclear whether it will. Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian reporter who is working on documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, has said Korea was on the list of countries whose leaders were targets of electronic eavesdropping. [Surveillance] [Espionage] [Subordinate]
• Did the NSA eavesdrop on the South Korean president?
  Posted on : Oct.26,2013 16:32 KST Leaked document says US illegally listened in on world leaders, but not yet known if Pres. Park was among them By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent Did the US’s National Security Agency (NSA) illegally listen in on the South Korean President’s telephone conversations? This question is now being asked after allegations that the intelligence organization tapped the mobile phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other communication devices belonging to 35 world leaders. On Oct. 24, Britain’s Guardian newspaper printed an article claiming that the NSA tapped the communication devices of heads of state from 35 countries. The claims were based on a confidential document provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. "From time to time, SID [the agency’s Signals Intelligence Directorate] is offered access to the personal contact databases of US officials," said the memo, which was written in Oct. 2006. “Such 'Rolodexes' may contain contact information for foreign political or military leaders, to include direct line, fax, residence and cellular numbers.” As an example, the document noted that a US official had recently supplied 200 mobile phone numbers, including those of 35 world leaders. [Surveillance] [Espionage] [Subordinate]
• [Editorial] Seoul and Washington must take lead toward restarting six-party talks
  Posted on : Oct.28,2013 16:08 KST The US and China are reportedly at work drawing a road map for preliminary steps by North Korea and practical developments in its denuclearization process ahead of a reopening of the six-party talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear program. It’s a step forward for Washington and Beijing, which have had their differences over the past few months on resuming the talks. We expect that their efforts will lead to a speedy resumption. The origins of the idea to draw a “road map” go back to a Sept. 19 meeting between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. The day before, Wang had met in Beijing with Kim Kye-gwan, North Korea’s first vice Foreign Minister, to talk about ideas for resuming the talks. Based on these discussions, China went to the US and asked for its support in restarting the talks. Washington countered with a demand that Beijing come up with some ideas on how the talks might be made more effective. Just after the meeting, Wang said he was “confident that we and the US can work out a new and important agreement on how to resume the six-party talks and steer the denuclearization process more effectively.” The US is still showing a limited attitude, as it is insisting on leaving China to handle things that it really should be talking directly to North Korea about. It hasn’t budged from its position that the talks cannot be resumed until North Korea has taken “credible preliminary steps” toward denuclearization. But as far as the nuclear issue is concerned, what concerns Pyongyang is Washington’s real intentions, not Beijing’s. China’s efforts are unlikely to bear much fruit until the US takes a more proactive stance. China may be the host country for the six-party talks, but the ones who can really resolve the nuclear issue are still North Korea, the US, and South Korea. [Six Party Talks] [Preconditions]
• [Analysis] The politics of the “kill chain”
  Posted on : Oct.22,2013 15:29 KSTModified on : Oct.22,2013 15:35 KST To be effective, kill chain policy must take place within context of autonomous defense and engagement with N. Korea By Choi Jong-kun, Yonsei University professor In a speech for Armed Forces Day on Oct. 1, President Park Geun-hye discussed keeping up a strong allied defense system with the United States. In particular, she said South Korea would be “quickly securing abilities to counter nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction, including through the Kill-Chain system and the Korean Air and Missile Defense system” in order to “make sure that the North Korean regime recognizes that the nuclear arms and missiles to which it clings are no longer useful.” On Oct. 11, Adm. Choi Yoon-hee said at his National Assembly confirmation hearing to become the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that he would “retaliate without hesitation” in the event of an enemy provocation. “We would reduce not only the source of the provocation but any supporting and commanding forces to rubble,” Choi declared at the hearing. “If the enemy does decide to provoke us, we will make them bitterly regret their mistake.” Together, Park and Choi’s remarks give a sense of how strongly committed South Korea’s leaders are to a deterrent against North Korea. The greater sense of a need for national security clearly stems in large part from tensions that erupted on the peninsula after North Korea launched a long-range rocket last December and carried out a third nuclear test in February of this year. As those responsible for security, the administration, and the military in particular, has to consider the worst-case scenario. In this case, the scenario they need to prepare for is a nuclear-armed North Korea miniaturizing its weapons and loading them onto medium- to long-range missiles. The idea of a “kill chain” emerged as part of that plan. What is a kill chain when used as a deterrent? A kill chain is a preemptive strike system that targets North Korean missiles before they are launched. More specifically, it is a process by which the military uses its various intelligence assets to detect, track, and carry out a precision strike on a target. [SK NK policy] [Pre-emptive]
• North Korea just built the creepiest water park you’ve ever seen
  By Max Fisher ? October 18 at 10:42 am North Korea opened a shiny new water park in east Pyongyang this week, to characteristically over-the-top fanfare. The official unveiling ceremony included the chiefs of the armed forces and top government officials. There was, of course, a full military parade. North Korean state media released several photos of the unveiling, which are posted below. The photos are, there's no getting around this, a bit creepy. Maybe it's the cartoonishly over-saturated colors in the middle of a country that is, in reality, rife with the drab greens and browns of communist housing blocks, hand-tilled fields and deep poverty. Maybe it's the insistence on celebrating a family amusement park with a military parade. And maybe it's the people in the photos. If you look closely, you'll notice that each shows, in the foreground, a handful of eager-looking young men and women playing in the water while, in the background, a mass of several hundred stern-looking men in dark suits look on silently. It's weird. [Media] [Bizarre]
• Collapsism
  America's foreign policy hawks are no longer counting on Iran to collapse, but North Korea and Cuba remain the "Teetering Twosome." By John Feffer, October 16, 2013. When small children want something to go away, they close their eyes. Poof! The monster disappears. The spoonful of spinach vanishes. The spilled milk evaporates. Except that they don’t. U.S policymakers indulge in a similar variety of child’s play called collapsism. They close their eyes when they want a particularly despised adversary to go away. And poof! Kim Jong Eun’s North Korea eventually disappears. Raul Castro’s Cuba eventually vanishes. Except that they haven’t. [Collapse]
• Gov't Must Stop Obfuscating on Missile Defense Plans
  Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin told a National Assembly audit on Monday that he would "research and consider multi-level defense measures" involving SM-3 interceptor missiles that form the core of the U.S.-led missile defense programs. The missiles could destroy North Korean ballistic missiles at an altitude of 150 km, requiring more powerful radars and trillions of won in additional military spending. Until now, the government has claimed confidently that Seoul is capable of intercepting North Korean ballistic missiles by using its domestic missile defense system consisting of PAC-3 Patriot missiles, which intercept incoming missiles at much lower altitudes of 10 to 15 km, when the projectiles are in their final descent. This means the window of opportunity is small and the failure rate high. But the government insisted that it was enough, with President Park Geun-hye even saying in an Armed Forces Day speech earlier this month that North Korea's nuclear arsenal would be rendered "useless" due to the country's missile defense. But on Tuesday government officials said there are "fundamental limitations" in dealing with North Korean missiles using only the domestic shield. Flip-flopping like this within the space of two weeks does little for the government’s credibility [Missile defense]
• Did Seoul Strike Missile Defense Deal with Washington?
  Speculation is mounting whether the government has agreed a deal with Washington to take part in the U.S.-led missile defense program in exchange for another delay in the handover of full control of South Korean troops. Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin (right) shakes hands with his U.S. counterpart Chuck Hagel at the annual South Korea-U.S. Security Consultative Meeting in Seoul on Oct. 2. Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin (right) shakes hands with his U.S. counterpart Chuck Hagel at the annual South Korea-U.S. Security Consultative Meeting in Seoul on Oct. 2. Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin fanned speculation Monday by telling a National Assembly audit that the military is hoping to buy SM-3 interceptor missiles that could destroy North Korean ballistic missiles. The SM-3 missiles constitute the core of the U.S.-led missile defense shield. [Missile defense] [OPCON]
• Mother of Missionary Jailed in N.Korea Pleads for U.S. Help
  Bae Myung-hee, the mother of Kenneth Bae, is pictured during an interview with Reuters in Lynnwood, Washington on Aug. 7, 2013. /Reuters Bae Myung-hee, the mother of Kenneth Bae, is pictured during an interview with Reuters in Lynnwood, Washington on Aug. 7, 2013. /Reuters The mother of an American missionary detained in North Korea is pleading for the U.S. government to make a renewed effort to win his release. Bae Myung-hee traveled to North Korea last week to visit her son, Kenneth Bae, who is just 11 months into a 15-year sentence of hard labor on a conviction of state subversion. She said in a written statement Tuesday she was "happy to see him and hold him, but it broke my heart to leave him behind." She said she was "more anxious than ever to bring him home," and pleaded with Washington to do everything in its power to free him. North Korea rescinded an offer in August to allow senior U.S. envoy Robert King to visit Pyongyang to petition that Bae be freed on humanitarian grounds. Officials said the visit was canceled because of annual joint U.S.-South Korean military drills being held in the South. [Joint US military]
• NDC of DPRK Clarifies Principled Stand on DPRK-U.S. Relations
  Pyongyang, October 12 (KCNA) -- The spokesman for the National Defence Commission (NDC) of the DPRK in a statement Saturday revealed the deceptive nature of the rhetoric about non-aggression on the DPRK made by the U.S. recently, and principled stand of the DPRK on the DPRK-U.S. relations. The statement said: The tense situation that persisted on the Korean Peninsula for the past six decades after the ceasefire has not developed into a war. This is entirely thanks to the peace-loving efforts and just struggle waged by the army and people of the DPRK despite their bitter pain resulting from territorial and national division. On October 3 U.S. Secretary of State Kerry said that if the DPRK starts denuclearization first, the U.S. will be ready to have dialogue with it and that if it becomes clear that the DPRK started denuclearization, Washington [US NK policy] [NK US policy]
• Veteran Reporter to Head AP's Pyongyang Bureau
  The Associated Press has appointed Eric Talmadge as its next Pyongyang bureau chief, it said Thursday. AP was the first western media organization to open a bureau in the North Korean capital in January 2012. Talmadge began his career as a journalist with Japan's Mainichi Shimbun and joined AP in 1989. Since then he has focused on military and security issues in the Asia-Pacific region.
• Minister says no US missile system for South Korea
  Posted on : Oct.17,2013 16:39 KST A Patriot missile is launched at a firing range in Daecheon, South Chungcheong Province, Oct. 16. The missiles were deployed in 2012 but yesterday was the first time they were live-fire tested. The low-altitude interception Patriot missiles are the basis of the Korean Air and Missile Defense System. (provided by the Air Force) US system not right for S. Korean needs, so instead will pursue its own system By Park Byong-su and Ha Eo-young, staff reporters Minister of National Defense Kim Kwan-jin said South Korea was “obviously” not going to take part in the US missile defense system and would only be pursuing its own Korean Air and Missile Defense (KAMD) system. Speaking with the press on Oct. 16, Kim said the US system was “not right for us in terms of suitability and need considering the Korean Peninsula’s short range, or the astronomical cost, which is likely to be in the trillions of won [billions of US dollars].” “Nor do I think the public will agree to it,” he added. [Missile defense] [Friction]
• Defense ministry could be buying into US missile defense system
  Posted on : Oct.16,2013 15:13 KST With expected OPCON delay, it appears more likely S. Korea will join US system, which could contribute to regional tensions By Kim Kyu-won, staff reporter The Ministry of National Defense seems to be considering the purchase of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), which is a key part of the US missile defense system. After US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said that there must be interoperability between the US and South Korean missile defense systems during the US-ROK Security Consultative Meeting held on Oct. 2, concerns are being voiced that the expected joining of the US missile defense system is becoming a reality. “Below 100km in elevation is referred to as low-altitude defense,” said ministry spokesperson Kim Min-seok during the regular press briefing at the Ministry of National Defense on Oct. 15. [Missile defense]
• Public evenly split on delay of OPCON transfer
  Posted on : Oct.16,2013 11:57 KST Nearly equal number of poll respondents favor delaying the transfer again or going ahead with it as previously agreed By Kim Kyu-won, staff reporter Since South Korean President Park Geun-hye took office, public sentiment about the timing of the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON), which South Korea has asked the US to delay, has been split down the middle between “transfer now” and “put off until later,” a recent poll shows. Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Jae-joon, who is a member of the National Defense Committee in the National Assembly, commissioned polling company Union Research to conduct a survey of 1,000 adults older than 19. The results of the poll showed nearly equal support for both positions.[OPCON] [Public opinion]
• National Peace Committee Spokesman Blasts U.S., S. Korea for Bringing Nuclear Carrier to West Sea of Korea
  Pyongyang, October 16 (KCNA) -- The spokesman for the National Peace Committee of Korea released the following statement Wednesday: U.S. nuclear carrier George Washington which took part in the recent U.S.-Japan-south Korea combined naval exercises in the South Sea of Korea did not go back to its base but sailed into the West Sea of Korea on October 12. The U.S. and the puppet south Korean warmongers staged several war maneuvers targeting the DPRK with the involvement of a nuclear carrier in waters off the Korean Peninsula. But it is something unprecedented that the carrier took part in the DPRK-targeted nuclear war drills in the East and South Seas of Korea and was taken to the West sea of Korea, the biggest hotspot, for another round of war drills. [Joint US military]
• Seoul and Washington agree to dialogue on solving N. Korea’s nuke program
  Posted on : Oct.14,2013 15:01 KSTModified on : Oct.14,2013 15:31 KST Blue House only belatedly released info from Pres. Park’s meeting in Brunei with US Secretary of State John Kerry By Park Byong-su, staff reporter The Blue House belatedly announced that President Park Geun-hye and US Secretary of State John Kerry agreed on the need to hold meaningful dialogue as part of the six-party talks in order to end North Korea’s vicious cycle of provocations and reward. Park met with Kerry in Brunei on Oct. 10 during her participation in the ASEAN related summit On Oct. 12, the Blue House issued a late press release detailing the outcome of the summit.
• Churchill’s Poison Gas Stockpile
  by PATRICK COCKBURN A hundred experts from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which on Friday won the Nobel Peace Prize, and the United Nations are assembling to dismantle and destroy Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons including 1,000 tons of sarin and mustard gas as well as chemical mixing equipment. All are to be eliminated by 30 June 2014. It is one of the extraordinary twists and turns of the war in Syria that the alleged use of sarin against civilians in rebel-held districts in Damascus on 21 August should turn out to be to the advantage rather than to the disadvantage of President Bashar al-Assad. The most immediate effect seemed likely to be foreign military intervention against Assad. In the event, the United States and Britain balked at the idea of another war in the Middle East, particularly one that might put in positions of power al-Qa’ida-linked groups such as the al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant . States acquire chemical weapons in order to frighten or kill but, like the man in the fairy story who owns a bottle with a powerful genie inside, they often end up getting the opposite of what they wish for. Saddam Hussein used poison gas with typical ruthlessness against the Iranians and the Kurds, and may have congratulated himself on its effectiveness. But in the long term he found that possession of weapons of mass destruction, and his inability to prove that he had destroyed them, provided justification for ruinous UN sanctions against Iraq and the US-led invasion of 2003. Chemical weapons are often described as “weapons of last resort”, but a country that is already losing a war cannot use them without inviting calamitous retaliation by those about to win. This appears to be why Hitler did not use Germany’s massive arsenal of chemical weapons when his armies were going down to defeat in 1943-45. The Germans also wrongly believed that the Western allies had developed nerve gases such as sarin and tabun, discovered in Germany in the late 1930s. In fact, it was Britain that came closest to using poison gas on a mass scale during the Second World War. [cbw]
• The US still struggles with dilapidated roads and bridges
  October 14, 2013 1:15 pm by John Gapper Having become used to A grades being handed out liberally in New York schools, I was taken aback to find a report card with an overall grade of D+. That is the current assessment of US infrastructure by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The ASCE has a stake in persuading the US public to invest in infrastructure. Still, it is hard to contest the view that one of the weaknesses of the country’s economy is the poor state of its roads, railways, airports and other transport infrastructure. [Infrastructure] [F&E]
• Belgian sting nets suspected pirate leader Big Mouth
  Somali Mohamed Abdi Hassan detained as he arrived in Brussels to take part in documentary about his life Reuters in Brussels The Guardian, Monday 14 October 2013 18.36 BST Belgium has arrested the suspected leader of a Somali pirate group after luring him to Brussels with promises to make a documentary about his money-making life on the high seas, prosecutors have said. Mohamed Abdi Hassan, known as Afweyne, or Big Mouth, was detained when he arrived at Brussels airport on Saturday with another suspect identified as Mohamed MA, or Tiiceey, the federal prosecutor Johan Delmulle told a news conference. Tiiceey is a former governor of the Somali region of Himan and Heeb, and is suspected in aiding Afweyne's pirate organisation, Delmulle said. Prosecutors said they decided to involve Belgian undercover agents after it became clear that an international arrest warrant would not be successful in capturing the men. "After patiently starting a relationship of trust with Tiiceey, and through him with Afweyne, which took several months, both were prepared to participate in this [film] project," Delmulle said. [Legality] [Sting] [Media]
• International Herald Tribune: the paper of the American abroad
  Newspaper to become International New York Times as it attempts to project itself as more recognisable global brand Simon Tisdall The Guardian, Monday 14 October 2013 15.17 BST Ernest Hemingway, author, exile, and Rimbaud-esque enfant terrible, fully understood the life-enhancing, horizon-broadening significance that Paris and its transplanted New York-owned newspaper, the English-language Paris Herald, held for nouveau-riche middle-class Americans. In his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises, the first thing the autobiographical hero, Jake Barnes, does on his return to France from Spain is buy the Herald, as the present-day International Herald Tribune was then known, and read it in a cafe with a glass of wine. Whether Hemingway intended it or not, Barnes struck a contagiously cosmopolitan pose that proved irresistibly attractive to the many would-be emulators who subsequently made the journey across the Atlantic. For generations of Americans travelling to Europe before, during and after the two world wars, swapping the competitive, tight-laced rigours of the materialist, capitalist, God-fearing USA for the sophisticated languor, louche-ness and chic of the French capital, the Herald reported, reflected and symbolised the quintessential experience of embracing foreignness, and specifically Frenchness. It provided a link with home while reminding the expatriate of his or her daring plunge into the unknown, slightly dangerous culture of the Old World.
• Turning the Page
  Reflections on Change On Tuesday, The International Herald Tribune, the global edition of The New York Times, becomes The International New York Times. The paper has changed names a number of times since its founding 126 years ago, but its mission has always remained the same: to provide a global perspective on events and ideas shaping the world. This is a look at its journey so far. [Media]
• Latin America’s ‘bad boy’ leaders enjoy high support, survey finds
  Published: October 14, 2013 Updated 22 minutes ago By Tim Johnson — McClatchy Foreign Staff MEXICO CITY — Being a “bad boy” in Washington’s eyes can have payoffs for Latin American politicians, while being a “star pupil” can have a downside. A compilation of polls across Latin America released over the weekend found that the four leaders whom Washington considers the “bad boys” of the region remain among its most popular presidents, even wildly so. The leaders of Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela routinely lambaste the United States, concentrate power in their own hands and run roughshod over the news media but retain significant, and even strong, support. In contrast, the pro-U.S. leaders of Chile, Colombia and Peru – countries with more open democracies – have seen their public support fall in the past six months. Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/10/14/205311/latin-americas-bad-boy-leaders.html#storylink=cpy [Democracy] [US global strategy]
• Glendale Mayor Regrets Honoring 'Comfort Women'
  The mayor of Glendale, California sparked calls for his ouster last week by telling a Japanese TV channel that a statue in the city commemorating World War II sex slaves was a mistake. The town was the first in the U.S. to put up a statue in memory of the Asian women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army. "We opened a beehive, a hornet's nest," Mayor Dave Weaver told Channel Sakura. "We just shouldn't have done it." Glendale, which counts many ethnic Koreans among its population of 200,000, erected the 1-m statue on July 30. It is a replica of one that stands in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, and was placed atop a stone slab explaining the history of what the Japanese euphemistically call "comfort women." Weaver became mayor after the city council voted in favor the statue and was the only one among the city’s five council members who opposed it. "I understand we're the most hated city in Japan now, which I deeply regret," Weaver said, adding that he received more than 1,000 emails about the memorial. The city council deems Weaver's comments as a direct rejection of its decision, which constitutes grounds for dismissal. A council official said the issue should be dealt with in a meeting next week. [Comfort women] [Sidelined]
• North Korea Threatens Preemptive Attack on U.S., South Korea
  Oct. 7, 2013 North Korean defectors last Friday protest the country's move to postpone reunions for families separated by the Korean War. Meanwhile, on Monday North Korea threatened to launch preemptive attacks against the United States and South Korea in response to the two allies' revamped strategy for deterring weapons-of-mass-destruction strikes by Pyongyang (Truth LEEM/AFP/Getty Images).North Korean defectors last Friday protest the country's move to postpone reunions for families separated by the Korean War. Meanwhile, on Monday North Korea threatened to launch preemptive attacks against the United States and South Korea in response to the two allies' revamped strategy for deterring weapons-of-mass-destruction strikes by Pyongyang (Truth LEEM/AFP/Getty Images). North Korea on Monday threatened to launch preemptive attacks against the United States and South Korea in response to the two allies' revamped strategy for deterring weapons-of-mass-destruction strikes by Pyongyang, the Yonhap News Agency reported. Seoul and Washington last week announced they had reached agreement on a new plan for handling nuclear and other WMD provocations by the North. The allies also agreed to work to improve the interoperability of their respective militaries, particularly their missile-defense systems, in order to improve responses to North Korean threats. The North Korean Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea in a statement warned the "military plot aims to derail ... dialogue on the Korean Peninsula and can fuel tensions that can lead to a nuclear conflict." "If our enemies try to threaten us in the slightest, the country will launch ruthless preemptive strikes of annihilation," the North said. Pyongyang also is upset over plans for Japan, South Korea and the United States to hold trilateral maritime exercises this week. This past spring when Pyongyang warned of preemptive attacks and nuclear war against the United States and South Korea, it caused regional tensions to skyrocket to one of their highest points in decades. [Conditionality] [Heading] [Media]
• Mother meets her imprisoned son in North Korea
  Posted on : Oct.12,2013 14:06 KSTModified on : Oct.12,2013 14:31 KST Kenneth Bae (right) talks to his mother Bae Myung-hee on her visit from the US to the hospital where he’s currently staying while detained in North Korea, Oct. 11. (AP/Newsis) Kenneth Bae has been detained in N. Korea since November and there are questions surrounding his health By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent Myunghee Bae met with her son, Korean-American Kenneth Bae (45, Korean name Pae Jun-ho), on Oct. 11 in a hospital in Pyongyang, Kyodo News Agency reported. Bae has been detained in North Korea since November. "This morning I met my son in the hospital and he seems like he’s in a decent state,” Bae told Kyodo News. “My son’s health isn’t good, but is getting better.” The Bae family released a statement in which they announced that Mrs. Bae is visiting the North and planning on staying there for about five days. Mrs. Bae left a video message on freekennow.com, a website calling for Kenneth’s release. “My heart was broken into pieces when his prison interview was released on July 3 because his appearance was very shocking. He looked different and he lost so much weight,” she said. “As a mother, I worry endlessly about his health. I want to see him and comfort him and hold him in person.” In April, North Korea’s highest court convicted Kenneth Bae of crimes against the government and sentenced him to 15 years of hard labor. Bae’s health got worse, and he lost 22kg. Two months ago, he was hospitalized. Robert King, US human rights envoy to North Korea, was planning to visit the North to negotiate for the release of Bae at the end of August. But North Korea cancelled his visit because B-52 strategic bombers participated in the US-ROK combined military exercises. [Joint US military] [Prisoners]
• DPRK to act against US-Japan-S.Korea drills
  Xinhua, October 8, 2013 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said the country's people and army "are highly alerted to promptly foil provocations" of U.S.-Japan-S.Korea joint naval maneuvers, the official news agency KCNA reported on Tuesday. A spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People's Army (KPA) said in a statement on Monday that all KPA units received an emergency order on Saturday from its supreme command to be "ready to promptly launch operations any time." "The United States should be wholly accountable for the unexpected horrible disaster to be met by its imperialist aggression forces' nuclear strike means," said the unnamed spokesman. According to the statement, the strike group, made up of the U.S. super-large nuclear-powered aircraft carrier George Washington with at least 100 nuclear bombs aboard, will join in the DPRK-targeted joint naval strike maneuvers in the South Sea of Korea from Tuesday with warship groups from Japan and South Korea. It added that the United States, which spawned the nuclear issue on the peninsula and has posed a constant nuclear threat to the DPRK, "should make a decision to move first," if it really stands for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Meanwhile, in a statement released on Monday by spokesman for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, the DPRK warned that it will carry out preemptive strikes to counter military provocations by South Korea and the United States. Pyongyang made clear that talking about denuclearization when the United States is bent on plotting to invade the country shows the level of hypocrisy on the part of Washington. The committee then lashed out at South Korean President Park Geun-hye, saying her calls on the North to give up its nuclear program are ludicrous. [Joint US military]
• N. Korea pushing hard for U.S. nod on dialogue
  By AKIHIKO KAISE/ Correspondent SEOUL--North Korea is going all out to woo the United States to the negotiating table, even as the country’s nuclear programs appear to be moving forward. Washington has made clear that it will not hold talks unless Pyongyang first demonstrates concrete action on denuclearization. [Overture]
• N. Korea apparently going back into confrontation mode
  Posted on : Oct.9,2013 13:21 KSTModified on : Oct.9,2013 13:30 KST After a few months of efforts at engagement go nowhere, Pyongyang changing its tone from conciliatory to aggressive By Park Byong-su, staff reporter North Korea seems to have set aside its attempts to engage in dialogue and to be shifting into confrontation mode. After the stand-off that lasted from March to May, Pyongyang changed its approach and tried talks from June through September. But once it failed to gain any ground through the talks, it appears to be turning once again to the strategy of increasing tension. On Oct. 8, the General Staff Department of the North Korean military issued a statement in the name of its spokesperson. In the statement, North Korea instructed its military to be ready to be mobilized for operations. “If the US government truly wants the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and is really interested in the safety and peace of the region, it is not North Korea but the US that must make the decision to move first,” the statement said. This is North Korea’s first military mobilization order since March 26 when the Supreme Commander of the People’s Army announced an order to move into Combat Readiness Posture number 1. While adopting an attitude of military confrontation, Pyongyang also indicated that it remains very interested in dialogue with the US. [Overture] [Rebuff]
• U.S. Warned of Disastrous Consequences to Be Entailed by Nuclear Strike Means of Its Forces
  Pyongyang, October 8 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People's Army released the following statement on Monday: The situation on the Korean Peninsula is now getting strained again though the tension had been defused thanks to the patient efforts on the part of the DPRK. This is entirely attributable to the persistent anti-DPRK military confrontation of the U.S. and Japanese aggressors and south Korean puppet forces. As already reported, the nuclear-powered carrier strike group of the navy of the U.S. imperialist aggression forces entered Pusan Port again at dawn of October 4. It participated in the DPRK-targeted joint naval maneuvers which had been under way secretly in the East Sea of Korea since September 30. This strike group is made up of the U.S. super-large nuclear-powered carrier George Washington with at least 100 nuclear bombs aboard, many guided-missile destroyers, cruisers, submarines and escort warships, etc. It is reported that the strike group will get involved in the DPRK-targeted large-scale joint naval strike maneuvers in the South Sea of Korea from Tuesday together with warship groups of the Japanese aggression forces and south Korean puppet navy. [Joint US military]
• The problem with a Korean peace treaty
  North may seek agreement with U.S. to delegitimize South by Andrei Lankov , October 9, 2013 In recent years, there seems to be a growing number of voices talking about the need to sign a peace treaty that will formally end the Korean War – which was technically merely interrupted by the 1953 Armistice treaty. The logic behind demands for a formal peace treaty at first glance seems quite persuasive: According to well-established legal traditions, every “proper” war should be ended by a proper peace treaty. A ceasefire agreement that has remained intact for 70 years is an aberration indeed. North Korea has been pushing for a formal end to the war for quite some time. There is a logic to this. If a peace treaty is concluded, it will become somewhat easier for North Korea to lobby for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Korean Peninsula. Additionally, a treaty would, in the eyes of the North Korean state at least, confer upon them more legitimacy, as well as making it more likely that they will eventually be recognized as a de facto nuclear power. This rather transparently hidden agenda may be one of the reasons why neither the U.S. nor South Korea is particularly enthusiastic about a peace treaty. This not, however, the only reason why it will be difficult to get a peace treaty signed. [Peace Treaty]
• North Korea’s Chemical Warfare Capabilities
  By Joseph S. Bermudez Jr. 10 October 2013 The recent revelations of chemical agent usage in Syria’s long civil war not only reveals the tragic levels that this conflict has descended to but has also unexpectedly raised interest in the chemical warfare capabilities of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), which has reportedly provided chemical warfare assistance to the regime of Bashar al-Assad.[1][2] The available body of evidence reveals that the DPRK produces and possesses the capability to effectively employ throughout the Korean peninsula, significant quantities and varieties of chemical weapons. It also has, to a lesser extent, the ability to employ these weapons worldwide using unconventional methods of delivery. Just as ominous as these chemical weapons production and delivery capabilities is a growing body of evidence that indicates a DPRK history of proliferation of chemical capabilities to nations such as Syria, Iran and others. [cbw] [MISCOM]
• U.S. Academic Warns of 'Hasty' Troop Control Transfer
  Full operational control of South Korean troops should not be handed over to Seoul in haste and out of political considerations, a U.S. academic says. Michael O'Hanlon, a fellow at the conservative Brookings Institution, made the recommendation in an article titled "Don't Rush the U.S.-Korea Command Change" on Tuesday. "In Korea, our preeminent concerns need to be unity of command and effectiveness of our combined deterrent against a still very potent North Korean threat," he said. "Ensuring fair burden-sharing is not the principal prism through which this issue should be viewed." The original decision was a political one, because then-President Roh Moo-hyun was "playing the nationalism card,' O'Hanlon said, and "found a willing accomplice for the transfer plan in U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who wanted a more expeditionary American global footprint and felt that U.S. forces in Korea were too anchored to the peninsula." But he added the current "command arrangements are a remarkable testament to allied effort over the decades… If it is to be changed, that should happen carefully and as slowly as military leaders on both sides think prudent." He cited the "tragic failed hostage rescue attempt in Iran in 1980" and "roughly a quarter of all American fatalities" from friendly fire in Iraq in 1991 as examples of a "failure of unified command" and poorly coordinated military operations. "Command structures that are bifurcated or otherwise ambiguous in certain ways can raise the risk of such tragedies in the future," he added. [OPCON] [Roh Moo-hyun]
• Don't Rush the U.S.-Korea Command Change
  South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin points out a location in North Korea to U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. As a new American commanding officer, General Curtis Scaparrotti, prepares to take charge of combined South Korean and American forces on the Korean peninsula, pressure is mounting on the general to ensure that South Korea takes charge of most elements of alliance command responsibilities by 2015. That date, already a delay from the original plan developed in the Bush administration to transfer command by 2012, seems overdue to some on Capitol Hill, where clamors for more allied burdensharing in a time of American austerity are obviously mounting. [OPCON]
• N.Korea 'Could Freeze Nuclear, Missile Tests'
  A former U.S. State Department official says North Korea may be willing to declare a moratorium on nuclear weapons and missile testing. Joel Wit, a senior fellow with the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, told Yonhap News on Wednesday that he was given the assurance by Ri Yong-ho , the North's top nuclear envoy, at a seminar last month in Berlin. Declaring a moratorium on nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missile testing was part of a U.S.-North Korea deal signed last year. Wit called on North Korea and the U.S. to hold face-to-face talks on ways to denuclearize the North. But he added the moratorium cannot be a precondition for international talks but may lick in once all sides are at the table. [US NK negotiations]
• Korean-American analyst caught in Obama administration’s dragnet
  Posted on : Oct.11,2013 12:11 KSTModified on : Oct.11,2013 14:29 KST Current US government making excessive use of Espionage Act and leaving ruined careers in its wake By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent “U.S. intelligence officials have warned President [Barack] Obama and other senior American officials that North Korea intends to respond to the looming passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution this week . . . with with another nuclear test. . . . Pyongyang’s next nuclear detonation is but one of four planned actions the Central Intelligence Agency has learned, through sources inside North Korea, that the regime of Kim Jong-Il intends to take. . . .” This report is from an online article posted on June 11, 2009, by James Rosen, a journalist with the US’s Fox News network, who claimed to have heard the information from an anonymous source. At the time, the UNSC was gearing up to pass a resolution sanctioning North Korea for its long-range rocket launch the previous April and second nuclear test the following month. The gist of the report was that North Korea planned to take additional actions, possibly including another nuclear test or a launch of its Taepodong-2 missile, and that US intelligence authorities had been tipped off. The UNSC did finally pass the resolution the next day on June 12. But none of the North Korean “plans” mentioned in the article came to pass, save for a short-range missile launch. The article could have been written on the basis of false information, but it did change the life of one promising nuclear weapons and security expert. In September 2009, around three months after the article appeared, FBI agents came knocking at an office in the US State Department belonging to Stephen Jin-Woo Kim. The Korean-American Kim, now 46, was working at the time as a senior intelligence aide in the department’s bureau for verification, compliance, and implementation. Affiliated with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a state nuclear research center, he was assigned to the State Department in 2008. [Whistleblower]
• [Interview] Stephen Kim speaks to the Hankyoreh about espionage charges
  Posted on : Oct.11,2013 14:22 KST Korean-American intelligence analyst describes how charges have cost him his job, marriage and nearly all his money By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent In an interview with the Hankyoreh, Stephen Kim denied all of the charges of leaking state secrets brought against him by the US Justice Department. The interview took place last week over email. Hankyoreh (Hani): The US Justice Department charged you with violating the Espionage Act, which most Americans assume is used to prosecute spies. What do you say to these charges? Stephen Kim (Kim): I am not being accused of being a spy. While the law is called the Espionage Act, the Justice Department is using it to arrest people who leak state secrets to the media. I served my country faithfully, and I did not do anything that against the US’s national interest. In my job I always tried to make sure government officials had the most accurate information they needed as they determined foreign policy. Hani: I heard that James Rosen, the Fox News reporter, also approached high-ranking government officials around the same time. Why do you think that the Justice Department targeted you? Kim: It is common knowledge in Washington that people in high-ranking positions talk to the press every day and leak classified information without being prosecuted. I don’t know, and I can’t understand, why they chose to investigate me and treat me like a criminal and why they accused me of illegal acts. I didn’t do what they said I did. It is very unjust. [Whistleblower]
• Cuban weapons aboard N. Korean ship part of ‘major deal,’ Panama says
  Published: October 10, 2013 Updated 23 hours ago Panama's President Ricardo Martinelli posted on his Twitter account Monday July 15, 2013 showing what he said officials believe is sophisticated missile equipment found in containers of sugar aboard a North Korean-flagged ship traveling from Cuba. Panamanian officials verified the tweet was authentic By Tim Johnson — McClatchy Foreign Staff PANAMA CITY — Two Cuban MiG-21 jet fighters found aboard a seized North Korean cargo ship three months ago were in good repair, had been recently flown and were accompanied by “brand-new” jet engines, Panamanian officials say. The assertions deepen the mystery around the Cuban military materiel that was found aboard the 508-foot North Korean freighter Chong Chon Gang, which Panamanian authorities intercepted July 10 off the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal. “They had jet fuel still inside their tanks,” Foreign Minister Fernando Nunez Fabrega told McClatchy in an interview earlier this month. “They were not obsolete and in need of repair.” One of the MiG-21s contained manuals and maintenance records that indicated it was flying just a few months earlier, said prosecutor Javier Caraballo, who’s handling an arms trafficking case against the 35 North Korean crew members. Caraballo declined a reporter’s request to see the records. [Legality] [Subordinate] [Arms sales] [Double standards]
• S. Korea and US negotiating costs of hosting US troops
  Posted on : Oct.4,2013 15:45 KST US Secretary of State John Kerry (left) and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel (center) at a meeting in Tokyo with their Japanese counterparts, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera, Oct. 3. (Reuters/News1) Seoul seeking a way to handle money that is rolled over from previous year’s budget or otherwise left unused By Kim Kyu-won, staff reporter The South Korean government set aside a budget of roughly US$750 million for its share of USFK defense costs in 2014, Ministry of National Defense figures show. South Korea and the US are currently negotiating their respective shares of defense costs for the next five years. The figures, obtained from the ministry by independent lawmaker and National Assembly Foreign Affairs and Unification Ministry member Park Joo-sun, showed a South Korean budget of 799.7 billion won (US$744.5 million) for its share of USFK defense costs in 2014. [USFK] [Tribute] [SOFA]
• Is Kerry acting as Acheson? Closer US-Japan ties make Korea wary
  2013-10-04 17:43 By Kang Seung-woo Two top U.S. officials made a rare joint visit to Japan, Thursday, in a show of support for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, often regarded as loose cannon among neighboring nations. Their trip was, without doubt, aimed at cementing ties with Japan in order to limit China’s growing hegemony. Here in Korea, the visit to Tokyo by U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, in Seoul earlier this week, and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, created a sense of unease for two reasons. First, more than before, Abe is trying to ignore Korea and China, nations victimized by the military of Imperial Japan during World War II, and an endorsement from the U.S. is likely to make him bolder. Second, few would say it out loud but the visit prompted memories of one of Kerry’s predecessors, Dean Acheson, who in 1950 declared a “defensive perimeter” that neglected to include South Korea and Taiwan in a zone of protection declared by the United States. [US Japan alliance] [Sidelined]
• AP Delegation Arrives
  Pyongyang, October 2 (KCNA) -- A delegation of the Associated Press headed by President and CEO Gary Pruitt arrived here on Wednesday. It was greeted at the airport by Chon Il, vice director general of the Korean Central News Agency.
• Troop Control Handover Is a Vital and Delicate Issue
  The defense ministers of South Korea and the U.S. have agreed to put off the final decision about the handover of full operational control of South Korean troops to Seoul until next year. The handover is scheduled for December 2015, but Seoul wants another delay for fear of a security vacuum. The two countries in their annual Security Consultative Meeting on Wednesday agreed to form a joint assessment team to gauge the readiness of South Korean troops for the handover and agree on an optimum date. [OPCON]
• N.Korea Should Take Its Cue from Iran
  U.S. President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani spoke on the phone for 15 minutes on Friday, the first dialogue between the leaders of the two countries since 1979, when the pro-American Shah was ousted in a revolution. It was Rouhani, who was in New York for the UN General Assembly, who sought the contact. The two leaders apparently agreed on the need to resolve the Iranian nuclear standoff as soon as possible by peaceful means. Iran and North Korea have both long defied international calls to scrap their nuclear weapons programs. The UN has had economic sanctions against Iran in place since 2006, while the U.S. also pursues its own sanctions, including bans on dealings with Iranian banks. [US NK Negotiations] [Iran]
• [Editorial] Missile defense and the possibly delayed OPCON transfer
  Posted on : Oct.2,2013 15:22 KST US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel emphasized the need for South Korean missile defense before the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON). Hagel held a press conference aboard the plane while flying to Korea to participate in the 45th yearly US-ROK security deliberations. When asked by a reporter what capacity the South Korean military would need to make an OPCON transfer possible, Hegel said that missile defense would be “a huge part of this.” This is the first time that a high-ranking American official has clearly stated the country’s plans to link negotiations about Korean participation in missile defense with the issue of the OPCON transfer. [OPCON] [Missile defense]
• John Kerry says US could be willing to hold dialogue with North Korea
  Posted on : Oct.5,2013 13:24 KST US Secretary of State John Kerry waves upon arrival at Ngurah Rai airport in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, Oct. 4. Kerry is in Bali for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. (Reuters/News1) US Secretary of State also says a non-aggression agreement could be signed to ensure N. Korea’s security By Park Byong-su, staff reporter US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Oct. 3 that Washington was prepared to resume dialogue with Pyongyang and sign a non-aggression agreement if it vows to give up its nuclear program and “engage in legitimate negotiations to achieve that end.” Kerry’s remarks came during a joint press conference after the US-Japan Security Consultative Meeting (2+2) that day among the US and Japanese foreign and defense ministers in Tokyo. “I think the six parties involved in the six-party talks have made it crystal clear we are prepared to reengage in those talks,” Kerry said. “We are prepared to have a peaceful relationship with North Korea. We are not engaged in regime change,” he added. [US NK negotiations] [Preconditions] [Spin] [Peaceful coexistence]
• [Interview] The need for concrete steps toward N. Korean denuclearization
  Posted on : Sep.24,2013 15:59 KSTModified on : Sep.24,2013 16:27 KST Evans Revere was a participant at the Sept. 18 1.5 track meeting held in Beijing By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent After returning to the US from the Sept. 18 1.5 track meeting in Beijing among public and private sector representatives from six-party talks members on North Korean denuclearization, Evans Revere did an email interview with the Hankyoreh’s Washington correspondent. Revere is non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and former principal deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and pacific affairs under the Bill Clinton administration. He said that better ties between North Korea and the US can come through concrete steps by Pyongyang toward denuclearization. [US NK Negotiations] [Preconditions]
• Handover of U.S. command of South Korean troops still under debate
  By Craig Whitlock, PANMUNJOM, South Korea — Sixty years after the end of the Korean War, the United States and South Korea still can’t agree on who should take charge if another war breaks out with the communist neighbor to the north. For years, Washington has been trying to persuade the South Korean military to take operational control of its own forces in wartime, ending a six-decade-long arrangement under which U.S. commanders have retained that authority over South Korean troops. Although supportive in principle, a succession of governments in Seoul have repeatedly delayed the command transfer, reinforcing doubts about whether the South Korean military is capable of operating without U.S. leadership. [OPCON]
• Korea, U.S. Put Off Decision About Troop Control Handover
  Seoul and Washington have agreed to put off talks about the transfer of full operational control of Korean troops to Seoul until next year. The handover, originally slated for 2012, is now scheduled for December 2015, but Seoul wants another delay for fear of a security vacuum if Combined Forces Command is dismantled. Until they make a decision, the two countries will carry out a comprehensive review of the South Korean military's capability to respond to the nuclear threat from North Korea. [OPCON]
• N. Korean officials discuss return to six-party talks
  Posted on : Oct.4,2013 15:43 KST Leon Sigal says at meeting with US representatives in London, NK officials say they don’t want nuclear power recognition By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent Senior North Korean officials at a 1.5 track meeting in London with US experts on Korean affairs expressed a desire to return to the six-party talks and said it was a “misunderstanding” that their country wants to be recognized as a nuclear state, a US participant reported. Speaking to the press after the seminar on Oct. 2, Leon Sigal, director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council in New York, said that he had seen a “definite willingness” from North Korea to return to the talks and that he thought it was “possible to find common ground for a resolution” through dialogue and negotiation. The “1.5-track” meeting between North Korean officials and US experts was held on Oct. 1 and 2 at Athenaeum Hotel in London. Sigal went on to say he believed dialogue was the “only realistic means” of resolving the nuclear issue, adding that “a number of methods” for resolution could be available. He also reported “getting the sense that it would be possible to return to the spirit of the Sept. 19 2005 agreement,” referring to an agreement at the six-party talks for North Korea to abandon its nuclear program. Significantly, Sigal said the North Korean participants had called it a “misunderstanding” to believe their country wants to be recognized as a nuclear power. Indeed, he reported that the representatives at the meeting indicated that Pyongyang is not interested in such acknowledgement. [US NK negotiations]
• [Editorial] Use dialogue to find way of resolving N. Korean nuclear issue
  Posted on : Oct.4,2013 15:35 KST A US participant at a two-day 1.5 track meeting in London between US and North Korean representatives talked about having observed “a possible consensus that the North Korean nuclear issue can be resolved through dialogue.” Also on Oct. 2, a US research institute revealed further evidence that North Korea has brought its graphite-moderated reactor at Yongbyon back on line. The signs are clear: earnest efforts to resolve the nuclear issue need to be made as soon as possible. Leon Sigal, director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council in New York, said after attending the London meeting that North Korea showed a clear willingness to go back to the six-party talks framework. This would seem to suggest that Pyongyang’s recent continued demands to resume the talks aren’t just rhetoric. Sigal also reported seeing that North Korea is not interested in being recognized as a nuclear power, and said he “got the sense” that it would be possible to return to the spirit of the Sept. 19 2005 Joint Statement. [US NK policy]
• [Editorial] It’s time to finally take sovereignty over the military
  Posted on : Oct.3,2013 14:50 KSTModified on : Oct.4,2013 09:26 KST At a Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) on Oct. 2, South Korea and the US made plans to set up a team to discuss the conditions and timeline for transferring wartime operational control (OPCON) to South Korea. It appears that the Pentagon is begrudgingly acceding to Seoul’s persistent demands that the transfer be put off from its currently scheduled date of Dec. 2015. The positions of the two sides are crystal clear: South Korea forever unwilling to take sovereignty over its own military, and the US taking advantage to extract its own price. [OPCON]
• South Korea’s missile defense could be incorporated into US system
  Posted on : Oct.3,2013 14:48 KSTModified on : Oct.3,2013 15:05 KST Chuck Hagel says two systems simply need to be “interoperable” but questions remain over US-led three way system By Park Byong-su, staff reporter South Korea’s Air and Missile Defense (KAMD) system is becoming a key issue in discussions on the transfer of wartime operational command (OPCON) from the US. The two countries discussed preparing a response to North Korea’s increased nuclear and missile capabilities on Oct. 2. But the incorporation of South Korea’s system into the one led by the US stands to trigger objections from China, which sees itself a target. [Missile defense] [interoperability]
• US and South Korea agreed to “tailored deterrence strategy” at meeting in Seoul
  Posted on : Oct.3,2013 15:03 KST Experts suggest such a strategy could actually increase threat of nuclear conflict on the Korean peninsula By Choi Hyun-joon, staff reporter The sixth item in the Oct. 2 joint communique by the South Korean and US Defense Ministers at the annual Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) was a “tailored deterrence strategy” for the threat of North Korean nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Its adoption is significant in that it develops and codifies the US’s abstract promise of a nuclear umbrella into an actual operational plan. But it could increase the chances of a nuclear conflict, since it also contains provisions for a “preemptive response” to the detection of signs of the use of nuclear weapons. South Korean and US military authorities had discussed introducing a tailored strategy by 2014 at last year’s SCM. Its inclusion this year puts it a year ahead of schedule. Minister of National Defense Kim Kwan-jin said the goal was to “effectively deter the North Korean nuclear threat, which has become a more realistic concern with its third nuclear test [in February].” The strategy identifies plans of response for both sides to three stages of North Korean nuclear weapon capabilities: threat, signs of imminent usage, and usage. “This strategy establishes a strategic alliance framework for tailoring deterrence against key North Korean nuclear threat scenarios across armistice and wartime, and strengthens the integration of alliance capabilities to maximize their deterrence effects,” the communique said.

• Piercing the veil of North Korean human rights violations
  By Editorial Board, Friday, September 27, 12:15 AM ACOMMON illusion held by dictators is that they need only to shut the borders, turn off the Internet and control television for no one to notice the horrors they commit inside the country. The work of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has demonstrated how wrong they are. The commission has shined a light on one of the world’s human rights sinkholes, North Korea, without ever setting foot there. [Human rights] [Manipulation]
• 1.5 track meetings to be held between N. Korea and US in Europe
  Posted on : Sep.26,2013 16:00 KST Stephen Bosworth, a former United States Special Representative for North Korea policy Senior figures from both the US and North Korea to participate in talks By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent A series of meetings between government officials and private sector experts from the US and North Korea will be held in Berlin, Germany, and London, England. The participants at the so-called 1.5 track meetings will include Ri Yong-ho, North Korea’s vice foreign minister, and Stephen Bosworth, former US State Department special representative for North Korea policy and former US negotiator at the talks. According to diplomatic sources in Washington, D.C., the Berlin meeting will take place this week, and the London meeting will take place the following week. North Korea will be represented at the meetings both by Choi Seon-hee, deputy director general of the American affairs bureau and Jang Il-hun, deputy ambassador to the UN, sources said. In addition to Bosworth, American participants at the Berlin meeting will include former assistant secretary of state Robert Gallucci, who played a leading role in the agreed framework signed by the US and North Korea in 1994; Robert Carlin, visiting scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University; and Joel Wit, former North Korea specialist for the State Department. [Overture]
• S. Korea, US to discuss OPCON delay
  2013-09-27 17:47 By Jun Ji-hye Korea and the United States will hold their regular Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) in Seoul next Wednesday to discuss whether to delay the planned transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON), the Ministry of National Defense said Friday. “Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin and his U.S. counterpart Chuck Hagel will hold the 45th SCM in Seoul,” said a ministry official. [OPCON]
• Korea trapped in $7.5 billion Catch-22
  F-15 Silent Eagle demonstration model F-15 Silent Eagle is only to make cut on price but will it be right choice? By Kang Seung-woo Korea is set to make a $7.5 billion choice today. Or not. It comes down to principle vs. future. Boeing’s upgraded F-15 Silent Eagle was the only aircraft to make the cut in Korea’s $7.5 billion next-generation fighter acquisition program. If Korea doesn’t abide by the self-set rules to pass the Boeing jet fighter, it will give itself an ill reputation. But the Boeing aircraft has a built-in limit that would make any buyer reconsider: it’s a platform that dates back to the 1970s. If Korea buys the plane, it will likely face criticism for buying an outdated aircraft for the future. It can deal with North Korea but can it defend the nation against Japan and China? Or is that an unwarranted concern? [Tribute] [Arms sales] [SK Japan] [SK China]
• U.S., Republic of Korea and Allies Should Prepare for Eventual Collapse of North Korean Government
  September 19, 2013 Like the collapse of East Germany, the collapse of North Korea could occur suddenly and with little warning. But a North Korean collapse could be far more dangerous and disastrous than the actual collapse of East Germany, especially given the inadequate preparations for it, according to a new RAND Corporation report. The current North Korean government, led by Kim Jong Un, has showed signs of instability for some time and most experts agree that a collapse is likely. It is more a matter of “when” than “if” it will occur, says Bruce Bennett, the study's author and a senior defense analyst at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. The study describes many of the possible consequences of a North Korean government collapse, including civil war in the North, a humanitarian crisis, the potential use and proliferation of the nation's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and even war with China. Failure to establish stability in North Korea could disrupt the political and economic conditions in Northeast Asia and leave a serious power vacuum for a decade or longer, Bennett said. [Collapse] [Takeover]
• Thinking About The Thinkable: DPRK Collapse Scenarios Redux
  By Peter Hayes September 24, 2013 In the following Policy Form Peter Hayes analyzes Preparing for the Possibility of a North Korean Collapse by RAND analyst Bruce Bennett. Hayes states “Bennett’s report is salutary reading and should be read widely, including in Pyongyang. Anyone who hopes (as against feels obliged to prepare) for DPRK collapse or who thinks that “bringing it on” is likely to incur less costs for the most vulnerable populations than transforming the DPRK inside-out as-fast-as-possible via engagement aimed at non-collapse should read chapter 3 on the horrendous humanitarian consequences of a collapse and possible war.” [Collapse] [Agency]
• US Officials Turn Down North Korean Offer of Nuclear Talks
  By Ben McGrath Global Research, September 20, 2013 World Socialist Web Site Washington has flatly rebuffed a North Korean offer to resume international talks on its nuclear program, days after reports emerged of activity at North Korea’s Yongbyon reactor. While attending a Beijing conference, planned to coincide with the anniversary of an earlier agreement on North Korean disarmament signed on September 19, 2005, Pyongyang’s chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan stated: “We are ready to enter the six-party talks without preconditions.” These are talks involving the United States, North Korea, and four regional powers: China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea. China also pushed for the resumption of the six-party talks. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated at the conference in Beijing, “The situation on the peninsula was relatively stable when each party actively participated in negotiations. The situation was tense or even directionless when the talks stalemated.” The United States, backed by South Korea and Japan, flatly rejected any such talks, however. US State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said, “The onus is on North Korea to take meaningful actions toward denuclearization and refrain from provocations.” The US has repeatedly made clear that it would only return to six-party talks if Pyongyang agreed in advance to give up its nuclear program—something the Stalinist regime has indicated it is not prepared to do. [Overture] [Rebuff] [Preconditions]
• The Syria Crisis and North Korea
  By Georgy Toloraya 12 September 2013 The unraveling of the Syrian drama has suddenly brought attention to an unexpected culprit: North Korea. But if you give it a second thought, that should not be surprising given the US’ vision of the world as a stand-off between good guys and bad guys. North Koreans are near the top of the latter list and it would be only natural to emphasize the wickedness of the Assad regime by highlighting its cooperation with Pyongyang. It is true that traditional military cooperation between the two has flourished for a long time. Until recently, this cooperation was one of the most advanced of Pyongyang’s military ties with its clients, which included Iran, Libya and also many African states. Syria has been one of North Korea’s closest allies for decades. I remember when serving as a Russian diplomat in Pyongyang in the 1970s and 1980s, I was sometimes mistaken by the service personnel in hotels and shops as being “Syrian” when saying I was “Soryon” (Soviet), testifying to the brisk exchanges between the two countries. However, the present stress on the link between the two “rogue states” seems a bit artificial. Some commentators even call the two countries “a real axis of evil,”[1] prompting suspicion of a “hidden agenda.” To clarify, I would conclude the above tendency in official comments and media seems to be directed against North Korea, rather than Assad, (who has nothing to lose in Western opinion anyway). The recent emphasis on a Damascus-Pyongyang connection could result in collateral damage, further cornering North Korea and disrupting emerging North-South dialogue. This also might be interpreted as a tacit warning to both China and Russia not to go to extremes in defending “friends” like Syria and North Korea. I am not qualified to discuss North Korea’s assistance to the Syrian chemical weapons program. There is a lot of information[2]—which I tend to believe—about exchanges between the two countries in this sensitive area, although I presume North Korea’s role in Syria’s chemical weapons program is exaggerated. What catches my attention is that this long-known fact is now extensively used to further demonize and isolate North Korea. [Syria] [Propaganda]
• North Korea Sees Weak US Resolve on Syria
  By Bruce Klingner 12 September 2013 North Korea is as befuddled in discerning US policy toward Syria as are the US Congress and American people. When attempting to decipher President Barack Obama’s plans toward Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, North Korea would be confronted with a dizzying array of contradictory US statements, crossed redlines, and reticence to fulfill declarations of intent. Pyongyang also sees an American public weary of war, an intensely divided US Congress, policymaker and pundit hawks and doves switching roles, and US allies even more reluctant than usual to participate in military action.
• DPRK cancels invitation to US envoy
  Xinhua, August 31, 2013 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Friday canceled its invitation to a U.S. envoy who has sought the release of a U.S. citizen being held by Pyongyang, according to media reports.
• Brian Becker speaks on North Korea at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Tokyo
  Normalize relations and end U.S. threats now! September 20, 2013 ANSWER National Coordinator Brian Becker speaks at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Tokyo on August 1, 2013, regarding the issue of how U.S. and North Korea (DPRK) relations could normalize. He had just come from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) marking the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice Agreement that ended military action during the Korean War. The DPRK has called for the Armistice Agreement to be replaced with a formal Peace Treaty. So far the United States has refused to sign a Peace Treaty. It maintains severe economic sanctions on North Korea and continues to carry out massive war exercises, including the simulated bombing of North Korea [US NK policy]
• US officials lukewarm on request to delay OPCON transfer
  Posted on : Aug.29,2013 16:42 KST At meeting in Brunei, US and S. Korean ministers say more discussion is needed on another postponement By Kim Kyu-won, staff reporter The US responded unenthusiastically to a request from Seoul to once again postpone the transfer of wartime operational control to South Korea. The South Korean government’s original goal was to reach an agreement on another postponement by October, but that outcome is looking less and less likely. Minister of National Defense Kim Kwan-jin discussed the issue on Aug. 28 during a talk with US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel at the Empire Hotel in Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of Brunei and ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting. Hagel reportedly expressed no agreement or sympathy with the request. After the talk, Kim told reporters, “As far as the need to once again postpone the transfer of wartime operational control, there were things we both acknowledged and things where we differed. We plan to achieve a consensus through discussions in the future.” [OPCON]
• N.Korean Call for New Nuclear Talks Prompts Wary U.S. Response
  North Korea has called again for the resumption of multi-nation talks on its nuclear program. But the United States -- a key participant in the so-called six-party negotiations -- says Pyongyang first must take "meaningful action" on earlier promises to end its nuclear weapons program. The public exchange between Pyongyang and Washington began Wednesday, when North Korea's first vice foreign minister, Kim Kye-gwan, called for a new round of talks without preconditions. He spoke in Beijing at a forum marking the 10th anniversary of the talks, which the North abandoned in 2009. [Overture] [Rebuff]

• DPRK warns US and S. Korea to rein back military exercises
  CNTV, August 30, 2013 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea has urged the US and South Korea to abandon its Cold War mentality and its hostile policy towards the DPRK. Speaking at an open meeting with foreign diplomats in Pyongyang, Kim Yong Chol, director of the DPRK's Reconnaissance General Bureau, said tensions on the Korean Peninsula have eased due to the DPRK's efforts. The officials also warned the US and South Korea to scale back its military exercises. He said if the US truly wants denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, it should stop its nuclear blackmail against the DPRK. He called on the US and South Korean governments to refrain from any provocation. [Joint US military]
• North Korea could free American missionary soon, U.S. officials say
  By Anne Gearan, Published: August 27 E-mail the writer An American Christian missionary imprisoned in North Korea last year could be freed within days on humanitarian grounds, the Obama administration said Tuesday. Kenneth Bae’s family says he is in deteriorating health and lost roughly 50 pounds during months in a prison work camp. He was moved to a hospital this month. In a deal worked out with the secretive regime, Robert King, a U.S. special envoy, will travel to North Korea on Friday and request a pardon for Bae before returning with the American, U.S. officials said. [Overture]
• N.Korea 'Caught Trying to Export Arms to Syria'
  North Korea was caught attempting to export weapons to Syria but they were confiscated by the Turkish government this spring, the Sankei Shimbun reported on Tuesday. The paper said the U.S. military obtained information this spring that the North would attempt to send arms to Syria on a Libyan cargo ship and tracked it in collaboration with other countries. Turkish security forces searched the ship in a port near Istanbul on April 4-5 and confiscated 1,400 rifles, 30,000 rounds of ammunition, 2,600 heavy machine gun magazines, and gas masks for chemical attacks, the daily claimed. The cargo ship's port of departure is not known yet. U.S. intelligence speculates that the weapons would have been unloaded in Turkey and transported to Syria overland, it added. It said the same Libyan ship was involved in an earlier case when the North tried to export arms to Syria via Lebanon in September last year. [Interdiction] [Arms sales] [Legality] [Double standards] [subordinate]
• The Struggle for a Korean Peace Treaty
  Gregory Elich* | August 22, 2013 [Originally published on Counterpunch.org, August 19, 2013] Sixty years have passed since the end of the Korean War, and in all that time a peace treaty has yet to be signed. The armistice agreement that brought an end to hostilities recommended that a political conference be held within three months "to settle through negotiation the question of the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Korea, the peaceful settlement of the Korean question, etc." That conference never took place. Decades later, the sides still remain technically at war. Activists in South Korea have made the signing of a peace treaty one of their primary goals, seeing it as the surest means of reducing the risk of armed conflict. A peace treaty would also substantially reduce tensions in Northeast Asia and create an environment conducive to improving inter-Korean relations. By any human evaluation, the time for a peace treaty is long overdue. The United States not only has the central role to play in the peace treaty process, it also presents the greatest challenge to its achievement. Although a peace treaty would serve the interests of the peoples of Northeast Asia, it has little or no intrinsic value for U.S. leaders. From their standpoint, a peace treaty has value only as a carrot to be dangled before North Korea in order to encourage denuclearization. Indeed, from the standpoint of U.S. geopolitical interests, there are certain advantages in maintaining a state of tension on the Korean Peninsula, as long as events can be controlled. [US NK policy] [Peace treaty]
• The Unorthodox Wisdom of Dennis Rodman
  Terry K. Park* | August 13, 2013 At a discussion organized by Asia Society New York in July entitled "'Avoiding Apocalypse': Searching for Peace with North Korea," former ambassador to the Republic of Korea Donald Gregg and former Governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson suggested that the Obama administration actively engage the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), or North Korea. "Isolation is not working," said Richardson, who visited the DPRK in January with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. "What we need is out-of-the-box diplomacy." Amid current diplomatic tensions between North Korea and the United States is Kenneth Bae, a U.S. citizen and evangelical Christian currently serving a fifteen year sentence in a labor camp on charges of trying to overthrow the North Korean government. On how best to secure Bae's release, Richardson commented, "I think it's going to be something unorthodox, but hopefully it will be resolved, because this man deserves to come home." Out of the box? Unorthodox? Cue Dennis Rodman. The sequined celebrity announced last Saturday at the Wizard World Comic Con near Chicago, where he promoted his new children's book Dennis the Wild Bull, that he intends to return to Pyongyang "soon" to seek Bae's release and reunite with his new friend, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. "I love him," declared Rodman after his first trip six months ago. "That guy's awesome." Those words of affection flabbergasted a home audience shocked by images of Rodman cozying up with Kim at a basketball game featuring members of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team. Politicians, pundits, and bloggers ripped Rodman apart; on an ABC interview, George Stephanopoulos accused him of propping up a government that has threatened to destroy the United States and imprisons much of its own population. Rodman defended his actions, bringing a message of peace—not war—from Kim himself. It didn't matter, though. Head-butting an NBA referee is one thing, but when he befriended the hated leader of a hated country, Americans felt like Rodman had head-butted their national pride. "Stay in North Korea," screamed bulletin-board comments. "Traitor" shouted others. America's "Bad Boy" just got badder.
• Marking the Armistice: Dispatch from South Korea
  Tim Shorrock* | August 9, 2013 [Originally published on timshorrock.com, August 3, 2013] A July 27th rally in Seoul for a peace treaty and against KCIA intervention in domestic politics. I was in Seoul during the July 27 commemorations of the 60th anniversary of the armistice agreement that brought an end to the fighting in the Korean War, one of the most brutal conflicts of the 20th century. My visit was hosted by the Unified Progressive Party, a coalition of peace, labor and civil liberties activists that holds six seats in South Korea's National Assembly. On July 26, its Progressive Policy Institute sponsored an international symposium on "concluding a peace treaty on the Korean peninsula," with participation from activists and writers from South Korea, Japan and China as well as the United States and Canada. I was proud to be among the three Americans invited to the event. The others were Gregory Elich, a foreign policy analyst affiliated, as I am, with the Korea Policy Institute (see his Counterpunch article on North Korea) and Hyun Lee, a Korean-American activist with the community organization Nodutdol in New York City (she produces radio shows for Asia Pacific Forum on WBAI.) I want to thank the organizers of the symposium, particularly Kyoung-Soon Park, the vice president of the institute, and Je-Jun Soo of the Korean Alliance for Progressive Movements. Here's a report on my visit — my first to Seoul since August 2001: The highlight was a trip to the DMZ, the border area which I first saw as a boy in 1961, The day I was there it was extremely hot and humid, but hundreds of people came out to mourn Korea's division and express their hopes for a unified and peaceful future. That day our delegation also participated in two demonstrations in downtown Seoul. In the afternoon, we marched and rallied for peace in front of the Yongsan Garrison, the huge U.S. military headquarters in Seoul (where I went to 4th grade in a U.S. Department of Defense school). [NIS]
• Full Disclosure: Contents of North Korean Smuggling Ship Revealed
  By Hugh Griffiths and Roope Siiritola 27 August 2013 All is seldom as it first appears in the world of North Korean sanctions busting. Six weeks after the inspection of the North Korean vessel Chong Chon Gang by Panamanian authorities on suspicion of drug trafficking, the full extent of the ship’s illicit military cargo falsely declared to be sugar and spare plastic sacks appears to have been much larger than previously reported. Moreover, key parts of the shipment seem intended for Pyongyang’s own use in its conventional military defenses, not to be repaired and returned to Cuba. Finally, the results of the search by Panamanian authorities provides new insight into North Korea’s illicit procurement priorities as well as evidence of its preferred maritime concealment methods and raises a host of still unanswered questions. [Arms sales] [Interdiction] [Double standards]
• Is it Time to Defy Washington's Logic on North Korea?
  23 August 2013 Michael Bassett The US has failed with its “Strategic Patience” policy. Many observers are wondering which direction events on the Korean Peninsula will go. The emerging mantra in South Korea calls for peace and understanding with its northern neighbor. The South Korean president, Park Geun-hye, recently stated that Japan needs to acknowledge its past role in Asian conflicts. This is a statement that indicates a lot more than the standard calls for acknowledgement of Japan's crimes against Korean “comfort” women. Park’s call for action from Japan alludes to much larger issues, such as a buried history of a forgotten war with Japan which has largely remained unacknowledged, and how the conflict on the Korean Peninsula perpetually continues. Her statements also bring to question the strength of the “Asian Alliance.” President Park is breaking from standard US-South Korea relations. The new Korean “Iron Lady” seems to be taking ownership of her country. The brevity of her statement indicates a division in the interior regarding whose policies to follow: Korean or American. It seems the country that most strongly supports the Washington's Asia Pivot Policy is Japan, a nation which is currently in violation of its constitution for producing warships. Even more than the current Asia Pivot Policy, the United States’ “Strategic Patience Policy” towards North Korea leaves much desired to secure our national security interests. [US NK policy] [Engagement]
• Teddy should be stripped of Nobel prize, Kim says
  By Chung Min-uck Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt, 26th U.S. President, must be deprived of his 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for agreeing to Japan’s control of the Korean Peninsula in the early 1900s, said Kim Hak-joon, president of the state-run Northeast Asian History Foundation (NAHF). “The awarding of Nobel Peace Prize to Roosevelt must be withdrawn,” said Kim in a recent interview with The Korea Times, Monday. “Civic groups must stage campaigns boycotting Roosevelt’s award and a protest letter must be sent to the related committee. The Nobel committee reasoned in its decision that the Treaty of Portsmouth brought peace to the Far East. But the tragedy of all Koreans lifted off from there.” Roosevelt effectively persuaded Russia and Japan to end the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) via the signing of a peace treaty in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in Sept. 1905. However, Article 2 of the treaty acknowledges that Japan possesses in Korea “paramount political, military and economic interests,” supporting Japan’s ingress into Korea. [Sidelined] [Japanese colonialism]
• [Column] Is the Korean peninsula moving toward reunification?
  Posted on : Aug.12,2013 12:04 KST Baik Tae-ung US Congress recently passed a significant resolution, but many serious issues still remain By Baik Tae-ung, Hawaii Law School professor The US Congress recently passed a resolution that holds great significance for the future of the Korean Peninsula. On the 60th anniversary of the armistice that ended the combat phase of the Korean War, the Senate and House of Representatives affirmed their support for Korean peace and reunification. This is welcome news - a bit of a formality, to be sure, but meaningful as a reaffirmation of explicit congressional support for unification. It’s also inspiring to hear that a major contribution to the resolution came from a Korean-American aide to Rep. Charles Rangel. [Naiveté] [Diaspora]
• Pentagon Upsets Patriots by Mislabeling Maps
  The Pentagon has upset patriots by labeling the body of water between Korea and Japan in an exhibition depicting various battles fought during the 1950-53 Korean War as "Sea of Japan" rather than "East Sea." [Sidelined]
• S.Korea-U.S. Military Drills Start Next Week
  South Korea and the U.S. will conduct an annual joint military exercise dubbed "Ulchi Freedom Guardian" from Aug. 19 to 30, Combined Forces Command announced on Sunday. They are defensive drills aimed at preparing for a full-scale invasion by North Korea and are based on computer-assisted simulations, with little actual movement of personnel or equipment. Some 30,000 U.S. troops from the U.S. Forces Korea and U.S. mainland will join 50,000 South Korean troops from several Army corps, naval fleets, and air wings. This year's drill will also be observed by Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, New Zealand, Norway and the U.K., which were part of the UN forces during the 1950-53 Korean War, the CFC added. [Joint US military]
• Arguing against a peace treaty on the Korean peninsula
  August 10th, 2013 Author: John Hemmings, LSE Sixty years after the end of the Korean War, it has become an article of faith among some policy-makers that a peace treaty between the United States and North Korea would help ease tensions on the Peninsula. Often, reflecting North Korean propaganda statements, they explicitly link US troop withdrawals on the Korean Peninsula to a treaty ending the war. Such narratives generally state that a peace regime would assuage North Korea’s security concerns and get the Six-Party Talks back on track. A recent article in China’s Global Times makes this very argument, and though convincing it ultimately rests on faulty assumptions. [Peace treaty] [Sterile]
• Advantage Pyongyang
  Richard Lloyd Parry The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future by Victor Cha Bodley Head, 527 pp, £14.99, August 2012, ISBN 978 1 84792 236 6 The Choco Pie is a mouth-drying, individually wrapped slab of cake, marshmallow and chocolate, and in South Korea it is as important a part of childhood as Britain’s Mars bar or the American Twinkie. It is manufactured by the Orion company of Seoul, exported across Asia, and consumed in an arc of countries from Japan to Uzbekistan. In 2004, South Korean manufacturers began to set up factories in the North Korean city of Kaesong, an unprecedented experiment in co-operation between the fraternal enemies, and the core of what the South Korean government called its Sunshine Policy. Along with South Korean managers, manufacturing technology, telephone lines and a motorway, they brought the Choco Pie. [US NK policy]
• Oliver Stone joins Jeju residents’ battle against naval base
  Posted on : Aug.5,2013 12:00 KST Film director Oliver Stone shakes hands with priests and brothers Moon Jeong-hyun (right) and Moon Kyu-hyun at a concert supporting the opposition to the construction of a naval base in Gangjeong Village, Jeju Island, August 3. (by Ryu Woo-jong, staff photographer) Acclaimed director is touring Asia in criticism of the US government’s ‘pivot to Asia’ policy By Huh Ho-joon, Jeju correspondent “Ever since the Second World War, the US has been building military alliances and setting up military bases overseas. A lot of those bases are in Japan and Korea. Jeju Island is less than 500 kilometers from Shanghai. It could end up on the front lines if a military conflict breaks out between the US and China.” Internationally renowned filmmaker Oliver Stone said this about the naval base currently under construction on Jeju Island. The 67-year-old director, whose works on the Vietnam War include “Platoon” and “Born on the Fourth of July,” met with the Hankyoreh on Aug. 3 at the Peace Center in Gangjeong Village in Jeju. Noting the US’s overseas military strategy, Stone said the issue with the Jeju base was “global, not regional.” [Bases] [Jeju] [China confrontation]
• Rodong Sinmun Lashes at U.S. Moves to Sell Latest Weapons to S. Korea
  Pyongyang, August 4 (KCNA) -- The U.S. bureau for cooperation in defense security informed south Korea in the middle of July of its plan for selling 260 latest medium-range air-to-air missiles and their parts and requested approval from U.S. Congress. Rodong Sinmun Sunday observes in a bylined commentary in this regard: This is a dangerous move to upset the military equilibrium on the Korean Peninsula and instigate the south Korean warmongers to escalate the confrontation with the DPRK. The U.S. claim that arms sale meets the goal of its diplomatic policy and national interests fully reveals its aggressive nature, the commentary says, and goes on: It is the basic objective of the U.S. Asian policy to invade Asian countries by using south Korea as an advanced base. To this end, the U.S. has steadily shipped its weapons into south Korea, keeping its aggressor troops there for more than half a century. South Korea is recognized as the biggest advanced nuclear base of the U.S. in the Far East. The U.S. is often trumpeting about the non-existent "security threat" in a bid to cover up its aggressive design. However, it is nonsensical to claim that the U.S. national interests are encroached on by the far-off DPRK. [Missiles] [Military balance] [Arms sales] [threat]
• Senate approves Scaparrotti as head of US Forces Korea
  The U.S. Senate has confirmed Army Lt. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti to lead the U.S. forces in Korea, according to the Pentagon, Friday. Scaparrotti, formerly deputy commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, will be promoted to the rank of general and replace Gen. James Thurman in September to lead the 28,500 troops on the peninsula. In his confirmation hearing this week, he expressed support for the current plan for Washington to hand over wartime operational control (OPCON) of South Korean troops to Seoul as scheduled in 2015. Once he assumes command of U.S. Forces Korea, he will be granted authority to lead South Korean troops in the event of war until the OPCON transfer. South Korea's military recently proposed a delay in the OPCON transition, citing growing threats from nuclear-armed North Korea. Scaparrotti served in Afghanistan as the commander of the International Security Assistance Force's Joint Command in Kabul from 2011 to 2012. He has since worked as director of the Joint Staff, serving under Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (Yonhap) [USFK] [OPCON]
• North Korea’s Cuban Missile Crisis
  By Melissa Hanham 01 August 2013 Snappy titles aside, the Panamanian interdiction of Cuban arms bound for North Korea is about much more than missiles. It challenges the world’s sanctions regimes by testing member states’ abilities to meet, enforce and carry out their obligations. So far, it is a bizarre tale of deception, suicide, honor and Twitter! The end is not yet written, and while this is a clear violation of UN Sanctions, ultimately it will be Panamanian domestic law and resources that determine the outcome. [Interdiction]
• US Pres. Obama finishes selecting policy team for Korean peninsula
  Posted on : Aug.2,2013 14:13 KSTModified on : Aug.2,2013 14:13 KST Appointments show emphasis on continuity with Obama administration’s first term By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent US President Barack Obama finished up appointments for his second-term Korean Peninsula policy crew by tapping Evan Medeiros, China director at the National Security Council, as Senior Director for Asia. With this, the new lineup at the three policy organizations - the White House, State Department, and Defense Department - is complete. But the names in it suggest that the administration is prioritizing policy continuity: all of them, with the exceptions of Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, who were appointed early this year, are holdovers from Obama’s first term. At the NSC, the lineup includes Susan Rice as national security adviser, Medeiros as senior director, and Sydney Seiler as Korea director. Neither Rice nor Medeiros has handled Korea policy to date, which means the role of Seiler, a Central Intelligence Agency veteran with longstanding experience in North Korea policy, is likely to be key. [US NK policy]
• After 60 Years of Suffering, Time to Replace Korean Armistice with Peace Treaty
  Christine Ahn* | July 27, 2013 [Originally published in Common Dreams, July 26, 2013] Gen. W. K. Harrison, Jr., left table, signs the armistice ending the 3-year Korean conflict. On the right, North Korean Gen. Nam Il also signs documents. (Archive photo: Wikimedia commons). Sixty years ago today, the United States, North Korea and China sat down to sign the Korean Armistice Agreement to "insure a complete cessation of hostilities." Several provisions were to guarantee a peaceful settlement, including a permanent peace agreement, withdrawal of all foreign troops, and no new arms introduced into Korea. Six decades later, none of these have been honored. As such, war, not peace, defines the relationship between Washington and Pyongyang. Official commemorations are now taking place throughout Korea and United States, mostly honoring veterans who sacrificed their lives to fight the Forgotten War. Missing from this sanctioned remembering are the nearly four million Korean, mostly civilian, lives lost in just three years. Also missing is the central question: what are the costs of maintaining division and a permanent state of war? The costs are indeed enormous. [US NK policy] [Sanctions]
• Calling for Peace in Korea on July 27, 2013
  On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Korean War Armistice Agreement on July 27, when the official events in Washington, DC focused on the Korean War veterans, a contingent of peace activists and concerned citizens -- both Koreans and Americans -- came together in D.C. for a series of events to highlight the fact that the Korean War is not officially over since peace treaty was never signed to end the war, leaving the Korean Peninsula in a perpetual state of semi-war that drains manpower, resources and maintains volatile tensions. Similar actions occurred in South Korea as well, demanding signing of peace treaty as a step towards a peaceful resolution in Korea (see below photo).
• Korea, U.S. Discuss Delaying Troop Transfer
  Washington is minded to accept Seoul's request to delay the handover of full operational control of South Korean troops to Seoul in view of the changed security environment here. Until recently, the U.S. wanted the transfer to go ahead as scheduled in December 2015. But the signals at the two-day Integrated Defense Dialogue in Seoul starting on Tuesday were apparently more positive. Seoul wants to delay the handover because it believes South Korean troops and equipment are not ready to operate without the umbrella of Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command. A government source here said the first day of talks saw U.S. officials "affirmative" of delaying the handover in view of new challenges including the North's recent third nuclear test. The final decision on the transfer is expected in the Korea-U.S. Security Consultative Meeting in Seoul in October, but experts believe there is a now a good chance that things will be all wrapped up before the SCM. [OPCON]
• Reflections on the Peace Study Tour
  Posted on : Jul.29,2013 00:15 KST By Daniel Y. Kim, Associate Professor of English at Brown University I was fortunate enough to participate in the Peace Tour Marking the 60th Anniversary of the Korean War Armistice which was organized by the Institute for Korean Historical Studies, Human Rights Foundation Saram, People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, the May 18 Memorial Foundation and the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea. While the tour culminated in the issuing of a Peace Statement Declaration another of its aims was to instill those who took part with a more intimate awareness of injustices that took place in this country as direct and indirect consequences of the Korean War and of those that are currently taking place. I believe that all of us who took part in the Tour were hoping that the knowledge we gained would help us further the cause of peace in Korea in whatever ways we can in the various national and institutional locations in which we work. Rather than a policy piece, I offer here some personal reflections on what I gained from the Peace Tour and how it will shape my research and teaching back in the United States. For most Americans the conflict in Korea remains very much a forgotten war and fewer still are aware of the toll that the continuing US military presence on the peninsula exacts on the lives of many ordinary Koreans. I hope my work as an American academic can help in some way to reverse that historical and political ignorance and further the cause of peace.

• Sixty Years After the Korean War, the Cold War’s Unending Conflict Continues
  TIME talks with Sheila Miyoshi Jager, author of the new book Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea, on how a 20th century war continues to influence Korean geopolitics By Ishaan Tharoor @ishaantharoorJuly 27, 20132 Comments DAVID GUTTENFELDER / AP North Korean soldiers file up the stairs to pay tribute to a statue of the late leader Kim Il Sung as they tour a newly constructed Korean War museum that was officially opened Saturday, July 27, 2013 to mark the 60th anniversary of the Korean War armistice in Pyongyang. On July 27, 1953, an armistice was agreed that brought an end to a bloody three-year war fought between a divided Korean peninsula and the American and Communist forces backing either side. Decades later, no peace treaty has been signed. Tourists who visit the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that separates North and South Korea bear witness to the last frozen battlefield of the Cold War, a conflict that to this day defines and shapes the societies living on either side of the 38th Parallel. South Korea has emerged as an economic powerhouse, a global trendsetter whose companies and pop stars are celebrated across continents and whose population is perhaps the world’s most Internet savvy. North Korea, on the other hand, is the least-connected place on earth, a nation built entirely on the propaganda and brutality of its totalitarian, post-Stalinist regime. TIME spoke with Sheila Miyoshi Jager, a professor of East Asian studies at Oberlin College and author of the new book Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea, on how a 20th century war continues to influence 21st century geopolitics in one of the most strategic corners of the planet. [Korean war]
• Vice-President of Presidium of DPRK SPA Meets Former U.S. Attorney General
  Pyongyang, July 26 (KCNA) -- Yang Hyong Sop, vice-president of the Presidium of the DPRK Supreme People's Assembly (SPA), Friday met and had a talk with Ramsey Clark, former U.S. attorney general, and his party who paid a courtesy call on him at the Mansudae Assembly Hall.
• Obama declares Korean War Vets Day
  A Korean War veteran salutes in front of the memorial monument at the Korean National Cemetery in Seoul, Friday. About 220 veterans and their families from 21 nations have been invited to attend commemorative events to mark the 60th anniversary of Korean Armistice Agreement and visit former battle sites across the nation. / Yonhap By Kang Seung-woo Barack Obama U.S. President Barack Obama issued a proclamation Thursday that declared July 27 as National Korean War Veterans Armistice Day. In a proclamation to honor the 60th anniversary of the cease-fire agreement that ended the three-year conflict, Obama told his country to honor the Korean War veterans. “We remember ordinary men and women who showed extraordinary courage through three long years of war, fighting far from home to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met,” he said. “Most of all, we remember those brave Americans who gave until they had nothing left to give. No monument will ever be worthy of their service, and no memorial will fully heal the ache of their sacrifice. But as a grateful nation, we must honor them ? not just with words, but with deeds.” [AA] [Obama]
• Obama speaks at ceremony marking 60th anniversary of cessation of Korean War
  Video: President Barack Obama has marked the 60th anniversary of the end of the Korean War by praising the sacrifice of those Americans who fought against North Korean and Chinese troops. By Scott Wilson, Sunday, July 28, 5:16 AM E-mail the writer President Obama praised veterans of the Korean War at a ceremony Saturday marking the anniversary of the armistice, using their return to an apathetic America decades ago as a promise to better care for the generation returning from distant battlefields today. After three and an half years of fighting on the Korean Peninsula, a “forgotten war” quickly following the end of World War II, “among many Americans tired of war, there was, it seemed, a desire to forget,” Obama said. [AA] [Obama] [China confrontation]
• Post-war life captured in photos
  A boy observes the destruction while chewing something. This photo was taken in Daegu, with the exact date unknown. Photographer Jaroslav komarek worked as an intelligence officer. Alex Svamberk By Kim Se-jeong The Korea Times together with the Czech Embassy present rare images taken between 1953 and 1956 on the Korean Peninsula by Czechoslovak members who were part of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission. The photos published here and that will be presented Saturday were selectively chosen out of 5,000 for this coverage. The NNSC was composed of four countries — Czechoslovakia and Poland appointed by China and North Korea; and Switzerland and Sweden by the United Nations. The NNSC’s mission was to conduct inspections and investigations to ensure compliance with the implementation of the provisions of the Armistice which prohibited reinforcements or new armament. [Korean War] [Photos]
• Looking to Japan-US cost sharing agreement as negotiations start in Korea
  Posted on : Jul.25,2013 14:36 KST Japan was able to negotiate a lower share of cost sharing for stationing of US troops By Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter On July 24, the second session of negotiations for the ninth defense cost-sharing Special Measures Agreement (SMA) began to determine how much financial support the South Korean government will provide the US military for stationing costs, starting in 2014. The negotiations could be used as an opportunity to depart from the pattern of previous US-ROK cost-sharing agreements, which defined the total amount that the South Korean government must pay. Instead, some observers argued that consideration should be given to the method that is used for calculating Japan’s contribution. This method involves listing each of the categories for which the country must provide funding. According to the US-Japan defense cost-sharing agreement (signed in 2011), which is available on the website of the Japanese Ministry of Defense, there are basically three defense categories for which the Japanese government must provide funding to US forces in Japan: labor, electricity, gas, water and training.[Tribute] [USFK] [Sidelined]
• Jimmy Carter says he has no immediate plans to visit North Korea
  Posted on : Jul.25,2013 14:34 KST Former Pres. says he consulted with Sec. of State John Kerry; may have not gotten US government approval By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent After deliberations with US government officials about the possibility of visiting North Korea, former US president Jimmy Carter said on July 23 that he has no immediate plans to go to the North. “Carter and other former heads of state who are members of The Elders met with US Secretary of State John Kerry on July 22,” said Carter’s spokesperson Deanna Congileo, in response to an inquiry by a Hankyoreh reporter about whether Carter would be traveling to Pyongyang. “They have no immediate plans to visit North Korea.” [Jimmy Carter] [Overture] [Rebuff]
• Jimmy Carter Mulls Another Visit to N.Korea
  Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has been invited to visit North Korea again, Kyodo News reported on Tuesday. Carter is said to be consulting with White House National Security Advisor Susan Rice and Secretary of State John Kerry. "If the trip goes ahead, Carter is likely to discuss with North Korean officials issues of human rights, humanitarian aid and Pyongyang's nuclear programs," Kyodo speculated. There is a likelihood that he will meet with leader Kim Jong-un. North Koreans put on gymnastics and arts performances in Pyongyang on Monday, as part of celebrations ahead of the 60th anniversary of the end of the 1950-53 Korean War in this photo released by North Koreas KCNA News Agency. The word reads North Koreans put on gymnastics and arts performances in Pyongyang on Monday, as part of celebrations ahead of the 60th anniversary of the end of the 1950-53 Korean War in this photo released by North Korea's KCNA News Agency. The word reads "victory." /Reuters-News 1 Carter is likely to seek the release of Kenneth Bae, a Korean American who is being held in the North charged with unspecified "hostile acts" against the regime. He was arrested on a tour of the country in November last year and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. Carter visited Pyongyang for the first time in 1994 and held talks with nation founder Kim Il-sung about the North's nuclear weapons program. He went again in 2010 and 2011 and was again invited to visit in May this year along with former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari. [Jimmy Carter]
• Jimmy Carter reportedly invited to visit North Korea
  Posted on : Jul.24,2013 11:55 KST Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and then-North Korean leader Kim Il-sung examine the West Sea Floodgate, 1994. Kim had promised to freeze his country’s nuclear weapons program. Former US president has been to the North three times and could discuss detained Korean-America and NK nukes By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent and Jeong Nam-ku, Tokyo correspondent Former US president Jimmy Carter is pondering a visit to Pyongyang after being invited by the North Korean government, and he discussed the possible visit with high-ranking US government officials on July 22, Japanese Kyodo News agency reported the next day. Kyodo quoted a US government official as saying that Carter had a conversation on July 22 with Secretary of State John Kerry, White House national security advisor Susan Rice and others about the possibility of visiting North Korea. Kyodo added that North Korea had extended an invitation to Martti Ahtisaari, former president of Finland, in addition to Carter. “The South Korean government is not aware of anything related to this,” a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said on condition of anonymity. By inviting Carter, North Korea appears to be searching for a way to return to talks with the US. [Jimmy Carter] [Overture]
• US military has stocked $660 million in S. Korean defense contributions
  Posted on : Jul.24,2013 15:49 KST On October 29 2008, Solidarity for Peace and Unification of Korea stage a rally in front of the Ministry of National Defense building in Seoul to call for fair negotiations on the USFK budget. Despite having accumulated a huge surplus, the US is asking that S. Korea increase its share in cost sharing agreement By Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter The amount of money from South Korean defense contributions that US forces in Korea have not used but are keeping in reserve was 738 billion won (US$660.37 million) as of April, the Hankyoreh has confirmed. If this amount is added to the other 531.7 billion won that South Korea has been obligated to pay but was not used by the US military, a total of 1.27 trillion won (US$1.14 billion) has been contributed to defense cost sharing but not used. On July 23, the Ministry of Defense submitted annual data on the accumulated amount of unused military funds for construction in the possession of US forces to United Progressive Party lawmaker Lee Seok-gi. According to this data, the money that the US military has received in cash from the South Korean government and is holding on to was found to be 738 billion won as of April. [Tribute]
• S. Korean contributions to US troop cost sharing not being used
  Posted on : Jul.23,2013 15:43 KST Some of annual surplus carried over to the following year, in what critics say is a wasteful arrangement By Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter 531.7 billion won (US$475.19 million), or 13.1% of the total financial support that the South Korean government had provided the US over the past five years as part of the defense cost sharing agreement has not been used. During the current round of negotiations for the ninth agreement (to run from 2014-2018), the US is said to be requesting an increase. But it appears that it may actually be more appropriate to think about decreasing the amount. On July 22, the Ministry of National Defense submitted a document detailing the results of defense cost sharing from 2009 to 2013 to the office of United Progressive Party lawmaker Lee Seok-gi. [USFK] [Tribute]
• [Editorial] There’s no reason why OPCON transfer should be delayed
  Posted on : Jul.22,2013 15:26 KST By and large, the US is responding coolly to the South Korean government’s request for a delay in the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) of ROK military forces, which is scheduled for December 2015. We hope that the South Korean government will stop begging the US to delay the transfer of control, which would offer no advantages and for which there is no justification. Instead, it should keep preparing for the transfer of control. [OPCON]
• Is Delaying Troop Control Handover Again a Wise Idea?
  Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin told Saenuri Party lawmakers on Thursday that the government is discussing with the U.S. another delay in the transfer of full control of South Korean troops to Seoul. The handover has already been postponed from 2012 until 2015. But Kim told lawmakers that the security situation on the Korean peninsula has "worsened" since North Korea's third nuclear test in February and added that preparations for the South Korean military to assume full control of its own troops is being delayed. But the U.S. believes otherwise, with Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff on Thursday telling the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee the current timing of the transfer is "appropriate." [OPCON]
• Korea-U.S. Talks on Troop Handover to Start This Month
  Seoul and Washington plan to start discussions at the end of this month on whether once again to postpone the transfer of full operational control of Korean troops to Seoul. A government source here on Friday said discussions about delaying the handover will take place during the two-day Integrated Defense Dialogue in Seoul starting July 30. The handover, already once postponed from 2012, is scheduled for 2015 and spells the end for Combined Forces Command under U.S. leadership. [OPCON]
• Seoul to Buy Air-to-Air Missiles from U.S.
  The Korean government has asked the U.S. to sell it about W500 billion worth of state-of-the-art medium-range air-to-air missiles, the U.S. Defense Department said Saturday (US$1=W1,122). The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which is in charge of selling defense materiel overseas, notified Congress of the request, according to a press release. According to the DSCA, Korea wants to buy 260 AIM-120C-7 air-to-air missiles, to be mounted on the FK-16 and F-15K fighter jets and the F-22 stealth fighter jet. They can also be installed on the F-35 or the F-15SE, which are candidates for the so-called FX next-generation fighter program. The DSCA estimates the total cost of the missiles and equipment, parts and training at US$452 million. [Arms sales] [Missiles] [Military balance]
• US media to travel to North Korea for armistice anniversary event
  Posted on : Jul.22,2013 15:31 KST The Korean War Veterans Memorial was dedicated in 1995 to 1.5 million American men and women who served in the Korean War. A group of 19 statues depicts soldiers on patrol facing an American flag. US President Obama could be the first sitting president to give an address at event in Washington By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent Reporters from five American media organizations left the US last weekend to cover a July 27 commemorative event in North Korea on the 60th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended the Korean War. The US media that are sending reporters to North Korea include four broadcasters (NBC, ABC, CBS, and CNN) and the Associated Press (AP). Some US media companies who were invited to visit the North declined the offer, reportedly because it would not be possible to do any reporting that was not related to the event. While certain media outlets in South Korea reported that US reporters were planning to interview North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during their visit to the North, no such interview has been scheduled as of the present, sources say. “It is my understanding that the American reporters will not be interviewing Kim on this trip,” said a source on July 20 who spoke on condition of anonymity. When asked about reports that North Korea had requested a million dollars in exchange for an interview, the source said that he had not heard anything about that. On July 20, a diplomatic source in Washington said that US President Barack Obama would give a speech on the 60th Anniversary of the Korean War Armistice, which will be taking place at the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., on July 27. While then-Vice President Dick Cheney was present at the 53rd Anniversary of the Korean War Armistice in 2006, this will be the first time that a sitting president has attended. [AA] [Obama]
• S. Korea's Moves to Defer Again Transfer of OPECON Denounced
  Pyongyang, July 21 (KCNA) -- The south Korean regime is negotiating with the U.S. the issue of postponing again the transfer of wartime operation control (OPECON) from the U.S. South Korea reportedly raised the issue in March. Minju Joson Sunday observes in a bylined commentary in this regard: The attempt of the present ruling quarters of south Korea to defer again the transfer of OPECON which had already been postponed by the Lee Myung Bak group of traitors is an unpardonable mockery and an insult not only to the south Korean people but to all other Koreans. The ulterior aim sought by them in deferring the transfer of OPECON is to keep the U.S. troops in south Korea for an indefinite period and do harm to fellow countrymen with their help, the commentary notes, and goes on: They have frantically staged north-targeted war exercises in collusion with the U.S., introducing latest war equipment from different countries and giving spurs to developing latest weaponry including landing and mobile copters. [OPCON]
• Out of the box diplomacy to build dialogue with North Korea
  Posted on : Jul.21,2013 12:07 KSTModified on : Jul.21,2013 12:10 KST At event in New York, experts share experiences on how to tone down tensions on the Korean peninsula By Ronda Hauben, special contributor in New York It was an unusual event. On Thursday, July 11, the Asia Society presented a program about the Search for Peace with North Korea, titled “Avoiding Apocalypse: Searching for Peace with North Korea.” Such a title is in itself unusual for a program about North Korea as it stresses the desire for peace with North Korea, instead of focusing standard claims that progress in relations between Pyongyang and Washington are all but impossible. [Engagement] [US NK policy]
• U.S. Wants to Boost Missile Defense Against N.Korea
  The U.S. wants to strengthen its ground-based interceptor missiles system to counter any intercontinental ballistic missiles North Korea may develop. Washington has announced its plans to build up the GBI system by 2017 and is now thinking of bringing in additional reinforcements. Pentagon official James Miller said in a seminar hosted by the National Defense Industrial Association in Washington on Wednesday that the U.S. is considering expanding its GBI missiles to over 44 due to the growing threat from North Korea. Currently, the U.S. has 30 -- 26 in Fort Greely, Alaska, and four at the Vandenberg Air Force base in California. U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in March said his aim is to increase the number of GBIs to 44 by 2017. Miller on Wednesday said this is still being debated and added that the U.S.' missile defense system needs to be maintained at a superior level to the North Korea's ICBMs. The same day, Missile Defense Agency director James Syring told members of the Senate Appropriations Committee that his agency views North Korea as the largest missile threat to the U.S. [Missile defense] [Threat]
• Korea Asks U.S. to Delay Troop Control Handover Again
  Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin has asked his U.S. counterpart Chuck Hagel to postpone the transfer of full operational control of Korean troops to Seoul. Kim made the request when he met Hagel in Singapore last month. The handover is scheduled for 2015 and spells the end for Combined Forces Command under U.S. leadership. Officials from the two sides are discussing the matter further, with a view to the two defense chiefs wrapping up discussions in October. A senior U.S. Defense Department official told Yonhap News on Tuesday, "I know that has been proposed by the South Korean government, and we are looking at that, working with the South Korean government." The official added that U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have been briefed on the request. "Kim proposed to the U.S. to pursue the handover of wartime operational control with caution because of worsening tensions after North Korea’s third nuclear test," a government official here said. President Park Geun-hye and chief presidential security advisor Kim Jang-soo both apparently want the handover postponed. Seoul and Washington agreed in February 2007 to hand back full troop control to Seoul by April 17, 2012, but former president Lee Myung-bak and Obama agreed in 2010 to postpone the handover to Dec. 1, 2015.
• Korea studies scholars gather for a “peace journey”
  Posted on : Jul.20,2013 10:43 KST Scholars visit the scene of a massacre and peace park at Nogeun Village in Yeongdong, North Chungcheong Province on June 29 as part of their when a 60th anniversary “peace journey” to Korean War sites around the country, held from June 28 to July 2. In the Nogeun massacre, 163 Korean villagers were killed as they fled by US soldiers. (by Kim Bo-geun) Group of scholars comes together to educate on how the Korean War has not yet ended By Kim Bo-geun, Director of the Hankyoreh Unification Institute July 27 marks the 60th anniversary of the armistice agreement that stopped the 3-year combat phase of the Korean War in 1953. Many are now clamoring for a new agreement, specifically a peace treaty. But getting one is going to take more than calls from South Koreans. No agreement is likely to be reached without the consent of the major powers that fought in the conflict, namely the US and China. But many in the US, including a large number of intellectuals, are said to be unaware that the Korean War never actually ended. Mention of a peace treaty is often met with a quizzical response: “What are you talking about? The Korean War ended decades ago.” Calls to replace the armistice agreement with a peace treaty may come across as strange. This means that establishing a peace regime will require broader awareness in the US and China that the Korean War is still technically ongoing. [Peace Treaty]
• [Column] The S. Korean military’s failure to develop
  Posted on : Jul.20,2013 13:46 KST Transfer of wartime operational control again being delayed because the S. Korean army still isn’t able to defend By Kim Jong-dae, chief editor of Defense 21+ Though its defense budget is only about half the size of South Korea’s, Israel has done an effective job of defending itself against the 300 million Arabs in the Middle East. Israel’s independent defense strategy is not solely based on the fact that it has nuclear weapons. Rather, Israel relies on its ability to innovate. It has taken a small army and upgraded it into a contemporary force that is run effectively. These strengths of the Israeli army are nowhere to be found in the South Korean military. [OPCON]
• Not another delay of wartime operational control transfer
  Posted on : Jul.19,2013 11:47 KST It was disclosed that the South Korean government under President Park Geun-hye asked the US for the transfer of wartime operational control to be delayed again. This transfer was already delayed once under former president Lee Myung-bak. In 2009, the Lee administration used North Korea’s second nuclear weapons test as an excuse to delay the transfer of control to Dec. 2015. Now, the Park administration seems to be insisting that it be delayed once more because of North Korea’s third nuclear test, which took place in February. The core of a nation’s sovereignty and its last line of defense is its armed forces. But Korea keeps asking the US to look after the wartime operational control of its military. This is a shameful state of affairs for a sovereign nation. [OPCON] [Sovereignty]
• Experiences of a Peace Study tour through South Korea
  Posted on : Jul.20,2013 13:21 KST On sixtieth anniversary of the Korean War armistice, scholars, artists and filmmakers reiterate the need for lasting peace on the peninsula By JT Takagi, filmmaker at Third World Newsreel I recently traveled through South Korea with some 50 scholars, artists and filmmakers on a Peace Study tour, titled “Korean War: Past and Present”, a first time collaboration between the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea (ASCK.org) from the U.S., the Human Rights Foundation Saram, the Institute for Korean Historical Studies, the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, and the May 18th Memorial Foundation, with the April 9th Unification and Peace Foundation. In particular, the Human Rights Foundation Saram Director Park Lae-kun, and Professor Kim Dong-choon and Mr. Yi Tae-ho of PSPD worked to make this all possible. ASCK the group I am affiliated with, helps scholars, students, policy-makers and others learn about Korea through accurate analyses, and has just completed a 3 year Teaching initiative to End the Korean War, to foster dialogue and engagement to help bring about the signing of a Peace treaty. The ASCK organizing team included Professors Henry Em, Suzy Kim and Jae Jung Suh. This on-site Peace Study tour examined long hidden tragedies and war crimes - as well as the current legacies of the unended Korean War. Organized because 2013 is the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice, the tour aimed to focus attention on finally ending the Korean War, and bringing peace to Korea. [Peace Treaty]
• Delay of wartime control transfer could force concessions from S. Korea
  Posted on : Jul.19,2013 11:53 KSTModified on : Jul.19,2013 11:54 KST Peace and unification activists protest the proposed delay of wartime operational control transfer to South Korea from the US in front of the Ministry of National Defense in Seoul’s Yongsan district, July 18. The protestors are calling on the South Korean government to go ahead with the currently scheduled Dec. 2015 transfer. (by Kim Jeong-hyo, staff photographer) Now that another delay has been sought, questions over hosting US troops in Korea, jet fighters and missile defense By Park Byong-su, senior staff writer, Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter and Park Hyun, Washington correspondent It is expected that South Korea’s request that the transfer of wartime operational control be delayed again will have a negative influence on several projects that are tied up in US and Korean interests. These projects include the next-generation jet fighter project and the defense cost-sharing negotiations. If the US uses its agreement to delay the transfer of operational control as leverage to ask for concessions from Korea on a variety of issues, Korea may find itself in an even more difficult asymmetrical position where it may be hard to refuse these requests. Indeed, a similar controversy erupted in 2010, when the transfer was delayed for the first time under then-president Lee Myung-bak. [OPCON]
• Former Blue House official says no need to delay transfer of wartime control
  Posted on : Jul.19,2013 11:58 KST Chun Yung-woo, former Blue House senior secretary for diplomacy and security Minister of Defense says transfer should be delayed because N. Korean nuclear issue still not resolved By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent and Kim Kyu-won, staff reporter “There will not be any great security risk even if wartime operational control is transferred to South Korea as scheduled,” said Chun Yung-woo, who served as the Blue House senior secretary for diplomacy and security under former president Lee Myung-bak until February. “Whether or not North Korea poses a nuclear threat, we have taken measures so that there will not be a problem even if the operational control is transferred to Korea.” [OPCON]
• OPCON transfer backfires
  By Kim Tae-gyu Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, appears before the Senate Armed Services Committee for a hearing to consider his reappointment to the military’s highest post on Capitol Hill, Thursday. / AP-Yonhap South Korea’s request for another delay in the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) of its forces from the United States doesn’t fit its improved status, critics say. The way it is being handled raised eyebrows after a senior U.S. official confirmed there will be no change to the agreed transfer scheduled for December 2015 after the Ministry of National Defense (MND) inadvertently disclosed that it had requested a delay. Chang Yong-seok, a researcher at the Institute of Peace and Unification Studies affiliated with Seoul National University, said that a delay of the transition is against national interests. “There is no free lunch. I think that Washington will ask something from Seoul in return for putting off the transfer,” said Chang. “I don’t know why we have to defer the transition without a clear reason.” Another said that the delay was like turning the clock back. “It took 63 years after we surrendered the wartime OPCON to the U.S. in the midst of the Korean War. Back then, it was understandable because our military capacity was meager,” Peace Network chief Cheong Wook-sik said. “Now, our national defense budgets are twice North Korea’s national output. Why do you think that we cannot still regain our sovereign rights to control our forces in time of war?” [OPCON] [Military balance]
• U.S. plans to sell advanced missiles to S. Korea
  The United States government is working to sell hundreds of advanced, medium-range, air-to-air missiles to South Korea, according to a Pentagon agency. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) announced Friday it has notified Congress of the possible sale to South Korea of 260 AIM-120C-7 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM), as well as related parts, training and logistical support. The estimated cost is $452 million, it added. "The proposed sale will provide the ROK (South Korea) with a contingency stock of AMRAAM AIM-120C-7 missiles to be used on its KF-16 and F-15K aircraft," the agency said, using the acronym for the Republic of Korea, South Korea's official name. South Korea requested the sale of the weapons, with detailed terms of a possible contract to be discussed later on. The DSCA said the proposed sale will "contribute to the foreign policy goals and national security objectives of the United States by meeting the legitimate security and defense needs of an ally and partner nation." It will provide South Korea with a credible defense capability to deter aggression in the region, it said. Such notice of a potential foreign military sale is required by law and does not mean the sale has been concluded, the agency said. (Yonhap) [Missiles]
• Korea Asks U.S. to Delay Troop Control Handover Again
  Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin has asked his U.S. counterpart Chuck Hagel to postpone the transfer of full operational control of Korean troops to Seoul. Kim made the request when he met Hagel in Singapore last month. The handover is scheduled for 2015 and spells the end for Combined Forces Command under U.S. leadership. Officials from the two sides are discussing the matter further, with a view to the two defense chiefs wrapping up discussions in October. [OPCON] [Kim Kwan-jin] [MISCOM]
• Seoul requests another delay of wartime operational control transfer
  Posted on : Jul.18,2013 11:27 KST US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and South Korean Minister of National Defense Kim Kwan-jin on June 1 at the 12th Asia Security Summit (Shangri-La Dialogue) in Singapore. (provided by the Ministry of National Defense) Transfer is scheduled for Dec. 2015, but delay being requested due to seriousness of N. Korea threat By Kim Kyu-won, staff reporter and Seok Jin-hwan, Blue House correspondent South Korean Minister of National Defense Kim Kwan-jin met with US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel recently and suggested that the transfer of wartime operational control, which is scheduled to take place on Dec. 1, 2015, be delayed, sources say. South Korea has already delayed the timing of the handover on one previous occasion. “It is my understanding that the South Korean government recently suggested that the transfer of operational control be delayed,” a top Pentagon official was quoted as saying on July 16 (local time) by Yonhap News Agency. “We are reviewing this issue with the South Korean government.”[OPCON]
• Dispute looms over wartime OPCON
  National Defense Committee’s Saenuri Party lawmakers including Yoo Seong-min, second from left, talks with Air Force Chief of StaffSung Il-hwan, right, and Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin, second from right, about the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) and the F-X program at the National Assembly in Seoul, Thursday. / Yonhap By Kim Tae-gyu Domestic experts are split over whether South Korea should have asked the United States to delay the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) slated for December 2015. Citing mounting threats of North Korea including its nuclear program, the Ministry of National Defense requested the postponement. “The Park Geun-hye administration regards peace just as a concept of security based on maintaining the status quo. It is not aware that peace is also about the two Korea’s increased collaboration in the future,” said Chang Yong-seok at the Institute of Peace and Unification Studies affiliated with Seoul National University. “For closer collaboration, we should change the attitude of over-dependence on the U.S. and to that end, we should get back the wartime OPCON as planned. Then, we will be able to take a step forward.” [OPCON]
• S. Korea wants to delay military deal with U.S., news report says
  By Chico Harlan, E-mail the writer SEOUL — South Korea has asked to postpone a change that would give Seoul control of its own troops during a war, rather than place them under U.S. command, South Korea’s semiofficial Yonhap News Agency said Wednesday, citing a top U.S. government official. The reported request, coming on the heels of delays, underscores South Korea’s ambivalence about how it would handle a potential war with the rival North and whether its military is capable of operating independently of Washington. Under the current arrangement, a legacy of the Korean War, the United States would command not only its own troops amid fighting on the Korean Peninsula but also those of the South. The transfer of operational wartime control from Washington to Seoul would mark the greatest power shift in a six-decade alliance. When the South first pushed for the transfer seven years ago, government officials here described it as an affirmation of the South’s sovereignty and its rapid modernization. But the transfer — originally planned for 2012 and then pushed to December 2015 — has since drawn occasional criticism from conservative analysts in Seoul and Washington, who say deterrence against North Korea will suffer if the militarily superior United States takes a back seat. Earlier this year, a former U.S. commander in Korea, retired Gen. B.B. Bell, said the United States should “permanently postpone” the deal in light of the North’s nuclear weapons capability. [OPCON]
• U.S. Crash Investigators Apologize Over Pilots' Names Prank
  The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has apologized after an intern mistakenly confirmed to a local TV station a roster of fake names for the pilots of Asiana Flight 214 that crashed in San Francisco. The prank, which quickly went viral, had racially offensive undertones. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation on Monday said NTSB head Deborah Hersman telephoned the chairman of the Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board, Cho Tae-hwan, to apologize for the gaffe. Hersman's call came around 10 hours after Cho faxed a letter of protest to the NTSB on Saturday morning calling on the U.S. agency to provide the Korean government with regular detailed information about its findings. The protest letter came after the NTSB disclosed some cockpit voice recordings and pilots' testimony in daily press briefings, raising concerns over selective disclosure of facts and leading to the premature conclusion that the crash was the result of pilot's error. [Friction]
• Searching for peace with North Korea
  NEW YORK, July 11, 2013 — Former Governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson and Ambassador Donald P. Gregg, former U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea, analyze the present North Korea threat and discuss how it might be resolved. ABC News International Editor Jon Williams moderates the discussion. (1 hr., 18 min.) [US NK policy] [Engagement] [Video]
• Seoul Unhappy with U.S. Conduct of Crash Probe
  Korea is unhappy with the conduct of U.S. authorities in the investigation of the crash of Asiana Flight 214 at San Francisco International Airport, which should in theory be carried out jointly by both countries. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport last Saturday sent a protest letter to U.S. National Transportation Safety Board chief Deborah Hersman asking her to provide the Korean government with regular detailed information about its findings. The ministry said the probe should be conducted "objectively and fairly in accordance with international standards." [Friction]
• S. Korean Vietnam War vets lose most claims against Agent Orange manufacturers
  Posted on : Jul.13,2013 14:11 KST Court rules that in most cases, too difficult to establish a causal relationship between illnesses and defoliant exposure By Yeo Hyun-ho, senior staff writer South Korean veterans exposed to defoliants during the Vietnam War lost most of their claims for damages in a case against the US manufacturers for resulting illnesses. The third division of the Supreme Court, under Justice Lee In-bok, ruled on July 12 to overturn the original verdicts in most of the claims and remand the case to Seoul High Court with instructions to rule in favor of the defendants, the US chemical companies Dow Chemical and Monsanto, which manufactured the defoliants. [cbw]
• Korea, US clash over Asiana crash
  2013-07-12 16:10 Deborah Hersman of the National Transportation Safety Board speaks in front of a photograph of Asiana Flight 214, which crashed on Saturday at San Francisco International Airport, at a news conference in South San Francisco, Calif., Thursday. / AP-Yonhap By Kim Jae-won The Korean government and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are at odds over what caused Asiana Airlines Flight 214 to crash in San Francisco last Saturday. The NTSB initiated the investigation by releasing data through “real-time” media briefings ? including the testimonies of pilots to audio from voice recorders in the cockpit to flight data records. However, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport was not comfortable with the U.S. agency, saying it was reckless to announce information before final conclusions are made. [Friction]
• N.Korea Invites Foreign Press to Armistice Day Events
  North Korea has invited scores of Western and Japanese reporters to events on July 27 marking the 60th anniversary of the end of the Korean War. The invitations are apparently aimed at showing off the regime's stability. A source in Beijing said Thursday, "The North has sent invitations to more than 100 journalists at about 40 media outlets in the U.S., Europe, Japan and Russia, and many of them are expected to attend." Invitees include AP and CNN from the U.S., BBC from the U.K., and NHK, Nihon TV, Tokyo TV (TBS), TV Asahi and Kyodo News from Japan. A Japanese correspondent in Beijing said, "The invitations went to Japanese broadcasters and news agencies through Chongryon [a pro-Pyongyang mouthpiece in Japan]. Each company can send up to three staffers to Pyongyang." Invited foreign journalists will visit Pyonyang from July 24 until July 30 and cover a military parade, a performance of the North's notorious choreographed mass games, and ceremonies at a war memorial in Pyongyang.
• Defining denuclearization
  by Roger Cavazos 11 July 2013 President Park’s State Visit to China was filled with symbolism, rich with business and rode the Korean wave in a tremendous display of soft power. But what was actually accomplished to denuclearize North Korea? Almost all the press reports agree that “denuclearization” is a desired end-state. However, English, Korean and Chinese-language press offer contradictory assessments of who agreed to what. An inexhaustive survey of articles shows that “denuclearized” was not defined. Even North Korea, via Kim Kye-gwan’s statements in Beijing in June 2013, relayed a wish for denuclearization from North Korea’s thanatocratic leaders. So what does “denuclearized” mean? [Denuclearisation]
• Top diplomat raises issue with US spying allegations
  Janet Napolitano, U.S. secretary of homeland security, enters the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office in Seoul to hold meeting with Prosecutor General Chae Dong-wook, Friday. / Yonhap By Chung Min-uck Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se raised allegations that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) bugged the South Korean embassy in Washington, during a meeting with U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Friday. “Despite the fact that the NSA is not affiliated with the Department of Homeland Security, but with Defense Department, the issue will be discussed in general from the perspective of cyber security,” said a foreign ministry official before the meeting was held later in the evening. It was the first time for the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary to visit South Korea, according to the Foreign Ministry. [Surveillance] [Client]
• North Korea replaces deputy UN ambassador
  Posted on : Jul.5,2013 12:02 KST Jang Il-hun will now be North Korea’s man in the so-called “New York channel” linking Pyongyang to Washington By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent A new appointment was recently made to fill the post of North Korea’s Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Han Sung-ryul, the country’s representative on the so-called “New York channel” linking Pyongyang with Washington. The position was taken over by Jang Il-hun, manager of the international organizations division in the North Korean foreign ministry, sources confirmed. [US NK Negotiations]
• [Editorial] Revise the cost sharing of hosting US troops
  Posted on : Jul.4,2013 14:37 KST On July 2, South Korean and US officials met in Washington for the first round of negotiations on the South Korea-US Special Measures Agreement (SMA), which defines how the two countries will share the cost of defending South Korea from 2014 to 2018. Since the two countries will have to implement the revised cost-sharing agreement in 2014, they agreed to complete the negotiations by October. To be sure, South Korea cannot avoid covering some part of the cost of stationing US soldiers here, as those soldiers are responsible for a substantial portion of South Korea’s defense. Nevertheless, there must be clear standards and principles for cost sharing, and the fact that South Korea is allied with the US does not change this. South Korea must not lose sight of its own interests out of excessive consideration for relations with its American ally. [Tribute] [SOFA]
• US asks ROK to pay half of USFK bill
  By Kang Seung-woo The United States has called for Korea to shoulder what it estimates to be half of the costs of stationing 28,500 troops on the Korean Peninsula. Currently, Seoul pays for 42 percent. But South Korea said the U.S. underestimates its burden-sharing portion, so the talks on how much each nation will pay for the operation of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) remains to be seen. The initial discussions for the Special Measures Agreement (SMA) pitted Hwang Joon-kook, Seoul’s top negotiator, against his U.S. counterpart Eric John for three days until Thursday in Washington. [Tribute] [SOFA]
• Denuclearized North Korea was Kim Jong Il's 'dying wish,' says diplomat
  North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il wanted to banish nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula, Pyongyang claims, as it seeks to secure international talks. SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea's founding father, Kim Il Sung, and his son and successor, Kim Jong Il, both wanted to banish nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula, a North Korean diplomat claimed Wednesday as he renewed his government's call for international talks. "The denuclearization of the Korean peninsula was the dying wish of Chairman Kim Il Sung and General Secretary Kim Jong Il," First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan told a meeting with Chinese officials in Beijing, according to a statement. [Denuclearisation] [Media] [Heading]
• Former US diplomat talks North Korea
  Posted on : Jul.3,2013 10:11 KSTModified on : Jul.3,2013 12:56 KST Christopher Hill was behind the Sept. 19 Joint Statement, says N. Korea doesn’t really want to have dialogue By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent Former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Christopher Hill, said that the US is ready for talks with North Korea if Pyongyang is ready to negotiate and take steps toward denuclearization. During the interview Hill was asked, “The second Obama administration continues to maintain its so called ‘strategic patience’ policy toward North Korea from its first team. What do you think about the current US policy toward North Korea?” He answered, “I don’t really blame the Obama administration but I blame North Korea. The problem is that North Korea is not interested in talks. The US is prepared for talks if we saw some results”. The interview took place in the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC on June 25. [US NK Negotiations]
• NK rejects demand for nuke renunciation
  North Korean diplomat Choi Myung-nam, center, talks to reporters at the main venue of the ASEAN Regional Forum in Bbandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, Tuesday. / Yonhap By Chung Min-uck North Korea will stick to its nuclear weapons program unless the United States ends what it calls a “hostile” policy toward it, said North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui-chun, Tuesday. “We won’t give up our nuclear programs unless the U.S. withdraws its hostile policy against our country,” Pak was quoted as saying by Choe Myung-nam, a senior official from the North’s foreign ministry, on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum (AFR) in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei. Park also called for the U.S. to hold direct talks with Pyongyang unconditionally, ignoring Washington’s call to show sincerity regarding denuclearization. “If the U.S. truly wants to achieve peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, it should accept our offer of high-level talks without preconditions.” [Overture] [Conditionality] [US NK Negotiations]
• US alleged to have eavesdropped on foreign embassies
  Posted on : Jul.2,2013 11:29 KSTModified on : Jul.2,2013 15:02 KST A citizen in Hanover, Germany wears a Guy Fawkes mask as he protests US eavesdropping on the embassies of European countries, June 29. He altered US President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign poster and changed its slogan from “Yes we can” to “Yes we scan”, a reference to illegal US intelligence gathering. On June 30, German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger criticized the US’s actions by saying, “If the media reports are true, it is reminiscent of the actions of enemies during the cold war. It is beyond imagination that our friends in the US view Europeans as the enemy.” (AP/Newsis) S. Korean embassy in Washington not taking action on unverified newspaper report and intelligence interception By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent and Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter Japan and some European countries are demanding an immediate explanation from Washington about alleged eavesdropping and interception of electronic documents in their US embassies by US intelligence organizations. Meanwhile, South Korea is remaining cautious, describing the allegations on July 1 as “unverified.” Experts attributed the Foreign Ministry’s caution to the lack of details in the report, printed in Britain’s The Guardian newspaper, on how or when the South Korean embassy would have been monitored or what information might have leaked. The Blue House made obvious attempts to avoid any kind of official response, which was read as reflecting both the sensitive nature of the situation and consideration for the US’s status a national ally. Even the South Korean embassy in Washington, which was allegedly the subject of intelligence interception, said the time was not right to demand an explanation from the US. [Surveillance] [US dominance]
• North Korea Wants Talks With US to Ease Tension
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: July 2, 2013 at 3:37 AM ET BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei — North Korea's foreign minister has appealed for direct talks with the U.S. to ease regional tension, saying Washington's hostile policies against his country make war a possibility. North Korean delegation official Choe Myong Nam says Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun also told a regional security forum Tuesday in Brunei that the North Korean nuclear standoff won't be resolved unless the U.S. changes its tone. North Korea surprisingly offered to talk with the U.S. last month after weeks of tension following its February nuclear test. The U.S. has coolly responded the overture saying Pyongyang must first demonstrate its sincerity on nuclear disarmament. Choe says Pak also said that the U.S. must accept North Korea's dialogue offer if it truly wants to promote peace. [Overture] [Rebuff]
• U.S. Expands N.Korea Sanctions
  The U.S. last Thursday added two more North Korean financial institutions and two more individuals to a blacklist for their suspected involvement in nuclear weapons development and proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control said it added Daedong Credit Bank and its front company DCB Finance, a firm registered in the Virgin Islands; and Kim Chol-sam (42), the branch manager of DCB Finance in Dalian, China, and Son Mun-san (62), the chief of external affairs for the General Bureau of Atomic Energy, who is believed to have overseen the North's nuclear development programs since 2010. Under the sanctions, U.S. citizens are barred from doing business with them and their assets in the U.S. will be frozen. [Sanctions]
• 8th U.S. Army Gets New Commander
  Bernard Champoux Bernard Champoux Lt. Gen. Bernard Champoux officially took office as commander of the Eighth U.S. Army in Korea on Thursday. Champoux was assigned to Korea in May last year and since served as deputy commanding general and assistant chief of staff at the UN Command and Combined Forces Command [USFK]

• North Korea’s Defiant Proposal for Denuclearization Talks
  by Scott A. Snyder June 17, 2013 Only one week after proposing and then pulling the plug on inter-Korean dialogue over protocol differences, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)’s National Defense Commission on June 16 issued a surprise proposal for “high-level” U.S.-DPRK talks on easing of military tensions, establishment of a peace regime, and “various other issues both parties want to address, including the building of a nuclear-free world proposed by the United States.” A White House statement in response to the offer emphasized the necessity of North Korea taking actions to show its commitment to denuclearization before the United States would accept talks. It stated that such actions would involve North Korea “living up to its obligations to the world, including compliance with the U.N. Security Council resolutions, and ultimately result in denuclearization.” In other words, without accompanying actions that show a North Korean willingness to enter “authentic” negotiations, the Obama administration assesses North Korea’s proposal as a non-starter. While it is certainly preferable for North Korea to pursue diplomatic rather than missile or nuclear tests, all of North Korea’s neighbors by now are well aware of North Korea’s history of diplomatic initiatives as just another tool through which North Korea has sought to consolidate gains following periods in which North Korean brinkmanship has driven political tensions to high levels. To simply accept North Korea’s dialogue proposal and come back to the table as though nothing has changed since the last six party talks were held in 2008—or since North Korea’s dramatic reversal only two weeks after concluding the 2012 Leap Day understanding—would imply acceptance of North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile tests. [US NK policy] [Overture] [Rebuff]
• NK ranked 23rd in “Failed States Index”
  North Korea was ranked 23rd in “Failed States Index”. According to an American media specializing in foreign policy FP and a non-partisan research institute The Fund For Peace, the Failed States Index evaluated North Korea 95.1 points and ranked the country 23rd among 178 countries. Since 2005, the two agencies have been annually presenting countries’ level by vulnerability by evaluating them under 12 different categories, including government control, human rights, civil order, economic condition, intervention of other states and more. In 2005, North Korea was ranked 13th out of 146 countries, scoring 97.3 out of 120 points. The country has since secured its position among upper ranks of the index. This year’s score slightly decreased from last year’s 22nd rank with 95.5 points, but the country still stagnated among the upper group of the index. [Agency]
• US tacitly accepting N. Korea as nuclear state
  The United States is apparently losing its game with North Korea as the Barack Obama administration, stuck in "Strategic Patience 2.0," is "skating dangerously close to accepting North Korea as a nuclear state," an expert said here Tuesday. Joel Wit, a former State Department official known for his expertise on North Korea, said Washington seems to be overly optimistic about Beijing's possible shift in policy on Pyongyang. "Everyone wants denuclearization," Wit said at a forum hosted by American Security Project, a nonprofit think tank in Washington. "Everyone says, 'Yes, denuclearization. That's very important.' But I think the only country who puts it at the top of the list of priorities is the U.S." [US NK policy] [US NK Negotiations] [NWS] [Denuclearisation] [Preconditions]
• Event Recap: Joel Wit and North Korean Satellite Imagery Analysis
  posted by Chris Smith on June 25, 2013 at 4:44 pm This afternoon, Joel Wit, of 38 North, gave a unique talk about North Korea’s current nuclear and missile programs and possible American responses to them utilizing satellite imagery. Mr. Wit is considered to be one of the premier North Korean experts in the U.S. and began his career at the State Department during the Cold War conducting similar satellite imagery studies of Soviet weapons programs. Mr. Wit made a number of points and observations as he worked through an imagery study of North Korea’s probable nuclear testing site, its 5 megawatt and light water reactor sites, and its missile test facilities, some of which can be found here.
  Mr. Wit went on to outline a number of his opinions of current U.S. policy on North Korea and its nuclear program in regards to his analysis of the imagery data. Put succinctly; the U.S. must begin to consider how to engage North Korea in addition to simply putting pressure on it, lest the rest of the world acquiesce to North Korea’s new status as a nuclear state. [US NK policy] [Engagement]
• SAIS Announces New Chairman of the U.S.-Korea Institute
  June 25, 2013 Former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Stephen Bosworth Named Chairman of the U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS Ambassador Stephen Bosworth, Chairman, U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS (Photo: Anja Niedringhaus/AP) Washington, D.C.—June 25, 2013— Stephen Bosworth, former U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Korea, will join the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) as the new chairman of the U.S.-Korea Institute (USKI) at SAIS, effective July 1. Bosworth recently retired as dean of Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, a position he assumed in 2001 after a long and distinguished career in the U.S. Department of State. “Ambassador Bosworth is one of America’s most distinguished diplomats with deep knowledge of Korea, its global role and regional interests. He will be a valuable addition to SAIS’s Korean Studies Program and the U.S.-Korea Institute’s critical work on Korea and Asia,” said SAIS Dean Vali Nasr.
• Obama Extends Sanctions Against N.Korea
  U.S. President Barack Obama said he will extend U.S. economic sanctions against North Korea for another year. In a notice to Congress on Friday, Obama described the North as an "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States." "I am continuing for one year the national emergency" under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, he added. The North has "weapons-usable fissile material" and there is a risk of its proliferation, Obama said. The act authorizes the executive order to impose economic sanctions on countries that pose a threat to U.S. national security without approval from the legislative. In June 2008, the George W. Bush administration removed the North from a list of state sponsors of terrorism when the regime took some measures toward denuclearization but decided to keep the sanctions intact. Since then Washington has toughened sanctions in a new executive order in the wake of the regime's second nuclear test, sinking of the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan, and shelling of Yeonpyeong Island. [Sanctions]
• U.S. Wants More Money for Forces Upkeep in Korea
  Washington will ask Seoul to raise its share in the upkeep of the U.S. Forces Korea when the two sides meet for regular talks next month. The U.S. wants Korea to shoulder more than W1 trillion (US$1=W1,155) of the cost, up from the present W869 billion. "The U.S. is expected to demand a double-digit increase in the cost shouldered by Seoul," a high-ranking government official said. "That will amount to over W1 trillion. The only option is to pore over every expense and try to minimize the hike, even if that leads to raised voices." The U.S. now apparently wants Korea to pay at least 50 percent of the cost of stationing American troops here, but Seoul says it will not cave in. "The expense-sharing ratio is set by the U.S. Defense Department for report to the Senate and does not conform with our views," said another government official here. "Our stance is that we cannot accept the ratio the U.S. is proposing." The Pentagon is under pressure to make swingeing spending cuts under a mechanism known as the sequester. [Tribute] [USFK]
• N. Korea making gradual diplomatic moves toward dialogue
  Posted on : Jun.24,2013 14:50 KST North Korean Ambassador to the UN Sin Son-ho calls on a reporter to ask a question during a press conference in the UN headquarters’ briefing room, June 21. (AP/Newsis) US still insisting that N. Korea make credible moves toward denuclearization before any talks can take place By Park Byong-su, senior staff writer Movements toward dialogue among countries concerned with North Korea’s nuclear program are starting to materialize. While North Korea’s proposal for dialogue was stalled for a time by the breakdown of inter-Korean government-level talks and the US insistence that Pyongyang must take steps toward denuclearization first, there are signs that the overall situation is continuing to transition toward talks. On June 6, North Korea suddenly proposed government-level inter-Korean talks through a statement from the spokesperson of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland (CPRF). Just after these talks were cancelled the next week, the North brought forward an offer for high-level talks with the US in a statement by the spokesperson of the National Defense Commission. [Overture] [Rebuff]
• [Editorial] N. Korea-US contact is needed
  Posted on : Jun.19,2013 15:50 KST Instances of contract are increasing between countries connected with the Korean peninsula as they seek a solution to the issue of North Korean nuclear weapons. The main stage for this contact is China. North Korean first vice minister of foreign affairs Kim Kye-kwan, and Zhang Yesui, vice minister of foreign affairs for China, will hold strategic talks in China on June 19. This is the first time that Kim, who is in charge of nuclear negotiations for North Korea, has visited China since Feb. 2012, when he took part in talks with Glyn Davies, the US State Department’s special representative for North Korea policy. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is also currently visiting China. [US NK Negotiations]
• Will Washington give Seoul Hawks to monitor the Norks?
  June 22nd, 2013 Author: Soon Ho Lee, University of Hull With the scheduled transfer of wartime operational command of the allied South Korean forces from the US to South Korea in December 2015 fast approaching, South Korea is seeking to improve its intelligence gathering capabilities vis-à-vis North Korea. In particular, South Korea was negotiating with the US to purchase Global Hawks (high-altitude reconnaissance drones). The need for South Korea to improve its reconnaissance capabilities has been exposed by North Korea, most notably through the bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island in November 2010 and the launch of the Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite in D ecember 2012. But whether the US will provide these new capabilities remains in question — highlighting the broader problem of defence procurement relations between the US and South Korea. [Arms sales] [UAV]
• N.Korean Envoy Blames U.S. for Peninsula Tensions
  North Korean UN Ambassador Sin Son-ho speaks at a news conference at U.N. headquarters in New York on June 21, 2013. /Reuters North Korean UN Ambassador Sin Son-ho speaks at a news conference at U.N. headquarters in New York on June 21, 2013. /Reuters North Korea's UN ambassador said rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula are the fault of the United States and warned they could lead to a new war "at any moment." In a rare news conference, North Korean Ambassador Sin Son Ho told reporters Friday that the United States continues its "hostile policy" toward his country, especially through its conducting of annual military exercises with South Korea and the continued existence of the UN Command in South Korea. He said the UN Command -- which is the unified command structure for the multinational military forces supporting South Korea -- must be dissolved. [US NK policy]
• North Korea embarking on a two-pronged diplomatic attack
  Posted on : Jun.22,2013 12:41 KSTModified on : Jun.22,2013 12:46 KST Senior North Korean diplomats at the UN and in China making claims about dialogue and denuclearization By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent and Seong Yeon-cheol, Beijing correspondent North Korean first vice minister of the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs Kim Kye-kwan, who is currently on a trip to China, reiterated North Korea’s recent appeals for dialogue on June 21, saying that Pyongyang “welcomes dialogue of any form, including the six-party talks.” But shortly after this, Sin Son-ho, North Korean ambassador to the UN, made comments of a rather different tenor in New York. “North Korea has already proposed high-level talks to the US,” Sin said. “It is our sincere intention to hold talks. At these talks, we can talk about a wide variety of agenda items, including ways to make a world that is free of nuclear weapons as the US itself has often advocated. We are waiting for the American decision about our proposal for talks.” “Denuclearization is our final objective,” the ambassador continued. “We are not opposed to denuclearization. However, it must not be unilateral. Not only North Korea, but also South Korea, must be included.” The North’s argument is that the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula that was agreed upon in the September 19 Joint Statement of 2005 must represent denuclearization of the entire Korean peninsula, including Washington’s nuclear policy there. [NK US strategy] [Denuclearisation] [Overture]
• The US military industrial complex’s method of survival
  Posted on : Jun.21,2013 15:54 KST Oct. 13, 2011. (Reuters/Yonhap News) Parts of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter are produced in 47 US states, creating a powerful lobbying tool By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent John McCain, the Republican Party candidate in the 2008 US presidential election, is something of a heavyweight on the Senate Armed Services Committee. In December 2011, he appeared before the Senate calling the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program a “scandal and a tragedy.” In November of the following year, the US Marine Corps set up its first F-35 air station in Arizona, inviting McCain - an Arizona senator - to the inauguration ceremony. The change in attitude was immediate: speaking at the ceremony, McCain declared, “I am, after many years of frustration and setbacks, encouraged that the overall program is moving in the right direction.”[MISCOM]
• A Regional Framework for a Comprehensive Security Settlement in the Korean Peninsula
  by James Goodby June 20, 2013 James Goodby writes that if the Administration’s “pivot to Asia” is meant to signal a new era of American activism in the Asia-Pacific region, the president should describe to his partners in Asia how he sees the elements of a comprehensive security settlement coming together. A beginning can be made by defining the categories of security issues that need to be addressed, and by which states. The three main categories are: (1) issues left over from the 1950-53 Korean War and the elements of a North-South peace regime (most of which have solutions that have been formally agreed upon in past statements issued by the North and South Korean Governments and many have been at least implicitly endorsed this year by Kim Jong-un) (2) issues related to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program (and President Obama’s call for “a world without nuclear weapons” could be a device for placing a de facto nuclear weapons-free zone on the agenda to address this), and (3) issues related to regional inter-state relations in Northeast Asia (one approach to solving these would be to organize something like an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) for Northeast Asia). James Goodby is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Center for Northeast Asia Policy Studies, The Brookings Institution. Ambassador Goodby’s analysis does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the institutions with which he is affiliated.
• N. Korea makes another call for resuming dialogue
  Posted on : Jun.19,2013 15:54 KSTModified on : Jun.19,2013 16:41 KST US spokesperson says Pyongyang still needs to show credible moves toward denuclearization By Kang Tae-ho, senior staff writer North Korea is signaling to Seoul that it wants to resume dialogue. Meanwhile, the US and China are contacting other countries to get the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear issue moving again. Commenting on the recent cancellation of planned inter-Korean talks, North Korean Workers’ Party office newspaper Rodong Sinmun made a call on June 18 for resuming dialogue. “Rather than obstructing the development of North-South relations by focusing on pointless things, the authorities in South Choson [Korea] need to be following the path of reconciliation and reunification,” the piece said. In an editorial titled “Going Forward with the Banner of the People’s Unity Held High,” the newspaper proclaimed, “The failure of this long-awaited opportunity for dialogue by North and South Korean authorities is connected to the South Choson authorities’ failure to speak for the [Korean] people.” [Overture][Rebuff]
• Pres. Park voices opposition to “talks for the sake of talks” with N. Korea
  Posted on : Jun.18,2013 14:22 KST US President Obama probably called Park to discuss N. Korea‘s recent offer of high-level dialogue By Seok Jin-hwan, Blue House correspondent On June 17, South Korean President Park Geun-hye and US President Barack Obama spoke on the phone about various issues connected with the Korean peninsula, including the North’s proposal for talks with the US and the outcome of the US-South Korea summit. During the phone call, Park said, “Holding talks for the sake of talks only earns North Korea time to make its nuclear weapons more sophisticated,” according to a senior Blue House official. “President Park received a call from President Obama at 11 am and talked to him for 20 minutes,” said Blue House spokesperson Kim Haeng at an afternoon press briefing. “They discussed the results of the US-ROK summit that took place on June 7 and 8 and exchanged a wide range of views about North Korea.” Obama called Park directly from US presidential airplane Air Force One, which was en route to Northern Ireland for a summit with the leaders of the G8. [Park Geun-hye] [US dominance] [SK NK negotiations]
• North Korea: War games gone wrong
  Tim Beal examines the US ‘playbook’ miscalculations that underlie the current US-North Korea crisis Every year for decades the US has been running huge joint military exercises with South Korea. These have various functions – keeping the military in trim, tension-building, forcing North Korea to go onto alert to drain its meagre resources, and so on. Every year, North Korea (and China in the background) protests. [US NK Negotiations] [Playbook]
• US desires 'credible' DPRK talks
  China.org.cn, June 17, 2013 The White House, in response to DPRK's latest proposal to hold high-level talks with the United States, said that it is willing to have "credible" negotiations with the Asian country, but demanded DPRK take steps to abide by its obligations. "Our desire is to have credible negotiations with the North Koreans," Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said in a statement. "We have always favored dialogue and, in fact, have open lines of communication with the DPRK," Hayden said. "But those talks must involve North Korea (DPRK) living up to its obligations to the world, including compliance with U.N. Security Council resolutions, and ultimately result in denuclearization." Earlier in the day, a spokesman of the DPRK's National Defense Commission proposed high-level talks with the United States "to defuse tension and realize regional peace and security on the Korean Peninsula." [Rebuff] [US NK Negotiations]
• N. Korea alters definition of “denuclearization”
  Jun.17,2013 12:01 KST Defense Commission memo adds that “denuclearization” should include ending the nuclear threat from the US By Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter The statement issued on June 16 by a spokesperson for North Korea’s National Defense Commission is drawing attention for its redefinition of “denuclearization.” In the statement, denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was characterized as having the goal of “applying to the entire peninsula, including South Choson [Korea], and completely ending the US nuclear threat” rather than being “merely for the sake of ending the North Korean nuclear program.” With its message, Pyongyang stressed that future denuclearization efforts should be aimed at removing not only its own nuclear weapons but the US’s as well. [Overture] [Denuclearisation]
• North Korea proposes talks with the US
  Posted on : Jun.17,2013 11:58 KST A North Korean National Defense Commission spokesperson reads the “major statement” proposing dialogue with the US. (KCNA/Yonhap News) US says they will judge North Korea on its actions, not its words By Kang Tae-ho, senior staff writer, and Park Hyun, Washington correspondent Five days after planned minister-level talks with South Korean authorities were cancelled, North Korea made a surprise proposal for dialogue with the United States. Washington responded noncommittally, saying it would judge Pyongyang’s sincerity by actions rather than words. Korean Central News Agency reported on June 16 on a “major statement” by a spokesperson for North Korea’s National Defense Commission. In the report, the spokesperson was quoted as saying that Pyongyang was “In order to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula and to achieve regional peace and security, we propose to hold high-level talks between the DPRK and the United States,” adding that Washington “should not make [North Korean] denuclearization a condition for dialogue if it is interested in relaxing tensions on the Choson [Korean] Peninsula and ensuring the peace and security of the region, including US territory.”[Overture] [Rebuff]
• DPRK Proposes Official Talks with U.S.
  Pyongyang, June 16 (KCNA) -- The spokesman for the National Defence Commission (NDC) of the DPRK issued the following crucial statement on Sunday: The present U.S. administration is now asserting that the development of the situation depends on the DPRK, urging the DPRK to show the will for denuclearization first and stop "provocation" and "threats" in order to defuse tensions on the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. is misleading the public opinion and deceiving the world, trying to give impression that the DPRK is to blame for the tensions that have so far mounted on the peninsula. The present south Korean authorities that have been accustomed to sycophancy and submission and the forces following the U.S. are dancing to its tune. In this regard the NDC of the DPRK clarifies the following crucial stand upon authorization: [Overture]
• US not enthusiastic yet about N. Korea's dialogue offer
  2013-06-17 09:18 The White House said Sunday North Korea should first prove its seriousness about dialogue through actions, "not nice words," effectively turning down the communist nation's offer of bilateral negotiations without "preconditions" attached. "Those talks have to be real. They have to be based on them living up to their obligations, to include on proliferation, on nuclear weapons, on smuggling and other things," said Denis McDonough, President Barack Obama's chief of staff. [Overture] [Rebuff]
• US wants ‘credible negotiations’ with North Korea that will lead to nuclear-free North
  Alexander Yuan/Associated Press - People walk past a roadside propaganda billboard promoting the “military first” policy and a boost to build the country’s economy in Pyongyang, North Korea, Sunday, June 16, 2013. North Korea’s top governing body on Sunday proposed high-level nuclear and security talks with the United States in an appeal sent just days after calling off talks with rival South Korea. By Associated Press, WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Sunday it was receptive to North Korea’s proposal for high-level talks, but wants “credible negotiations” that will lead to a nuclear-free North. “Those talks have to be real. They have to be based on them living up to their obligations, to include on proliferation, on nuclear weapons, on smuggling and other things,” said Denis McDonough, President Barack Obama’s chief of staff. “So we’ll judge them by their actions, not by the nice words that we heard,” he said. The National Defense Commission headed by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un issued a statement through state media proposing “senior-level” talks to ease tensions and discuss a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War. “I will say that the bottom line is they’re not going to be able to talk their way out of the very significant sanctions they’re under now,” McDonough told CBS’ ”Face the Nation.” Tensions have risen as a result of North Korea’s launch of a long-range rocket in December and a nuclear test in February. North Korea’s offer is expected to be discussed in meetings this week in Washington involving U.S., Japanese and South Korean officials. “Our desire is to have credible negotiations with the North Koreans, but those talks must involve North Korea living up to its obligations to the world,” including U.N. resolutions, and “ultimately result in denuclearization,” National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in a statement. [Overture] [Rebuff]
• After months of threats, now North Korea wants to talk peace
  Pyongyang, North Korea People walk past a roadside propaganda billboard promoting the "military first" policy and a boost to build the country's economy in Pyongyang, North Korea, Sunday, June 16, 2013. (AP / Alexander Yuan) Jean H. Lee, The Associated Press Published Sunday, June 16, 2013 12:52PM EDT Last Updated Sunday, June 16, 2013 2:42PM EDT PYONGYANG, North Korea -- After months of threatening to wage a nuclear war, North Korea did an about-face Sunday and issued a surprise proposal to the United States, its No. 1 enemy: Let's talk. But the invitation from North Korea's National Defence Commission, the powerful governing body led by leader Kim Jong Un, comes with caveats: No preconditions and no demands that Pyongyang give up its prized nuclear assets unless Washington is willing to do the same -- ground rules that make it hard for the Americans to accept. Washington responded by saying that it is open to talks -- but only if North Korea shows it will comply with UN Security Council resolutions and live up to its international obligations. [Overture] [Media] [Inversion]
• DPRK proposes high-level talks with US
  Xinhua, June 16, 2013 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Sunday proposed high-level talks with the United States "to defuse tension and realize regional peace and security on the Korean Peninsula," the official KCNA News agency reported. "We, as a nuclear state, no matter others recognized or not, propose high-level talks between the DPRK and US governments to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula, and establish regional peace and security," a spokesman of the DPRK's National Defense Commission (NDC) announced the proposal in a special statement. The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula shall never be "to denuclearize the north," the NDC noted. "If the US is truly interested in easing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, and securing peace and security in the region, including the US mainland, it should not speak about holding talks or making contact on the basis of pre-conditions," the spokesman said. Both sides could discuss issues of common concern, such as easing military tensions on the Korean Peninsula, replacing the armistice which ended the Korean War with a peace treaty, and the US-advocated world "free of nuclear weapons," said the spokesman. He also said that Washington could decide the date and venue of the talks, adding that "all developments depend on the responsible choice of the United States, which has worsened the situation on the Korean Peninsula until now." [Overture]
• N. Korea proposes high-level talks with U.S.
  North Korea proposed high-level talks with the United States on Sunday, days after its planned talks with South Korea broke down over the level of their chief delegates. "(We) propose high-level talks between the North Korean and U.S. governments to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula, and establish regional peace and security," a spokesman of the North's powerful National Defense Commission said in an "important statement" carried by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). [Overture] [US NK Negotiations] [Bilateral] [Preconditions]
• N. Korea proposes ‘senior-level’ talks with U.S.
  By Chico Harlan, Sunday, June 16, 7:32 PM E-mail the writer SEOUL — North Korea on Sunday proposed wide-ranging “senior-level” talks with the United States, an offer it said Washington should accept without setting any “preconditions” about denuclearization. The North’s proposal marked the latest attempt at reconciliation for a family-run police state that spent much of March and April making threats. In a statement issued by its state-run news agency and attributed to the National Defense Commission, a top policy body, North Korea said the talks should be used to defuse “military tensions,” draft a peace treaty for the peninsula, and discuss mutual denuclearization. But analysts say an agreement for dialogue will be difficult because Pyongyang and Washington have fundamentally different views on what must happen before the sides sit down. The U.S. has made its own standing offer to the North for dialogue — but only if Pyongyang’s leadership first shows interest in giving up its small stockpile of nuclear weapons. In its statement Sunday, the North said its weapons program would “go on and on without vacillation” unless the entire peninsula is denuclearized — meaning the U.S. removes all nuclear assets from the area. The North also called on the U.S. to drop all sanctions against it. The State Department had no immediate reaction to the North’s offer. But on Friday, Glyn Davies, the U.S. envoy for North Korea policy, said Washington will never accept the North as a nuclear-armed state. [Overture] [US NK Negotiations]
• North Korea Renews Nuclear Threat against US and South Korea
  By Vasudevan Sridharan: | June 15, 2013 9:12 AM GMT North Korea has once more issued threats against the US and South Korea after proposed government-level inter-Korean talks failed to take place. In the face of "threats of war", North Korea warned that the "reckless" military exercises conducted by the US and South Korea would lead to an all-out war in the Korean Peninsula. An editorial in the North Korean mouthpiece, Rodong Sinmun, the country's most widely read daily, said: "As long as the United States and South Korean puppets continue with nuclear threats and threats of war against us, we will... strengthen nuclear deterrence through every possible means." Marking the anniversary of the 2000 summit agreement between the two Koreas, North Korea also urged South Korea to change its fundamental "policy of confrontation".
  Meanwhile, the US remains adamant that it will not accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state, Glyn Davies, a senior US government official on North Korea policy, said earlier. "We will not reward the DPRK for the absence of bad behaviour."
• Parody ad about NK leader pops in NY
  A vodka advertisement featuring the likeness of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is shown in New York. / Yonhap By Kang Seung-woo An advertisement for vodka parodying North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has appeared on the side of a building in New York City. The commercial for WODKA, a Polish vodka brand is attached to a building in Lafayette St., Manhattan. It portrays a figure clad in a Mao suit patting a white cat at the center of a target with bottles of vodka flying toward him. [Image]
• For those fleeing N. Korea, new problems on obscure escape route through Laos
  By Chico Harlan, E-mail the writer VIENTIANE, Laos — Early last month, nine young North Korean defectors, guided by a South Korean pastor and his wife, thought they were on the last leg of a long escape. Already, they’d traveled some 2,500 miles, sneaking from the northern tip of North Korea into China, then — in the most dangerous part of their journey — across much of eastern China. Next, they’d headed into Laos. [Refugee encouragement]
• The Sunnylands Summit: Keeping North Korea in Perspective
  By Alan D. Romberg 14 June 2013 Reports on the Sunnylands Summit between Xi Jinping and Barack Obama last week have hailed progress in Sino-American cooperation on North Korea. That’s fair enough, but to understand what that progress consisted of—and what it did not—it might be useful to step back for a moment and place it in the context of recent history. For a period of time starting in George W. Bush’s second term, it seemed as though US-PRC cooperation on North Korea policy stood out as, in effect, a poster child of shared national interests and coordinated national efforts. It wasn’t that the two countries had identical goals or priorities; from a strategic perspective they did not. Even so, both insisted on denuclearization of the DPRK and both sought to resolve the matter through diplomacy and avoidance of conflict on the Korean peninsula. [US NK policy]
• NK to allow reunion with Koreans in US
  North Korea has agreed to reunions between separated families living on its land and in the United States, Voice of America (VOA) reported Wednesday. VOA quoted Baik Hyong-ki, secretary general of a federation of North Korean-born citizens now living in California, as saying that the North Korean authorities have been extremely positive in discussions over the reunions. Baik said the federation approached the United Nations office in North Korea on the issue of family reunions last November and there was a positive response from the North Korean government. Baik reportedly said the possibility has improved with mellowing ties between South and North Korea. He said the federation is accepting application for possible reunions from next month and expects about 10 persons to visit North Korea as the first part of the program.
• U.S. Cautious About Inter-Korean Dialogue
  The U.S. welcomed impending talks between the two Koreas before North Korea abruptly canceled them on Tuesday, but stressed that dialogue with the U.S. is a separate issue. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Monday that Washington will continue to support improved inter-Korean relations. She added the U.S. had been clear that North Korea must first live up to its international obligations and take steps to denuclearize if any talks are to take place between Washington and Pyongyang. It is unclear whether disappointment at the statement influenced North Korea’s decision to call off the talks with Seoul. [US NK policy] [SK NK Negotiations]
• NK to allow reunion with Koreans in US
  North Korea has agreed to reunions between separated families living on its land and in the United States, Voice of America (VOA) reported Wednesday. VOA quoted Baik Hyong-ki, secretary general of a federation of North Korean-born citizens now living in California, as saying that the North Korean authorities have been extremely positive in discussions over the reunions. Baik said the federation approached the United Nations office in North Korea on the issue of family reunions last November and there was a positive response from the North Korean government. Baik reportedly said the possibility has improved with mellowing ties between South and North Korea. He said the federation is accepting application for possible reunions from next month and expects about 10 persons to visit North Korea as the first part of the program. [Overtures]
• US needs to prepare for contingency related to DPRK
  Xinhua, June 12, 2013 The United States needs to be prepared for every option and contingency as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) remains "a dangerous and unpredictable country," U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Tuesday. Hagel made the remarks while testifying at a hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee on the defense budget, together with Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. "We know the kind of armaments and artillery that (the DPRK has) lined up against Seoul, (and) their capacity," Hagel told the panel, adding that this is the reason why the Pentagon deployed a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery in Guam. "We have to be prepared for every option, every contingency," he said. [US NK policy] [Bellicose]
• Fresh Iran Sanctions to Deal Blow to Korean Exporters
  Tougher U.S. sanctions on Iran will go into effect on July 1, preventing Korean iron and steel and auto parts makers from doing business with the Middle Eastern country. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said Tuesday that the U.S. recently issued an executive order to apply new sanctions on Iran over its suspected nuclear weapons development. The new sanctions will ban any businesses around the world from exporting to the U.S. if they are engaged in dealings with Iran in energy, shipbuilding, iron and steel and auto parts industries. [Tribute] [Sanctions]
• US not linking inter-Korean talks with its ties with Pyongyang
  The U.S. government views the resumption of inter-Korean talks as distinct from the prospects for dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang, an official said Monday. The statement was apparently intended to caution the international community against excessive expectations that the U.S. may soon respond to North Korea's peace overtures following months of warlike threats. "Well, that's a slightly separate issue," State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said at a press briefing. In Korea, the South and the North agreed to hold a ministerial level dialogue in Seoul later this week, their first high-profile talks in six years. They are expected to discuss the future of a joint industrial park in Kaesong and tours to Mount Kumgang, both of which are suspended. Psaki reiterated her department welcomes such inter-Korean talks. [US NK policy]
• Bidders sweeten 'offset' deals
  From left are Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, EADS’s Eurofighter Tranche 3 Typhoon and Boeing’s F-15 Silent Eagle. / Yonhap By Kang Seung-woo Ahead of the procurement office’s announcement of a winner for the Korean Air Force program to acquire 60 advanced fighter aircraft, the three bidding rivals in the F-X III program have offered “sweetened” offset packages in last-ditch efforts to win the deal. Offsets refer to industrial compensation practices that foreign governments or companies require contractors to enter into as a condition of purchase and they include mandatory co-production, licensed and subcontractor production, technology transfer, and foreign investment. [Military balance] [Arms sales]
• Korean Peace Activist Denied Entry into the U.S.
  May 7, 2013 Oh Jong-Ryol (photo above), who is the leader of the delegation from a South Korean peace coalition, Citizen's Solidarity for Antiwar Peace Movement, was en route to the U.S. on a public speaking tour. On April 30 at the Tokyo airport while he was changing planes to go to the U.S., he was approached by a staff of the U.S. Embassy in Japan who informed him that he is being denied entry into the U.S. and Mr. Oh had to return to South Korea. Mr. Oh and three others were planning to travel to the U.S. on a speaking tour to share their messages for a peaceful resolution of the current crisis in the Korean Peninsula. [Human rights]
• Expert: dialogue with North Korea has brought gains
  Posted on : Jun.5,2013 17:11 KSTModified on : Jun.5,2013 17:13 KST Former State Department official Joel Wit disputes argument that N. Korea provokes to get more int’l aid By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent A former North Korea official in the US Department of State has a different view from Seoul and Washington’s argument that nothing has been gained from dialogue with Pyongyang. The argument that previous talks have resulted only in South Korea and the US giving without getting anything in return has been used by the two governments to justify refraining from dialogue. But Joel Wit, a former State Department official, told the Hankyoreh in a June 3 interview that the authorities in Seoul and Washington who claim North Korea’s pattern is to engage in provocative behavior in the hopes of being compensated “don’t know the history” of negotiations on the nuclear issue over the past 20 years. [US NK negotiations] [Engagement]
• Obama Letter Contradicts State Department’s North Korean Terrorism Timeline
  By Dennis P. Halpin June 5, 2013 The recently released 2012 Country Report on Terrorism repeats the U.S. State Department’s assertion, “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is not known to have sponsored any terrorist acts since the bombing of a Korean Airlines flight in 1987.” Perhaps the report’s drafters should have checked with the President before they made this indefensible claim. In 2005, then-Senator Barack Obama expressed a decidedly different view of Pyongyang’s terrorist activities. [Terrorism List] [MISCOM]
• How to destroy the future
  From the Cuban missile crisis to a fossil fuels frenzy, the US is intent on winning the race to disaster Share 1996 Noam Chomsky for TomDispatch, part of the Guardian Comment Network guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 4 June 2013 17.33 BST JFK on the Cuban missile crisis 'What happened in the missile crisis in October 1962 has been prettified to make it look as if acts of courage and thoughtfulness abounded.' Photograph: Ralph Crane/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image What is the future likely to bring? A reasonable stance might be to try to look at the human species from the outside. So imagine that you're an extraterrestrial observer who is trying to figure out what's happening here or, for that matter, imagine you're an historian 100 years from now – assuming there are any historians 100 years from now, which is not obvious – and you're looking back at what's happening today. You'd see something quite remarkable. For the first time in the history of the human species, we have clearly developed the capacity to destroy ourselves. That's been true since 1945. It's now being finally recognized that there are more long-term processes like environmental destruction leading in the same direction, maybe not to total destruction, but at least to the destruction of the capacity for a decent existence. And there are other dangers like pandemics, which have to do with globalization and interaction. So there are processes underway and institutions right in place, like nuclear weapons systems, which could lead to a serious blow to, or maybe the termination of, an organized existence. [US NK policy] [Spring crisis]
• ROK, US differ in troop cost sharing
  2013-06-04 17:14 By Chung Min-uck Korea and the United States remain poles apart over the fundamental issue of cost-sharing for the some 28,500 U.S. troops stationed here. The allies will begin negotiations at the end of this month in Washington because the current Special Measures Agreement (SMA), which defines the sharing of costs, will expire this year. “The so-called Non-Personnel Stationing Cost (NPSC) that the U.S. uses is not acceptable,” said an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tuesday. “The concept was made for the U.S. administration to report to the U.S. Congress. Our government cannot accept the U.S. criteria and this will serve as our starting point for the upcoming negotiations.” [Friction] [USFK]
• Make Migrants, Not War in North Korea
  By Markus Bell and Geoffrey Fattig, May 9, 2013 north-korea-migrants-immigrants-china-un-human-rights-report In March, the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) announced that a “commission of inquiry” would begin investigating suspected human rights abuses in North Korea. Given that over the past decade the United Nations (UN) has issued more than 20 reports and 16 resolutions condemning the country’s abysmal human rights record, one might be tempted to ask what another investigation would accomplish. [US NK policy] [Liberal] [Refugee encouragement]
• A DANGEROUS NEXUS: PREVENTING IRAN-SYRIA-NORTH KOREA NUCLEAR AND MISSILE PROLIFERATION
  Prepared testimony of David Albright, President, Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa and Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific
  April 11, 2013 Good afternoon and thank you for this opportunity to testify before the Subcommittees on the proliferation challenges posed by Iran, Syria, and North Korea and the threats posed by their cooperation. I will briefly describe certain aspects of the Iran-Syria-North Korea proliferation nexus and then offer recommendations for the Administration and Congress to better address this important national security challenge. North Korea has proven itself capable of significant acts of proliferation. [Proliferation]
• Korea, U.S. Eye 'Combined Theater Command'
  Korea and the U.S. are edging closer to deciding what kind of joint command they will establish once full wartime control of Korean troops has been handed back to Seoul. The handover is scheduled for 2015, and until then Korean troops are theoretically under U.S. control in wartime. The Combined Forces Command helmed by the commander of the U.S. Forces Korea will be automatically disbanded once the arrangement ends. Now the two sides want to set up a "combined theater command" to be headed by a South Korean general while a U.S. officer serves as second in command. This would mean that the U.S. military entrusts control over its troops to another country for the first time. [OPCON]
• U.S. to Bolster Missile Defense Against N.Korea
  U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has vowed to bolster U.S. missile defense and thwart any attempts by North Korea to attack American soil. Hagel said the U.S. will "not sit idly by" as North Korea tries to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of reaching the continental U.S. He vowed to take "all necessary steps" to create a missile defense system in the Pacific that can protect the U.S. mainland and its allies. Hagel made the comments at the Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday. He urged other countries to join efforts to deal with North Korea's missile threat and added Washington, Seoul and Tokyo are working closely to bolster their defenses [Missile Defense] [Threat]
• Defense officials don’t discuss transfer of military control at int’l meeting
  Posted on : Jun.3,2013 14:16 KSTModified on : Jun.3,2013 14:18 KST South Korean Minister of Defense Kim Kwan-jin talks with US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, May 31. (AP/Yonhap News) There is skepticism over whether the US would agree to South Korean command of its troops By Gil Yun-hyung and Park Byong-su, staff reporters When the South Korean Defense Minister and the US Secretary of Defense met on May 1, the proposed new command structure that will replace the current Combined Forces Command (CFC) after wartime operational control is transferred to South Korea in 2015 was not even on the agenda, the Hankyoreh confirmed. Considering that working-level discussions between US and South Korean officials about the proposal had already been completed and it was regarded as likely that the proposal would be adopted during this meeting, there is a lot of talk about why the plan was not even brought up [OPCON]
• New structure disclosed for post-transfer wartime control
  Posted on : Jun.3,2013 14:18 KST Highest figure would go from being commander of US forces in Korea to the chairman of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff By Gil Yun-hyung staff reporter The new outline for the US-ROK combined command structure that was disclosed on June 1 is nearly identical in structure to the existing Combined Forces Command. The major change is that the highest figure in the combined command structure changes from the commander of US forces in Korea to the chairman of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff. The proposal was tentatively agreed upon before the meeting through working-level discussions between South Korean and US officials. It is based on the principle that there should be a unified command structure for ROK and US forces. In accordance with that, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff and the US forces in Korea are combined into the joint theater command, and the ground forces, navy, air force, navy, and special forces are placed under that as joint component commands. [OPCON]
• China responds to US on 1989 political turmoil
  Xinhua, June 1, 2013 A spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry on Saturday urged the United States to dismiss its prejudice regarding the political turmoil in Beijing in 1989 and stop interfering in China's domestic affairs. "We urge the U.S. side to discard political prejudice and correctly treat China's development," spokesman Hong Lei said in response to a statement made by a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department on the political disturbance in Beijing in 1989. A clear conclusion has already been made concerning the political turmoil that happened in the late 1980s, Hong said in a news release. It is witnessed by all that in the past 20 years and more, China has achieved sustained economic growth, continuous progress in democracy and the country's legal system and an increasingly flourishing culture, Hong said, adding that Chinese people of all ethnic groups have enjoyed extensive rights and freedom according to law. [Tiananmen] [Manipulation]
• North Korea stays excluded from US list of terror sponsors
  By Kang Seung-woo North Korea has been left off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism for the fifth straight year, despite a recent third nuclear test and repeated threats of war. The U.S. Department of State released its country reports on terrorism for 2012 on Thursday, including Syria, Iran, Sudan and Cuba. The communist country was first put on the list after the downing of a Korean Air flight over Myanmar in 1987, which killed all 115 people aboard, but the United States rescinded the designation of North Korea in October 2008 as a state sponsor of terrorism after the nation promised to disable a plutonium plant and let inspectors verify that it had stopped its nuclear program. “The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is not known to have sponsored any terrorist acts since the bombing of a Korean Airlines flight in 1987,” the annual report said. [Terrorism List]
• N.Korea 'Supplies Arms to Terrorists'
  North Korea continues to give military assistance to terrorist organizations around the world under new leader Kim Jong-un, an American academic claimed Wednesday. At a seminar at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, Prof. Bruce Bechtol of Angelo State University, a former analyst at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, said its Cold-War network allows the North to keep supplying weaponry to several countries and terrorist organizations. He named Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers, Lebanon's Hezbollah, Somalia's al-Shabab, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, and al-Qaeda. If his claims can be substantiated, they could prompt the U.S. to relist the North as a "state sponsor of terrorism." Bechtol said the North's support for terrorist organizations includes arms sales, training and construction support. Such support continues under new leader Kim Jong-un because it is one of the few remaining avenues for the regime to earn hard currency, he added. He claimed the North has been providing Syria with weaponry. [Terrorism] [Double standards]

• Coping with North Korean Nuclear Quagmire – What Options are Available: Remarks at Jeju Forum Panel
  by Peter Hayes May 30, 2013 As a panelist at the Jeju Forum, Peter Hayes remarks that “At this late stage in the DPRK’s nuclear breakout, one should begin with the question: what would be worth more to the Kim Jong Un government than its nuclear weapons capacities, such as they are? The answer is not this or that economic gain, or this or that change in its nuclear fuel cycle activities. They aren’t going to put all their investment in the nuclear weapons program at risk after decades of effort and setbacks without seeing very bright light at the end of the tunnel of denuclearization. ” [US NK policy]
• Has North Korea Shut the Door to Diplomacy?
  by Scott A. Snyder May 7, 2013 North Korea’s efforts to legitimize itself as a nuclear weapons state and its cut-off of access to the Kaesong Industrial Complex have diminished prospects for peaceful coexistence on the Korean peninsula. American and South Korean tolerance of North Korean provocations has waned, and it is increasingly clear that strategic patience in dealing with North Korea may only result in increasingly unattractive options. When they meet today, Presidents Park and Obama must pursue an even more closely coordinated effort to change the North Korean leadership’s calculus sooner rather than later or North Korea’s capacity to impose higher costs and burdens on the allies will only grow. Kim Jong-un’s pride in North Korea’s nuclear deterrent and satellite launch capabilities has fed the perception in Pyongyang that North Korea can enhance its deterrent and gain respect through intimidation of the United States and South Korea. Far from driving up the price that North Korea might demand for keeping the peace, Kim Jong-un has priced the nuclear program out of the market and raised the risk premium on inter-Korean economic cooperation to unacceptable levels. No negotiation with the United States will yield acceptance of a nuclear North Korea, and North Korea’s abandonment of Kaesong has wiped away a decade of South Korean investment in a peaceful and stable modus vivendi with the North. [US NK negotiations] [Kaesong] [Inversion]
• Reconciling the Human Factor: Understanding the North Korean Human Rights/Humanitarian Divide
  By Erich Weingartner 28 May 2013 With political leaders and the media perpetually focused on the behavior of a young hereditary leader and his nuclear-armed military, does anybody really care what happens to ordinary people in North Korea? There are two major constituencies internationally that do care: the humanitarian community and the human rights community. When widespread starvation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) became evident in the mid to late 1990s, humanitarian agencies launched a massive and largely successful rescue effort to stem the famine. Human rights organizations have meanwhile played a pivotal role in exposing North Korea’s dismal record of abuses, culminating in the recent appointment by the United Nations Human Rights Council of a Commission of Inquiry (CoI). [Human rights] [Manipulation] [UNUS]
• Rodong Sinmun Lashes Out at Closed U.S., Japan, S. Korea Joint Military Drill
  Pyongyang, May 26 (KCNA) -- The U.S., Japan and south Korea recently staged closed joint military exercise in the waters west of Kyushu, Japan. Rodong Sinmun Sunday observes in a bylined commentary in this regard: The exercise is the manifestation of the U.S. sinister intention to hold military supremacy in the region by establishing triangular military alliance for aggression through sustained escalation of the situation on the Korean Peninsula. It was originally planned to be staged as an open military drill involving the U.S. and the Japanese Maritime "Self-Defense Force", the commentary says, and goes on: As the south Korean puppet army, whose participation was thought to be impossible, took part in the exercise, the U.S. announced that it would keep the exercise from being opened to the public. This proves that it seeks a sinister aim in the drill. [Joint US military]
• Saber Rattling in Korea: Cui Bono?
  by Tim Kelly April 11, 2013 North Korea has announced plans to restart a nuclear reactor that will enable production of weapons-grade plutonium. The announcement coincides with Pyongyang ratcheting up its rhetoric, issuing threats to wage atomic war against South Korea and Japan, and even to target American cities with long-range nuclear missiles it does not yet possess. For decades, North Korea has used its ramshackle nuclear program and the threat of war to wring concessions from the West. This latest round of saber rattling is probably designed to do just that. Of course, it would help matters a great deal if the United States ceased flying B-2 stealth bombers and B-52 heavy bombers over the region. Such military exercises are particularly provocative given what occurred during the Korean War (1950–1953), when the United States carried out massive carpet-bombing raids against the North. [US NK policy] [Libertarian]
• The Consequences of Gun-at-the-Head Diplomacy
  by MIKE WHITNEY “The US kill rate in the 1950-53 Korean War equaled more than one 9-11 every day… for the whole 1,100 day war…The US may have killed 20% of the population of Korea, said General Curtis Lemay, who was involved in the US air war on Korea. If so, that is a higher rate of genocidal slaughter than what the Nazis inflicted on Poland or the Soviet Union.” – Stansfield Smith, “North Korea’s Justifiable Anger“, CounterPunch North Korea’s military remains on hair-trigger alert following joint-military exercises that were conducted by the United States and South Korea in April. Barack Obama, who promised to negotiate directly with the DPRK during his 2008 presidential campaign, has reneged on his promise and taken a more belligerent approach to the crisis than his predecessor, George W Bush. Obama’s war games, which were the largest of their kind, were deliberately provocative and designed to test the North’s new leader Kim Jong Un. Pyongyang responded to Obama’s incitement by cutting off all ties with the South, closing Kaesong Industrial Complex, and by launching six missiles into the sea off it’s East coast. The North Korean Committee for Peaceful Reunification also released this statement: “The joint naval drill involving the latest weaponry including the nuclear aircraft carrier is a wanton blackmail against us and demonstrates that the (US and South Korea) attempt to invade us has reached an extremely reckless level. The risk of a nuclear war in the peninsula has risen further due to the madcap nuclear war practice by the US and the South’s enemy forces.” It’s clear that Obama’s “rollback strategy” has merely escalated tensions and increased the likelihood of a conflagration. It has also given Pyongyang the excuse it needs to divert more of its dwindling resources into nuclear weapons. How does this advance US geopolitical interests or improve regional security? It doesn’t. The policy is a complete disaster. By antagonizing the North with these pointless military maneuvers, Obama is forcing them to build nukes. Why is that so hard to grasp? [US NK policy] [Liberal] [Exhortation] [Objectives]
• After 3 years, Korean-American still fighting espionage charges in the US
  Posted on : May.22,2013 16:47 KST Former State Department N. Korea expert still under the burden of charges that he leaked classified information By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent The ongoing controversy in the US over the seizure of Associated Press phone records by federal prosecutors is drawing renewed attention to the 2010 prosecution of Stephen Jin-woo Kim for violating the Espionage Act. Evidence confirming that US investigators examined the phone records of a Fox News reporter who was in contact with Kim suggests that the recent press freedom violations were not the first. Kim, a 46-year-old former North Korean nuclear expert with the US Department of State, is still locked in a solitary legal battle with federal prosecutors. [Diaspora] [US NK Negotiations]
• N. Korean concentration camp escapee wins int'l human rights award
  North Korean concentration camp escapee Shin Dong-hyuk. Courtesy of CNN A North Korean concentration camp escapee will receive an international human rights award for raising global awareness of atrocities taking place in the communist country, a news report said Tuesday. The Voice of America (VOA) said the Switzerland-based non-governmental agency UN Watch decided to give the 2013 Moral Courage Award to Shin Dong-hyuk, who has been made famous by his biography "Escape from Camp 14." [Shill] [NGO]
• A Northeast Asian Regional Security Framework: Does it Work?
  by Michael Green May 21, 2013 This report was originally presented at the New Approach to Security in Northeast Asia: Breaking the Gridlock workshop held on October 9th and 10th, 2012 in Washington, DC. Michael Green is Senior Vice President for Asia and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Associate Professor at Georgetown University. The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Nautilus Institute. Readers should note that Nautilus seeks a diversity of views and opinions on significant topics in order to identify common ground. The short answer to the question posed in the title of this panel is: yes, it could work –but the bar will have to be high. There is already considerable intellectual buy-in to the notion of a Northeast Asian Regional Security Framework. Foreign Minister Yohei Kono proposed this concept in around 1994 and the theme was repeated by Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi of Japan in 1997 as a logical outgrowth of the Four Party Talks (US,PRC, ROK, DPRK) that began in 1997. The original decision memorandum on the Six Party Talks prepared by the U.S. NSC in December 2002 noted that the talks could be transformed into a Northeast Asian security forum if progress were made on the nuclear issue. The September 2005 Joint Statement of the Six Party Talks established a working group on a Northeast Asian peace and security framework and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made the establishment of that forum a centerpiece of her diplomacy towards the region in 2007-2008. Her assumption was similar to the central contention in Mort Halperin’s paper, that the North was unlikely to abandon nuclear weapons or would do so only at an unacceptably high price, but that there was merit in “broadening” the issue to avoid a complete impasse. The problem has always been what to do about the North Korean nuclear issue. Past efforts to establish a regional peace framework have always faltered on North Korean provocations or nuclear break-out. That is the main reason that the Japanese government (and to some extent the ROK government) strongly opposed the proposal for a Northeast Asian peace and security forum when it was presented by Deputy Secretary of State John Negraponte in 2007. [US NK policy] [US global strategy] [MISCOM]
• Most Koreans Believe Park's U.S. Visit Was Beneficial
  More than six out of 10 Koreans felt that President Park Geun-hye's visit to the U.S. earlier this month was good for Korea, but a scandal involving her spokesman during the trip dampened sentiment. Gallup Korea polled 1,003 adults from May 13 to 15, after the president returned from her six-day U.S. trip on May 10. It found that her approval rating soared to 56 percent during the trip but immediately fell to 51 percent when the molestation scandal broke. Disapproval of Park rose from 17 to 27 percent over the same period. [Obama_Park13]
• [Column] Park’s Beijing summit will be time to reassess US alliance addiction
  Posted on : May.21,2013 14:02 KST South Korea’s alliance with the US is of course important, but shouldn’t be allowed to hinder other policy objectives By Kim Ji-seok, editorial writer President Park Geun-hye is planning to have a summit soon with Chinese President Xi Jinping. This comes after her May 7 summit in Washington with US President Barack Obama. This is a pivotal moment where the contours of the Park administration’s foreign policy are taking shape. Attention needs to focus on the current state of the South Korea-US alliance. [SK US alliance]
• U.S. and S. Korea's Groundless Accusation over KPA Regular Military Drill Refuted
  Pyongyang, May 20 (KCNA) -- The Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea Monday in its information bulletin No. 1038 accused the U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppet group of pulling up the Korean People's Army over its regular military exercise to bolster up the country's defence capability in every way. A spokesman for the White House blustered that the DPRK "should honor its commitments made before the international community", terming the KPA's rocket launching drills on May 18 and 19 "provocations". Meanwhile, the puppet group of south Korea in a "statement" let loose a whole string of vituperation grumbling about the "north's provocative action" and urging "responsible behavior".
• American held in North Korea had pledged to ‘collapse’ country with prayer
  By Max Fisher, Published: May 20, 2013 at 2:38 pm Earlier this month, North Korean state media finally revealed the country’s case against an American citizen named Kenneth Bae, who had been detained there since November. They listed three accusations: that he had smuggled in a critical documentary film, that he had plotted to bring the government’s downfall through something called “Operation Jericho” and, oddly, that he had “infiltrated” dozens of students into a hotel in the North Korean city of Rason to establish a base of anti-regime activity. The charges sounded peculiar, even absurd, perhaps reflecting North Korea’s paranoia about religion in general and Christian missionaries in particular. But it turns out that, whatever actually happened after Bae crossed the border into North Korea last fall, he had pledged earlier to do something very much along the lines of Pyongyang’s accusations. [Subversion]
• The Kenneth Bae story: in his own words
  Full translated transcript of Bae's 2009 sermon that details his missionary work in North Korea kenneth-bae-praying-in-st-lois-church by James Pearson , May 17, 2013 Kenneth Bae’s 2009 sermon to a Korean American church in St. Louis shares in minute detail how Bae started working in China as a missionary and, eventually North Korea, according to the transcript of the video, translated by NK News. In Bae’s own words, he also describes “Operation Jericho,” the plan referenced by a North ... [Subversion] [Religion]
• Mideast Veteran Named New USFK Commander
  Curtis Scaparrotti, the ex-deputy commander of the U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, has been nominated as the next commander of the U.S. Forces Korea. U.S. Defense Secretary of Chuck Hagel on Friday said U.S. President Barack Obama promoted Scaparrotti to a four-star general and nominated him as the top officer in the USFK. Gen. James Thurman, who has been USFK chief for a year and 10 months, will be retiring. Scaparrotti's nomination needs approval from the Senate. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, Scarparotti began his career in 1978 as a second lieutenant with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He served as the commander of I Corps and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, commander of International Security Assistance Force Joint Command and deputy commander of the USFA and is currently director of the Joint Staff. He fought as assistant division commander during the invasion of Iraq from 2003 to 2004. He also holds a master's degree in administrative education from the University of South Carolina. [USFK]
• Rodong Sinmun Slams Joint Military Maneuvers by U.S. and Its Followers
  Pyongyang, May 19 (KCNA) -- The U.S. plans to overwhelm the DPRK with numerical superiority of its nuclear strike means and put psychological pressure on it and thus make it give up satellite launch and nuclear development. An aim sought by the U.S. through joint military exercises is to realize with ease its strategy for invading the DPRK through disarmament. Rodong Sinmun Sunday says this in a bylined article. The article goes on: The U.S. attached great strategic meanings to the war maneuvers this year. Through a series of joint military maneuvers the U.S. has sought, first of all, to violate the sovereignty of the Korean people and their rights to existence and development. It also has sought to beef up its huge nuclear force on the Korean Peninsula and its vicinity pursuant to its strategy of prioritizing the Asia-Pacific region, and thus annex the DPRK. By engaging in nuclear threats with the use of massive nuclear war hardware, the hostile forces have pushed forward an immediate task of turning the DPRK, a nuclear weapons state, into a non-nuclear state. [Joint US military]
• S. Korean, US and Japanese navies hold combined military exercises
  Posted on : May.16,2013 16:58 KSTModified on : May.16,2013 17:49 KST Humanitarian exercises come at a time of backward comments on Japan’s imperial past by Japanese politicians By Kim Kyu-won, staff reporter On May 15, South Korea participated in a combined naval exercise with the US and Japan in international waters between Jeju and Kyushu islands. The exercises were intended for humanitarian purposes, but controversy has arisen over the possibly inappropriate timing, as the exercises came amid a rash of controversial statements by prominent Japanese politicians. [Joint US military] [Humanitarian intervention]
• Stay out of the US missile defense system
  Posted on : May.16,2013 17:15 KST President Park should avoid getting caught up in a campaign to solidify US military hegemony By Goh Young-dae, senior researcher at the Research Institute of Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea The recent summit between South Korean President Park Geun-hye and US President Barack Obama has added momentum the possibility that South Korea might participate in the US missile defense system. At a joint conference after the summit, Obama said, “We’re investing in the shared capabilities and technologies and missile defenses that allow our forces to operate and succeed together.” Obama’s remarks coincide with movements by the South Korean military to increase its participation in the US missile defense [Missile defense] [SK Military]
• Army general who served in Afghanistan is Pentagon pick to command US troops in South Korea
  By Associated Press, WASHINGTON — An Army general who served as a top official on U.S. joint military staffs in Afghanistan and at the Pentagon is the choice to command U.S. troops in South Korea. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced the promotion of Lt. Gen. Curtis “Mike” Scaparrotti at a Pentagon news conference Friday. The moves comes at a tense time on the Korean Peninsula. The North has stepped up missile launches in the region and increased its threats against the U.S. in recent months. An estimated 28,500 U.S. troops are in South Korea. Scaparrotti is director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, serving under the chairman, Gen. Martin Dempsey. He previously headed the International Security Assistance Force Joint Command in Kabul, Afghanistan, from 2011-2012. [USFK] [Pacification]
• N. Korea warns of dangerous tensions on Korean Peninsula
  North Korea warned Thursday that dangerous tensions are rising on the Korean Peninsula in May due to naval drills conducted by South Korea and the United States. In an article carried by the Rodong Sinmun, an organ of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, the North claimed the convergence of substantial forces around waters surrounding the peninsula is a move to taunt its Navy and heighten the risk of confrontation. Seoul and Washington carried out anti-submarine exercises in the Yellow Sea south of the sea demarcation line that separates the two Koreas early this month, followed by a two-day-long drill in the East Sea that involved the Nimitz carrier battle group. The daily, which mirrors the views of the ruling party and the state, said this year's annual Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises that were carried out in March and April were unprecedented in its scope. [Joint US military]
• The Other DoD Report You May Have Missed: North Korea
  By Harry Kazianis May 15, 2013 Last week, lost in the buzz that was the U.S. Department of Defense's latest assessment of China (see Andrew Erickson's Take here), DoD released another very important report with some crucial information all its own. Entitled Military and Security Developments Involving the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea 2012, the report, in its unclassified format, attempts to provide information concerning "the current and future military power of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)." There are quite a few important nuggets of information in the report. I would encourage Flashpoints readers to read the document in its entirety, but here are some of the highlights: [Military balance] [MISCOM] [Sterile]
• Rodong Sinmun on Lesson Taught by Crisis on Korean Peninsula
  Pyongyang, May 14 (KCNA) -- Only when the DPRK's nuclear force is bolstered up can its sovereignty be protected and its eternal economic prosperity and happiness be guaranteed. This is a conclusion drawn by the DPRK from a serious lesson taught by the worst nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula. Rodong Sinmun Tuesday says this in a bylined article. It goes on: The U.S. and south Korean puppet group kicked off the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises, pushing the situation on the peninsula to the brink of a nuclear war. Though they claim Key Resolve and Foal Eagle are over, but the danger of a nuclear war is still looming on the peninsula. They kicked off again the shelling drill and joint anti-submarine drills in the West Sea of Korea. Joint naval war exercises started in the East Sea of Korea on May 10 with super-large nuclear-powered carrier Nimitz's strike group involved. [Joint US military]
• North Korea: American sentenced to 15 years hard labor has started life at a ‘special prison’
  By Associated Press, Updated: Wednesday, May 15, 7:55 PM PYONGYANG, North Korea — An American citizen sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for what Pyongyang has described as hostile acts against the state has started life a “special prison,” state media said Wednesday. Kenneth Bae entered the prison Tuesday, the official Korean Central News Agency said in a short dispatch, but no other new details were provided about the American arrested in November who Pyongyang accuses of trying to establish an anti-Pyongyang base in the North. Two South Korean experts on North Korean law said they didn’t know what a “special prison” was.
• Rodong Sinmun Slams US Nimitz's Entry into Pusan Port
  Pyongyang, May 13 (KCNA) -- U.S. super-large nuclear carrier Nimitz entered Pusan Port of south Korea on Saturday. It was reported that the U.S. nuclear carrier task group made up of Nimitz, Aegis destroyers and missile cruisers would be involved in the joint naval drills with the south Korean puppet forces in the East Sea of Korea. South Korea is expected to hurl huge armed forces including Aegis destroyers, 214-class submarines, destroyers and sea-patrol planes into the naval maneuvers. Rodong Sinmun Monday observes in a bylined commentary in this regard: Nimitz's entry into Pusan Port against the backdrop of the extreme tension prevailing on the Korean Peninsula is not a simple issue to be overlooked. Nimitz's portcall means a fresh tinderbox to escalate the tension and ignite a nuclear war against the DPRK, to all intents and purposes. The U.S. and south Korean puppet forces are playing sleight of hand to create impression that they want detente, asserting that they "keep the door open for dialogue". But the reality goes to prove that what they seek is confrontation and war, not dialogue and detente. [Joint US military] [SK NK policy]
• Park's visit discredits 'Korea Discount'
  By Na Jeong-ju Trade, Industry and Energy Minister Yoon Sang-jick said on Monday that President Park Geun-hye’s visit to the United States was crucial for boosting confidence among foreign investors in Korea’s economic fundamentals despite concerns about North Korea’s nuclear threats. “Park’s U.S. visit was a crucial opportunity for us to share our resolutions and economic visions with U.S. investors. One of the biggest achievements is that they no longer doubt that the South Korean economy is strong enough to overcome North Korea’s threats,” Yoon told reporters. “I hope their confidence in the Korean economy will lead to greater investment in Korea and stronger business ties between the two allies.”
• US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier brought to South Korea
  Posted on : May.13,2013 13:43 KST Civic activists express concern that show of military might could provoke North Korea By Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter and Kim Kwang-soo, Busan correspondent At 9 am on May 11, the USS Nimitz, an American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in, docked at the naval operational command in Busan, seeming to send a silent but strong message. The huge size of the 101,600-ton USS Nimitz dwarfed the nearby ROKS Dokdo (14,500 tons), the amphibious assault ship, which is the pride of the Korean navy, and the ROKS Sejong the Great (7,650 tons), a guided missile destroyer which is the first Korean naval vessel to employ the AEGIS system. Waiting on the deck of the aircraft carrier with their wings folded and basking in the spring sunlight were dozens of Hornets and Super Hornets (F/A-18E/F), the US standard carrier-based multi-role aircrafts. While the US navy did not confirm that the USS Nimitz had docked in Busan until a few days ago, once the behemoth showed up in the harbor there was no way they could have hidden it. The massive aircraft carrier could be seen at a glance from the SK View Apartments on Oryuk Island, which is located to the northeast of the naval command, and from the square in front of Ever Light Church, which is on a hill overlooking the command. The carrier’s entry to the harbor, which shows the carrier at its most impressive, appears to represent a US demonstration of its power. [Joint US military] [Provocation]
• US Nuclear-powered Carrier Nimitz's Portcall on S. Korean Port Flailed
  Pyongyang, May 12 (KCNA) -- The U.S. super-large nuclear-powered carrier Nimitz entered Pusan Port of south Korea on Saturday to participate in large-scale joint naval drills with south Korea against the DPRK in the East Sea of Korea. The Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea in its information bulletin No. 1037 Saturday branded this as an open threat and blackmail against the DPRK and a grave military provocation to unleash a nuclear war against it at any cost on the Korean Peninsula The U.S. and the south Korean puppet regime are so foolish as to cover up their scenario for aggression and mislead public opinion at home and abroad, describing the drills as "annual defensive ones for coping with the north's provocation", the information bulletin said, and went on: [Joint US military] [Provocation]
• ROK-US summit shows mature partnership
  By Donald P. Gregg 2013-05-12 18:16 Donald P. Gregg President Park Geun-hye made a very successful visit to Washington, in terms of strengthening her relationship with President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress. What the impact of her visit will be in Pyongyang, Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo remains to be seen. Speaking before a joint session of Congress, Park made an excellent impression. Her spoken English is clear, she uses the teleprompter well, and she comes across as confident and intelligent, showing interesting flashes of charm. Her decision to recognize by name the four members of Congress who had fought in the Korean War brought a wave of bipartisan applause such as I had not heard for several years on Capitol Hill. [Obama_Park13]
• S. Korea, U. to hold naval exercises involving nuclear-powered aircraft carrier
  South Korea and the United States plan to hold two days of joint naval exercises off the east coast this week that will involve the nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, a government source said Sunday. The 97,000-ton Nimitz will leave the port of Busan on Monday morning for the exercises with South Korea's Navy, the source said. The Nimitz Strike Group consists of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68) and guided-missile destroyers and cruisers.
• DPRK urges US to drop hostility
  Xinhua, May 11, 2013 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Friday blamed the United States for tensions on the Korean Peninsula and urged it to stop hostility against Pyongyang. The photo provided by KCNA on May 7, 2013 shows top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Jong Un (3rd R) inspecting construction projects built by Korean People's Army on May 6, 2013. The photo provided by KCNA on May 7, 2013 shows top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea Kim Jong Un (3rd R) inspecting construction projects built by Korean People's Army on May 6, 2013. The U.S. claim that all its military actions are defensive while all DPRK actions are provocative is nothing but sheer sophism with rhetoric, the official KCNA news agency quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying. It was the U.S. dispatch of B-52, B-2A, F-22 and other warplanes that compelled Pyongyang to take tough countermeasures for self-defense, said the unnamed spokesman. "Unless the U.S. stops its hostile acts against the DPRK and drops its hostility, the root cause of tension will not be removed and the tension and danger of conflicts are bound to repeat themselves," he said. U.S. President Barack Obama would be well advised not to talk about "change" in the DPRK but reflect on his own wrong view and make a bold decision to correct it, he added. [US NK policy] [Hostility]
• N. Korean official media criticizes Pres. Park’s US visit
  Posted on : May.11,2013 13:55 KSTModified on : May.11,2013 14:11 KST President Park Geun-hye descends from her plane after returning to South Korea from her 4-night, 6-day trip to the United States, May 10 at Seoul Airport in Sungnam, Gyeonggi Province. (by Kang Chang-kwang, staff photographer) Official news agency calls Park trip to the US “a perilous prelude to war”, says Pyongyang is watching for Seoul’s next moves By Kang Tae-ho, senior staff writer On May 10, North Korea made its first response to the summit meeting between South Korean President Park Geun-hye and US President Barack Obama, sharply criticizing it using expressions such as “a prelude to war,” “instigating a confrontation with her own people,” and “a disgusting kiss.” Pyongyang also rejected the “right choice” that Park has urged the North to make, saying that it is South Korea that must make the right choice. During an interview with a reporter from the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the spokesperson for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland (CPRF) said, “The outcome of the South Korean leader’s visit to the US is a perilous prelude to war that increases the risk of war and ratchets up tensions on the Korean peninsula and in the region.” The spokesperson also responded to Park’s explanation of the trust-building process on the Korean peninsula to Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the UN. Park had said, “This means that we will not tolerate North Korea’s nuclear weapons, we will not reward North Korea for such threats and provocations, and that we will make North Korea pay the price for its provocations.” The spokesperson criticized this policy as being no different from the so-called “Denuclearization, Liberalization, 3000” policy espoused by former South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. [Obama_Park13] [Park Geun-Hye] [Continuity]
• Summit between Park and Obama leaves unanswered questions
  Posted on : May.9,2013 17:17 KST Among the various remarks made during the summit between South Korean President Park Geun-hye and US President Barack Obama, there are a few important points that were brushed through without sufficient clarification. These are the issues of South Korean participation in the US-led missile defense network, the relationship between Park’s plan for peace and cooperation in Northeast Asia (the so-called Seoul Process) and Obama’s policy of the pivot to Asia, the nuclear power agreement between South Korea and the US, the KORUS Free Trade Agreement (FTA), and the transfer of wartime operation control. [Obama_Park13] [China confrontation] [OPCON]
• DPRK Accuses U.S. President of Evading Blame for Tension on Korean Peninsula
  Pyongyang, May 10 (KCNA) -- The spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry gave the following answer to a question put by KCNA Friday as regards the ceaseless charade staged by the U.S. to evade the blame for the worst situation on the Korean Peninsula: Shortly ago, the U.S. president let loose a spate of invectives falsifying truth, talking about "provocation" and "threat" from the DPRK in a bid to give a shot in the arm of the chief executive of south Korea during her visit to her master. The recently escalated confrontation between the DPRK and the U.S. was sparked off by its high-handed hostile act of pulling up the former over its satellite launch for peaceful purposes. The DPRK just took minimum countermeasures for self-defence to protect its sovereignty and security in order to cope with the U.S. escalating hostile actions. [Hostility] [Satellite] [UNUS] [Agency
• CPRK Spokesman Assails S. Korean Chief Executive's Anti-DPRK Remarks
  Pyongyang, May 10 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK) gave an answer to a question put by KCNA Friday as regards the anti-DPRK remarks made by the chief executive of south Korea during her first visit to her master U.S. after taking office. He said: The present chief executive of south Korea during her trip kept herself busy holding "summit talks", a "joint press conference" and making an "address at Congress". Her junket to the U.S. was nothing but a despicable sycophantic trip to please her master, confirm the master-servant relations, tighten the nexus against the DPRK and escalate the confrontation with fellow countrymen. [Obama_Park13]
• U.S. flattop arrives in S. Korea for joint naval drills
  The U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz arrived in South Korea Saturday to participate in joint naval drills as part of routine training, the Combined Forces Command (CFC) said. The 97,000-ton Nimitz, one of the world's largest warships, made a port call at the southeastern port city of Busan for a three-day stay to participate in joint military drills over the weekend in southern and eastern waters of the Korean Peninsula. USS Nimitz is part of the Nimitz Strike Group, which is composed of guided-missile destroyers USS Momsen, USS Preble and guided-missile cruiser USS Princeton, according to the U.S. Navy's Web site. The naval drill involving the Nimitz warship, which follows a five-day anti-submarine drill in the Yellow Sea that concluded Friday, is aimed at enhancing military readiness and interoperability between the allies, the CFC said. During a guided tour of the ship, Rear Admiral Michael White, commander of the Nimitz Strike Group, told reporters that the two navies perform 15 to 16 exercises a year and that this port call is part of routine training between the two militaries. Last week, North Korea condemned the military exercises and warned that it would mercilessly avenge any breach of its territorial sovereignty with rocket forces. Pyongyang called on Seoul to stop "hostile acts and military provocations" if it wants to normalize the suspended Kaesong Industrial Zone. [Joint US military]
• North Korea lists crimes of detained American
  Xinhua, May 10, 2013 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) listed the crimes of detained American Pae Jun Ho late Thursday, accusing him of conducting hostile acts, the official news agency KCNA reported. "The court sentenced him to 15 years of hard labor in consideration of candid confession of his crimes though they are liable to face death penalty or life imprisonment for an attempt at state subversion," an unnamed Supreme Court spokesman said. The statement came after the U.S. government and media claimed that "Pae was not tried in a transparent manner and Pyongyang was trying to use this issue as a political bargaining chip." According to the statement, Pae conducted "a malignant smear campaign" against the DPRK and incited DPRK citizens overseas and foreigners to perpetrate hostile acts. Pae gave lectures to more than 1,500 people slandering the Juche idea of the Workers' Party of Korea and the DPRK's socialist system and instigated them to bring down the government, it said.
• How High Is Korea on the U.S.' Agenda?
  Washington rolled out the red carpet for President Park Geun-hye during her first overseas engagement, but apart from lavish protocol it is unclear what her meeting with her U.S. counterpart Barack Obama achieved. Seoul gained nothing conspicuous, except that the two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to cooperation against North Korea's threats and pledged to expand the bilateral alliance to a global level. Experts say the friendly welcome Park received chiefly sent a strategic message to East Asia. During the joint press conference, the first question from reporters was not about the Korea at all but about Syria, where the U.S. obviously has more pressing interests trying to destabilize the Assad regime. And U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was otherwise engaged, meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. [US SK policy] [Obama_Park13] [Sidelined]
• Park's English Gets the Thumbs Up
  President Park Geun-hye chose to deliver a 30-minute speech to the U.S. Congress on Wednesday in English rather than Korean. The speech topped the list of most-searched subjects on major Internet portals in Korea. Opinions were divided, however, and some critics complained that a Korean president should speak Korean. Park made a few mistakes, but seasoned interpreters said her English is much better than her predecessors'. [Obama_Park13]
• Park Sacks Spokesman During U.S. Trip
  Presidential spokesman Yoon Chang-jung has been sacked for being involved in an unspecified sexual act while accompanying President Park Geun-hye on her trip to the United States. Senior presidential secretary for public relations Lee Nam-ki told reporters in Los Angeles on Thursday that Park dismissed Yoon for behavior unbefitting a high-ranking government official and damaging the country's reputation. Yoon traveled back to Seoul alone on Wednesday. Korean press reports said Yoon is accused of sexually harassing a female intern at the Korean Embassy in Washington who was meant to look after him during his stay there. According to a document filed with the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department, he is suspected of grabbing the victim's "buttocks without her permission." [Obama_Park13]
• Park and Obama avoid direct comments on US missile defense system
  Posted on : May.9,2013 17:10 KST Vaguely worded summit statement may reflect Seoul’s reluctance to join questionable system By Gil Yun-hyung, Kim Kyu-won and Cho Hye-jeong, staff reporters The apparently friendly summit between South Korean President Park Geun-hye and US President Barack Obama on May 7 had just one small fly in the ointment: a difference in views on the missile defense system that Washington is currently pushing. Speaking at a press conference after the summit, Obama said the two sides were “we’re investing in the shared capabilities and technologies and missile defenses that allow our forces to operate and succeed together.” The remark seems to suggest that Seoul had agreed to full-on participation in US-style missile defense. But Park, rather than agreeing to or echoing the sentiment, never mentioned it.[Missile defense]
• Obama upholds Myanmar as an example for N. Korea
  Posted on : May.9,2013 17:13 KST At summit in Washington, Obama expresses hope that N. Korea will accept Seoul’s trust-building process By Kang Tae-ho, senior staff writer On Nov. 19, 2012, following his reelection as United States president, Barack Obama made a speech at Yanggon University, one of the most important sites in the democracy movement in Myanmar (also called Burma). “To the leadership of North Korea, I have offered a choice: let go of your nuclear weapons and choose the path of peace and progress. If you do, you will find an extended hand from the United States of America,” Obama said during the speech. [Obama_Park13] [US NK policy] [Myanmar] [Spin]
• DPRK Supreme Court Spokesman Exposes Crimes of American Pae Jun Ho
  Pyongyang, May 9 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Supreme Court of the DPRK gave the following answer to a question raised by KCNA Thursday as regards the assertion made by the U.S. government and media about the alleged unreasonable legal action taken against American Pae Jun Ho who committed crimes against the DPRK, claiming that he was not tried in a transparent manner and it was trying to use this issue as a political bargaining chip: Pae set up plot-breeding bases in different places of China for the purpose of toppling the DPRK government from 2006 to October 2012 out of distrust and enmity toward the DPRK. He committed such hostile acts as egging citizens of the DPRK overseas and foreigners on to perpetrate hostile acts to bring down its government while conducting a malignant smear campaign against it. He was caught red handed and prosecuted while entering Rason City of the DPRK, bringing with him anti-DPRK literature on Nov. 3 last year
• N. Korea slams Park's U.S. trip as prelude to war
  North Korea on Friday denounced South Korean President Park Geun-hye's first visit to the United States and summit with U.S. President Barack Obama as a prelude to war aimed at escalating conflict with her countrymen. Park was headed home Friday after wrapping up her five-day trip to the United States. The visit to Washington and her meeting with Obama marked her first overseas tour since taking office in February. The spokesman for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK), responding to a question raised by the Korean Central News Agency, described the working visit by South Korea's chief executive as a "junket" tour that strained tensions on the Korean Peninsula and the surrounding region. [Obama_Park13]
• Big firms lend support to Park's US trip
  2013-05-09 20:39 President Park Geun-hye smiles while having a breakfast meeting with South Korean business leaders at Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington, Wednesday. From left are LG Group Chairman Koo Bon-moo, Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun-hee, Park, and Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Mong-koo. / Yonhap By Kim Tae-gyu WASHINGTON ? President Park Geun-hye received full backing from Korea’s business leaders for her first overseas trip as head of state to the United States this week. “I think that the two most significant accomplishments are that the Park administration has confirmed trust from the United States and Korea’s top business leaders,” a Cheong Wa Dae official said Wednesday (local time) asking not to be named. [Obama_Park13] [Chaebol]
• Suspicions resurface over Washington-led MD
  By Chung Min-uck There are indications that South Korea might participate in a Washington-led missile defense system, or MD, following a recent summit meeting between President Park Geun-hye and U.S. President Barack Obama. Speculation started after President Obama said in a press conference held right after Tuesday’s summit that the two allies “agreed to continue modernizing security alliance” and, guided by a joint vision, will “invest in the shared capabilities and technologies and missile defenses that allow our forces to operate and succeed together.” [Obama_Park13] [Missile defense]
• Chinese financial sanction hits N. Korea where it hurts
  Poll: Japanese choose South Korea over China, but South Koreans like China better Next ArticleRodman to Kim: 'Do me a solid' and free American May 08, 2013 THE ASAHI SHIMBUN The Bank of China's decision to shut down the account of North Korea's Foreign Trade Bank and halt all transactions will deal a heavy blow to a reclusive nation that depends on China for a large portion of its trade. Although the May 7 decision was made in response to requests from Washington, officials of Japan, the United States and South Korea still have to determine if the move represents a genuine change in Beijing's policy toward Pyongyang. Tensions on the Korean Peninsula could once again flare as the move is a slap in the face to North Korea, which indicated a willingness to resume dialogue with China to ease anxieties in the region. [Financial sanctions] [US dominance]
• South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s First Visit to Washington, D.C.
  By Victor Cha May 8, 2013 On May 7, President Park Geun-hye of the Republic of Korea made her first official visit to the United States and had a summit meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House. It is the first meeting between them since they were inaugurated in January and February of this year. The two leaders signed a joint declaration on the U.S.-ROK alliance in celebration of the 60 years of their alliance. Park and Obama reaffirmed their countries’ shared values of liberty, democracy, and the market economy and highlighted the significant progress made in realizing the 2009 Joint Vision for the Alliance. The United States reiterated its firm commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea, including extended deterrence and the full range of U.S. military capabilities. The presidents noted the positive results of the one-year-old Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and recognized its potential to serve as an engine for future economic growth in both countries. [Obama_Park13]
• Park, Obama Vow to Work Together for Peace and Stability
  President Park Geun-hye and her U.S. counterpart Barack Obama agreed Tuesday to work together create peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and beyond and bolster bilateral trade. The two presidents set out their goals at a press conference after their summit, which marked the 60th anniversary of the South Korea-U.S. alliance. Park said she agreed with Obama to "work jointly to induce North Korea to make the right choice through multifaceted efforts, including the implementation of the Korean Peninsula trust-building process" she has proposed [Obama_Park13]
• Park Gets Closer to Obama During 1st Overseas Trip
  U.S. President Barack Obama takes a walk with President Park Geun-hye at the White House in Washington on Tuesday. /Courtesy of White House U.S. President Barack Obama takes a walk with President Park Geun-hye at the White House in Washington on Tuesday. /Courtesy of White House The Korea-U.S. summit on Tuesday was an opportunity for the two leaders to get to know each other better. President Park Geun-hye and her U.S. counterpart Barack Obama spent some two hours together in talks, over lunch and during a joint press conference at the White House. During the meeting at the Oval Office, Obama sat close to Park leaning in and listening intently with his hands clasped together. [Obama_Park13]
• S. Korea, US and China coordinating pressure on N. Korea
  Posted on : May.9,2013 17:08 KST President Park Geun-hye addresses US congress in Washington on May 8. (by Kang Chang-kwang, staff photographer) Recent diplomatic activity shows three countries working together to address N. Korea nuclear issue By Kim Kyu-won and Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporters and Seong Yeon-cheol, Beijing correspondent Seoul, Washington, and Beijing are working together on an all-out pressure offensive against Pyongyang. South Korean President Park Geun-hye and US President Barack Obama formally stated at their May 7 summit that North Korea would have to make changes before any dialogue could take place. Prior to the meeting, the Bank of China blocked accounts with North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank (FTB). The question now is how North Korea will react to the pressure. [Obama_Park13]
• Dates of US aircraft carrier visit leaked online
  Posted on : May.8,2013 11:36 KST North Korea may have gotten the info online, which hasn’t been announced yet by the S. Korean goverment By Kim Kyu-won, staff reporter A Nimitz-class aircraft carrier will take part in South Korea-US naval exercises on May 11 to 13. The aircraft carrier’s participation was originally announced by North Korea. The Ministry of National Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Combined Forces Command all refused to confirm the dates of the exercises, saying it was important military information, but the schedule is circulating online. A message posted at 9:48pm on May 4 on “O” Club, a leading photography website, advertised in the title that the sender was “looking for two Busanites who can drive and speak basic English.” The message went on to read, “A US naval aircraft carrier is coming on the 11th and leaving on the 13th, and you would just need to transport the US sailors. Pay is 110,000 won (US$101) a day. Two people wanted. Send a message if you’re interested.” By May 7, the advertisement was up on several different websites, including the popular Naver Cafe. [Joint US military] [Intelligence]
• South Korean president: We’ll deter North Korea
  Posted by Sean Sullivan on May 8, 2013 at 12:11 pm South Korean President Park Geun-hye assured U.S. lawmakers Wednesday that the strength of their alliance and the steps her country has taken will effectively deter provocations from North Korea. “The Korean government is reacting resolutely but calmly. We are maintaining the highest level of readiness,” Park told told a joint meeting of Congress. She added: “Korea’s economic fundamentals are strong. Its government is equal to the task. And it is backed by the might of our alliance. So long as this continues, you may rest assured no North Korean provocation can succeed.” Park is on her first overseas trip as president. On Tuesday she met with President Obama at the White House. The two leaders pledged a united front against North Korean aggression in a news conference after their discussions. Declaring confidence that “trust is the path to peace,” Park promised her country would “never accept” a nuclear-armed North Korea and that provocations would be met “decisively.” But, she said, she would not link humanitarian aid to people in North Korea to the “political situation.” [Park Geun-hye]
• Park Geun-hye video
  Park Geun-hye, the newly elected president of South Korea, talks about her face-to-face meeting with Kim Jong II and her plans for her presidency.
• Park, Obama Vow to Stand Firm Against N.Korean Threat
  President Park Geun-hye and her U.S. counterpart Barack Obama on Monday vowed to take concerted steps to deal with the North Korean nuclear threat and maintain peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. In a joint statement marking the 60th anniversary of the South Korea-U.S. alliance, Washington pledged solid support to defend the South against North Korean aggression. [Obama_Park13]
• At summit, Pres. Park and Obama reiterate standard position on North Korea
  Posted on : May.8,2013 11:40 KST South Korean president Park Geun-hye talks with US president Barack Obama at their summit at the White House, May 7. (by Kang Chang-kwang, staff photographer) Dialogue and pressure were both mentioned, but emphasis is on North Korea showing signs of change By Seok Jin-hwan, Blue House correspondent in Washington DC The aspect of the May 7 summit meeting between South Korean President Park Geun-hye and US President Barack Obama that has received the most attention is how the two leaders perceive the crisis on the Korean peninsula, including the North Korean nuclear program, and how they believe the crisis can be solved. The tense situation on the Korean peninsula during March and April peaked with the shutdown of the Kaesong Industrial Complex, and seems to have calmed for the moment. It is in this context that observers looked to the summit meeting between the US and South Korean presidents as a chance to put in motion a solution to the continuing crisis and to open the door to dialogue. Especially inasmuch as the Foal Eagle US-ROK combined military exercises, to which the North responded with extreme sensitivity, came to an end on Apr. 30, there was considerable expectation that the meeting would be a chance for the leaders of South Korea and the US to come up with practical ways to bring North Korea to the negotiating table. However, the statement that the summit resulted is basically a reaffirmation of the present position of the US and South Korea. It did not include any daring proposal or plan that could transform the situation. [Obama_Park13]
• Leaders of S. Korea and US agree to build a more comprehensive alliance
  Posted on : May.8,2013 15:45 KST South Korean president Park Geun-hye talks with US president Barack Obama at their summit at the White House, May 7. (by Kang Chang-kwang, staff photographer) At Washington summit, presidents Park and Obama discuss cooperation on regional and global security By Seok Jin-hwan, Blue House correspondent in Washington and Park Hyun, Washington correspondent On the morning of May 7 (EST), South Korean President Park Geun-hye held her first summit as South Korean president with US President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington DC. At the summit, the two leaders released a Joint Declaration commemorating the 60th anniversary of the US-Korea alliance that contains a vision for the future of bilateral relations. Park and Obama also reaffirmed that they would respond firmly to any North Korean provocations while leaving open the door for dialogue. [Obama_Park13]
• Infantalizing North Korea
  Posted on : May.8,2013 10:52 KST By John Feffer, co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus Political Cartoonists love to portray North Korea as an irrational and infantile force. It‘s either a baby with a nuclear rattle or a little truant in need of a timeout. The relative youth of the country’s leader Kim Jong Un, encourages such representations, but the practice predates his ascension to power. According to the dictates of their profession, cartoonists must exaggerate to make their points. But these exaggerations also frequently show up in the comments of pundits and politicians, who need not resort to caricature. [Tantrum] [Disclaimer]
• US defense firms vie to court Park
  By Kim Tae-gyu President Park Geun-hye, left, speaks to Korean staff members of the United Nations at the UN headquarters in New York, Monday (local time), as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon looks on. / Yonhap NEW YORK ? President Park Geun-hye’s U.S. visit has significant implications for South Korea because she has a series of tough challenges to tackle during the week-long visit against the backdrop of recent threats from North Korea. For U.S. defense companies such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin, however, Park’s visit is a precious opportunity to impress the President with who they seek to strike multi-billion dollar deals that they are competing for. Boeing’s F-15 Silent Eagle and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter manufactured by Lockheed Martin are two of three rivals that were shortlisted to be a potential winner of Korea’s F-X project worth over 8 trillion won. [MISCOM] [Park Geun-hye] [Arms sales]
• Obama, South Korea’s Park present united front against North Korea at joint appearance
  Alex Wong/GETTY IMAGES - President Obama shakes hands with South Korean President Park Geun-hye during a news conference at the East Room of the White House on May 7. By Scott Wilson and Karen DeYoung, Wednesday, May 8, 7:08 AM President Obama and his South Korean counterpart, Park Geun-hye, presented a unified front Tuesday against North Korea’s aggressive recent actions, calling on the isolated nation to give up its nuclear program as promised in return for international aid and acceptance. Speaking at a joint news conference after morning White House meetings with Park, Obama said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s belligerent attempts to divide the United States and South Korea have not succeeded. He also reasserted Washington’s commitment to defend South Korea and U.S. allies in the region from North Korean aggression. [Obama_Park13]
• South Korean President Park Geun-hye answers questions
  Wednesday, May 8, 12:40 PM South Korean President Park Geun-hye spoke with senior associate editor Lally Weymouth and other Post journalists Wednesday after her meeting with President Obama. Excerpts of the interview: [Park Geun-hye]
• S.Korea, U.S. Must Tighten Security Around Military Secrets
  North Korea's National Defense Commission on Sunday demanded that South Korea stop "hostile activities and military provocations" if it wishes to reopen the inter-Korean Kaesong Industrial Complex. The commission singled out the imminent arrival of a U.S. aircraft carrier making a port call in Busan around Friday amid another round of joint S.Korea-U.S. military drills. It is of course ludicrous for North Korea, which lobbed artillery shells at Yeonpyeong Island and sank the Navy corvette Cheonan, to accuse South Korea of harming inter-Korean relations with a military exercise. But the more interesting question is how Pyongyang knew about the arrival of the aircraft carrier, the Nimitz. An initial check shows that there had been no announcement by either Seoul or Washington about the plan and the joint exercises that have been going on since last week, and no press reports in either country. [US Joint military] [Intelligence]
• U.S. Neglecting N.Korean Nuke Problem, Says China
  Beijing has complained to Seoul that the U.S. has no real interest in denuclearizing North Korea, a diplomatic source here said Monday. "Beijing believes that Washington lacks the will and capacity to address the issue because it is too focused on Syria and the wider Middle East," the source said. "It seems Beijing has notified Seoul of its concerns both directly and indirectly." Beijing worries that Washington has given up trying to persuade North Korea to denuclearize and instead turned its attention to deterrence, which leads to a proliferation of nuclear weapons and missiles in the region, the source added. Officially, Washington insists that it will not tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea, but talks have been suspended for years and no real effort has been made to get Pyongyang back to the negotiating table. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is not expected to be present at South Korean President Park Geun-hye's meeting with her U.S. counterpart Barack Obama in Washington on Tuesday. He is away in Russia. This corroborates speculation that the North Korean issue is being pushed on the back burner. [US Global strategy] [Sidelined]
• How Did N.Korea Know About U.S. Aircraft Carrier Plan?
  The South Korean military is investigating a possible security leak after North Korea on Sunday alluded to the imminent arrival of the U.S. aircraft carrier Nimitz in Busan this week. An initial check shows that there had been no announcement by either Seoul or Washington about the plan, and no press reports in either country. A military source said Monday that North Korea normally relies on official South Korean or U.S. announcements or media reports to comment on joint Seoul-Washington military exercises or movements of weapons and equipment. "But the comment on the Nimitz by the [North Korean] National Defense Commission on Sunday is different, so we're looking into the details," the source said. A senior military official said the plan was to keep the port call by the Nimitz quiet to "avoid agitating the North." He admitted the military was surprised that Pyongyang found out. The South Korean and U.S. military have been holding another round of joint military exercises since last week but have put out no press releases. Dubbed "Max Thunder," they involve American nuclear-powered submarines in the West Sea and aim to counter North Korean submarine attacks. [Joint US military] [Intelligence]
• Park Arrives in Washington
  President Park Geun-hye arrived in Washington on Sunday at the head of a massive, mostly business-oriented delegation. She is there for talks with her U.S. counterpart Barack Obama. North Korea will account for a large portion of the issues the two leaders will discuss. They are then to issue a joint statement marking the 60th anniversary of the bilateral alliance. They are expected to call for peace and reunification of the Korean Peninsula. Park is also set to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress, where she plans to highlight the human rights abuses of the North Korean regime. Congress adopted the North Korea Human Rights Act in 2004, and Park is expected to propose increased cooperation on the issue. [Obama_Park13]
• North Korea eases tension by moving missiles
  Pyongyang takes two Musudan missiles off launch-ready status after weeks of concern on Korean peninsula Share 27 The Guardian, Tuesday 7 May 2013 Musudan missile during a military parade A Musudan missile during a military parade. Two of the medium-range missiles have been removed from a launch site on the east coast of North Korea. Photograph: Kcna/EPA North Korea has taken two Musudan missiles off launch-ready status and moved them from their position on the country's east coast after weeks of concern that Pyongyang was poised for a test launch, Reuters reported US officials as saying on Monday. The US did not believe the missiles were moved to an alternative launch site and were instead in a non-operational location, one of the officials said. The official did not elaborate.
• [Editorial] While in Washington, Park should push for a peace regime
  Posted on : May.4,2013 12:27 KST On May 5, South Korean President Park Geun-hye will travel to the US for a summit with US President Barack Obama on May 7. This is the first summit that will take place between the two countries since Park became president. It will also be Park’s first overseas trip as president. Government sources are saying that the main items on the agenda for the summit will be the search for solutions to pressing issues related to North Korea and the situation on the Korean peninsula; strengthening the US-ROK alliance, which is now in its 60th year; and discussing the Seoul Process, which is South Korea’s plan for multilateral collaboration in Northeast Asia. [Peace treaty] [Obama_Park13]
• US expert Joel Wit disputes claims that N. Korea follows a predictable pattern
  Posted on : May.7,2013 14:49 KST Wit argues that dialogue can be helpful in dealing with the North, particularly regarding its nuclear program By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent The US Obama administration’s claims about a so-called pattern where North Korea extracts concessions through provocations and then does not follow through on its promises does not fit the facts, a US expert on nuclear weapons said. “A constant mantra [is] recited by the White House as well as U.S. politicians, pundits, and media. It goes like this: we need to break the vicious cycle of North Korean threats; we pay them off, get nothing in return, and they just threaten us again,” wrote Joel Wit on the website of the current events magazine The Atlantic on May 5. Wit spent ten years working for the US Department of State, where he participated in negotiations with North Korea. He continued: “Anyone familiar with the past 20 years of U.S.-North Korean relations knows this is not true. Indeed, my experience at the U.S. State Department from 1993 until 2002 tells me that talking to the North Koreans can serve our national interests.” [US NK Negotiations]
• It's Not a Hermit Kingdom, and 4 Other Myths About North Korea
  Yes, we should be taking Kim Jong Un's recent threats seriously. But first, we have to lose the comic-book caricature of his country. Joel S. Wit and Jenny TownMar 29 2013, 11:30 AM ET North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presides over an urgent operation meeting regarding the "Korean People's Army Strategic Rocket Force's performance of duty" on March 29, 2013, in this picture released by the North's official KCNA news agency. (Reuters) Every day the media is filled with reports of North Korea threatening to attack the United States and its close allies. An escalating cycle of threat and counter-threat has been going on for the past few months. It started with the North's partially successful long-range rocket test in December, was followed by its third test of a nuclear bomb in February, new U.N. sanctions in response to those tests, U.S.-South Korean military exercises, Pyongyang's bellicose threats to launch strikes against the United States, and now the temporary deployment of long-range U.S. B-2 bombers, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, to South Korea.
• 6 Dos and Don'ts for Negotiating With North Korea
  Don't treat them like crazy robots. Do send in a scout -- and some New Yorkers. Joel S. Wit and Jenny Town May 2 2013, 9:10 AM ET North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at a ceremony marking the 81st anniversary of the founding of the Korean People's Army at the plaza of the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in Pyongyang on April 25, 2013. (Reuters) The crisis on the Korean peninsula appears to have died down, but we shouldn't be fooled just because it's no longer front-page news. Serious problems remain that could flare up at a moment's notice plunging the United States and the two Koreas back into a tense confrontation. Given that danger, now may be the right time to begin dialogue with the North Koreans to see whether there is a peaceful path forward. Recognizing the important role diplomacy may play in defusing this problem, Secretary of State John Kerry raised this possibility with North Korea at the end of his recent trip to Asia. [US NK negotiations]
• NK lifts highest combat alert
  2013-05-07 13:56 North Korea appears to have lifted its highest combat alert issued in March and completely withdrawn two mid-range missiles from its east coast, a senior government source here said Tuesday. Escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula with near-daily bellicose rhetoric and actions, Pyongyang on March 26 put its missile and artillery units on the highest alert level, citing the need to protect its sovereignty against threats from South Korea and the United States. The artillery units target the U.S. mainland, Hawaii and Guam and other U.S. military bases in the Pacific as well as South Korea, according to the statement by the (North) Korean People's Army's Supreme Command carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. "North Korea appears to have lifted the highest combat alert around April 30," said the source, requesting anonymity. [Joint US military]
• ROK-US anti-submarine warfare drill starts
  By Kang Seung-woo South Korea and the United States started anti-submarine warfare drills off the west coast Monday, said military officials. A U.S. 97,000-ton Nimitz-class nuclear-powered super carrier is expected to participate in the drill, which drew criticism from the North. The exercise came after the North’s Policy Department of the National Defense Commission called on the South to stop hostile acts and military provocations if it is serious about the resumption of operations at the Gaesong Complex. But the South’s defense ministry turned down this demand, describing it as “inappropriate.” “As the drills are designed to defend against North Korean provocations, they cannot be stopped,” Ministry of National Defense Spokesman Kim Min-seok said at a briefing. The naval exercise, which will run until Friday, is expected to re-ignite tensions on the Korean Peninsula, analysts said. [Joint US military]
• Obama hosts South Korea’s new president to show united front against North Korean threats
  By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, May 7, 7:23 PM WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and South Korea’s new leader Park Geun-hye hope to present a strong front against North Korea’s nuclear threats during their high-profile meeting Tuesday at the White House. But they also want to leave the door open to talks with Pyongyang. Park has had something of a baptism of fire since she took office in February, two weeks after North Korea’s latest atomic test ratcheted up tensions on the divided Korean Peninsula and undermined her hopes of forging a more trusting relationship with a difficult neighbor. In Washington, Park is assured of a warm reception on a visit that also marks the 60th anniversary of the U.S.-South Korean alliance. Her Oval Office meeting, working lunch and joint news conference with Obama will be followed Wednesday by an address to a joint meeting of Congress [Obama_Park13]
• South Korean president to address joint meeting of Congress
  By Associated Press, Published: April 24 WASHINGTON — House Speaker John Boehner (BAY’-nur) says he will invite South Korean President Park Geun-hye (goon-hay) to address a joint meeting of Congress on May 8. Park, who last December was elected as the first woman president of South Korea, will also hold talks with President Barack Obama on May 7. Boehner says that Park’s speech to Congress will be a vital reminder of the U.S.-Korean partnership at a time of provocations from North Korea. She will be the sixth South Korean leader to address a joint meeting of Congress. The last foreign leader to speak to Congress in October 2011 was a former South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak.
• North Korea: Danger and Opportunity for Park Geun-hye’s Presidency
  By Victor W.C. Hsu 05 May 2013 South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s speech to the Joint Session of the United States Congress will be a great opportunity to signal that the Korean peninsula is headed toward a new era of inter-Korean cooperation, test the rough waters with policies for a breakthrough on the North Korea policy conundrum and dispel much of the jitteriness that has surrounded Korea since the beginning of the year. More importantly, her message can be an invitation to North Korea to grasp her outstretched hand and prove to the international community that it’s not an empty gesture but that she means business. I am not President Park’s advisor, nor am I her speechwriter, but as an American citizen living in South Korea, here is what I would like her to say in Washington:
• Pentagon Sees 'Critical Challenge' in N.Korean Missiles
  North Korea has been increasing its capability to strike the U.S. mainland, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned in an annual report to Congress on military and security developments involving the renegade state. Hagel delivered the report on Thursday under the National Defense Authorization Act. The North proved "its need to counter perceived U.S. 'hostility' with nuclear-armed [intercontinental ballistic missiles]. North Korea will move closer to this goal, as well as increase the threat it poses to U.S. forces and allies in the region," the report says. The North also "continues to invest in its nuclear infrastructure." [Military balance]
• NKorea says detained American disguised identity, denies it aims to use him as bargaining chip
  By Associated Press, Monday, May 6, 1:06 AM SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Sunday revealed a few more details about a Korean-American recently sentenced to 15 years’ hard labor, saying he entered the country with a disguised identity. Pyongyang also rejected speculation that it intends to use Kenneth Bae as a bargaining chip. In remarks carried by state media, an unidentified Foreign Ministry spokesman did not specify the Washington state man’s crimes but said he confessed. He said Bae entered North Korea “with a disguised identity in an intentional way under the back-stage manipulation of the forces hostile toward” the country. Bae, 44, was arrested in early November in Rason, a special economic zone in North Korea’s far northeastern region bordering China and Russia, according to the North’s state media. The exact nature of Bae’s alleged crimes has not been revealed. Friends say Bae is a devout Christian and tour operator based in China who traveled frequently to North Korea to feed orphans. Six other Americans have been detained in North Korea since 2009; they eventually were deported or released, some after trips by prominent Americans including Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.
• N. Korea not to invite US diplomats over jailed American
  Xinhua, May 5, 2013 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said Sunday that it has no intention to invite U.S. diplomats over the issue of an American citizen who was sentenced 15 years of compulsory labor by the country's Supreme Court on Tuesday. It is total silly speculation of talking about (Pyongyang taking) the detainee Pae's issue as a "political bargain stake," an unnamed spokesman for the foreign ministry was quoted by the official news agency KCNA as saying. He stressed that Pae's hostile acts showed again that as long as the United States does not stop its "hostile policy," some Americans' illegal activities against the DPRK would not be exterminated. The U.S. State Department on Thursday urged Pyongyang to immediately release the sentenced American, who was identified by Pyongyang as Pae Jun Ho and by Washington as Kenneth Bae. "We urge the DPRK authorities to grant Mr. Bae amnesty and immediate release," said State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell, whose statement came after the Supreme Court of the DPRK rendered the verdict earlier in the day. Pae, the defendant, was arrested while "committing hostile acts against the DPRK" after entering Rason City as a tourist on Nov. 3 last year, the KCNA said, adding that Pae "admitted that he committed crimes aimed to topple the DPRK with hostility toward it and were proved by evidence." From Jan. 7 to 10, former U.S. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt paid a "private humanitarian" visit to Pyongyang, which was reportedly linked to the release of Pae. However, Richardson did not elaborate on whether he met Pae or not while commenting the private trip as a "productive and successful one."
• Park embarks on trip to U.S. for first summit with Obama
  2013-05-05 14:15 South Korean President Park Geun-hye left for the United States on Sunday for her first summit with President Barack Obama, an important tete-a-tete expected to focus on getting their ideas about how to deal with North Korea in sync. The White House summit, scheduled for Tuesday, could take up contentious bilateral issues as well, such as Seoul's demand for the right to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, and set the tone for how the alliance between the two countries will fare for years to come. Park will first stop in New York for a meeting Monday with South Korean-born U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon before heading to Washington later in the day for talks with Obama. While in Washington, she is also scheduled to address a joint session of Congress.
• Park and Obama to discuss multifaceted cooperation during Washington summit
  Posted on : May.4,2013 12:24 KST South Korean and US leaders will look to build trust to coordinate policy, including on North Korea By Cho Hye-jeong and Park Byong-su, staff reporters The first summit meeting between South Korean President Park Geun-hye and US President Barack Obama is a significant occasion, where the two countries will be strengthening their cooperation and stepping up coordination on peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia. This year in particular, there are plans for the two leaders to deliver a joint statement to mark the 60th anniversary of the US-ROK alliance, which began with the signing of the Mutual Defense Treaty in 1953. To honor the significance of the occasion, they will be affirming their trust and discussing ideas for moving forward.
• Victor Cha says Kaesong crisis could also be an opportunity
  Posted on : May.4,2013 12:35 KST Ahead of summit in Washington, Kaesong could give Park Geun-hye a chance to reformulate N. Korea policy By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent Victor Cha, a professor of political studies at Georgetown University and an American expert on affairs on the Korean peninsula, believes that the situation at the Kaesong Industrial Complex may be an opportunity to create a turning point in South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s North Korea policy. Cha, the former director for Asian affairs in the White House's National Security Council, took part in a seminar organized by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), organized to mark Park’s upcoming visit to the US. On May 2, Cha said, “If Park manages to get even one promise from North Korea about Kaesong, whatever that promise may be, she will get some room to move politically.” “It may sound like a cliche, but every crisis is an opportunity. At the moment, all eyes in Korea are focused on the Kaesong Complex. North Korea doesn’t have to yield. As long as it just shows some sign that could be interpreted as anything other than the North Korean-style of blatant intimidation, the door could open for talks. Even if North Korea makes a casual reference suggesting talks about Kaesong, it could be a good opportunity for the Park administration,” Cha said. [US NK policy] [Strategic patience]
• See David Guttenfelder’s award-winning photos from inside North Korea
  Posted by Anup Kaphle on May 2, 2013 at 2:41 pm David Guttenfelder, whose terrific images from North Korea have become a window into the Hermit Kingdom, was honored Wednesday at the 2013 Infinity Awards by the International Center for Photography. Guttenfelder, who spent years as a photographer in Africa and Afghanistan, is the chief Asia photographer for the Associated Press. He has most famously focused on North Korea, where he says he spent 100 days last year. “The very best pictures are the ones you can’t describe in words,” he said. “You just hold it up and there it is…Woah!” The video, which was produced by MediaStorm, speaks volume about his work, and the very difficult circumstances under which he operates. Take a moment to watch it. You can see some of Guttendelder’s photographs from North Korea here.
  Comment from Jae Beom Kim Beom Kim wrote: 5/4/2013 12:53 PM UTC+1200 What North Korea as a whole and what its leadership do is just like what typical best and sound American do. We try to be independent, we try to be self-directed ( Joo-Che ). We dont wanna be used and fooled and manipulated like a puppet. When North Korea do propaganda, they say they are doing propaganda, because its propaganda. Koreans dont like something fake, doing something that gives wrong idea is considered evil. US is a system full of fakes. and everyday we try hard to distinquish fake from something true everyday. We are just so used to see fakes, thats all.
  If you really know, North Korea is just like the best American.
• The Need To Work For Peace On The Korean Peninsula
  This long post examines the causes of and offers a response to the dangerous escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula. While the details of U.S.-North Korean relations are complex, the story is relatively simple. In brief, the U.S. government continues to reject possibilities for normalizing relations with North Korea and promoting peace on the Korean peninsula in favor of a dangerous policy of regime change. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the U.S. media supports this policy choice with a deliberately one sided presentation of events designed to make North Korea appear to be an unwilling and untrustworthy negotiating partner. As a corrective, in what follows I offer a more complete history of U.S -North Korean relations, focusing on the major events that frame current tensions over North Korea’s nuclear program. This history makes clear that these tensions are largely the result of repeated and deliberate U.S. provocations and that our best hope for peace on the Korean Peninsula is an educated U.S. population ready and able to challenge and change U.S. foreign policy. [US NK policy]
• Rodong Sinmun exhorta a frustrar política arbitraria de EE.UU.
  Pyongyang, 3 de mayo (ACNC) -- En un artículo divulgado el día 3 el diario Rodong Sinmun señala que la vía a tomar por la humanidad progresista del mundo amante de la justicia y la paz está en frustrar rotundamente la política arbitraria de Estados Unidos. El artículo asevera que bajo el rótulo de establecer el "nuevo orden internacional", EE.UU. inventó en la ONU y otras escenas internacionales las resoluciones injustas para aplastar a los países independientes e invade sin vacilación a otros países. Apunta que si se toleran la coacción y la arbitrariedad de EE.UU., en el mundo reinará más la ley de la selva y las personas afrontarán mayores desgracias y sufrimientos, y prosigue:
• Will Park's US visit be successful?
  By Kim Tae-gyu With President Park Geun-hye’s U.S. visit just days away, there are high hopes that her first overseas trip as a head of state head would provide a breakthrough in the ongoing impasse on the Korean peninsula. Observers say the key issue is how to deal with the inter-Korean joint industrial park in Gaeseong whose operation has been suspended for almost a month now amid the escalating tensions between the two Koreas. “Most significant is how the two Koreas proceed with the return of the seven South Korean workers in Gaeseong,” said Prof. Yang Moo-jin at the University of North Korean Studies. “In case the two sides leave room for resumption of the Gaeseong zone, Park might come up with a declaration seeking talks with the North after meeting U.S. President Barack Obama.”
• U.S. demands release of American sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea
  By Chico Harlan and Anne Gearan, Published: May 2 SEOUL — The United States demanded Thursday that North Korea immediately release an American sentenced this week to 15 years of hard labor on charges of trying to overthrow the government. The Obama administration is calling for amnesty for Kenneth Bae, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said. “What we’re urging the DPRK authorities to do is to grant him amnesty and to allow for his immediate release, full stop,” Ventrell said, using the acronym for North Korea’s formal title, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
• DOD Report: North Korea Still Critical U.S. Security Threat
  By Cheryl Pellerin American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, May 2, 2013 – North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear capabilities and development of long-range ballistic missile programs make it one of the most critical U.S. security challenges in Northeast Asia, according to the Defense Department’s first report to Congress on that nation’s military development. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel delivered the report, titled, “Military and Security Developments Involving the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea 2012,” to Congress today. Required to be produced annually in classified and unclassified versions by Section 1236 of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2012, the report is DOD’s authoritative statement on North Korea’s current and future military power, Pentagon officials said. It was developed by the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and the Defense Intelligence Agency. [Military balance]
• IISS Workshop - UN Sanctions on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea: Prospects and Problems
  IISS Workshop Johannesburg, South Africa 19 March 2013 The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), in collaboration with the UN Panel of Experts established pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1874 and the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS), held an outreach workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa on 19 March 2013 to discuss the regional challenges of implementing UN sanctions on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and to share best practices for compliance. The workshop convened more than 40 government officials, banking representatives and non-governmental specialists from Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and the United States. The event included sessions on the implementation of sanctions in the transportation and financial sectors, a discussion of export-control and customs-related measures, and a constructive dialogue on regional approaches to the enforcement of UN sanctions on the DPRK. Taking place less than two weeks after the 7 March adoption of UNSCR 2094, sparked by the DPRK’s 12 February nuclear test, the Johannesburg workshop provided a well-timed opportunity to hear Panel members’ informed assessment of the new resolution, though it was stressed that the Panel members, themselves, were still in the process of fully digesting the new measures. [Sanctions] [Softpower] [Imperialism]
• Former USFK commander speaks out against giving S. Korea operational control
  By Ashley Rowland Stars and Stripes Published: April 29, 2013 Jon R. Anderson / S&S SEOUL — A former U.S. Forces Korea commander who argued for transferring wartime operational control of allied forces to South Korea now says that North Korea poses too great a threat for that change in responsibility to take place. In a letter published last week by South Korean media, retired Gen. B.B. Bell said the OPCON transfer should be halted in light of the North’s recent nuclear threats, and the U.S. must offer Seoul the opportunity to “permanently postpone” it. [OPCON]
• S.Korea to Buy State-of-the-Art Interceptor Missiles from U.S.
  The Joint Chiefs of Staff are following a Navy recommendation to buy American-made SM-3 interceptor missiles for Aegis ships. The SM-3 missile is capable of intercepting an incoming enemy ballistic missile at an altitude of 150 km, much higher than the ground-based PAC-3 missiles now in use. The Navy recommended the purchase because the new PAC-3 system has a high failure rate because it leaves only 5 to 7 seconds to intercept North Korea's Scud or Rodong missiles. A government source said the SM-3 missiles can be deployed on the Aegis ships like the Sejong the Great once the Navy's software is upgraded [Military balance]
• U.S. Welcomes End of N.Korean 'Bluster'
  The U.S. on Tuesday cautiously welcomed signs that North Korea’s bellicose rhetoric of recent weeks is abating. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters Tuesday, "I will say that in terms of sort of deescalating the rhetoric, that's a good thing, but the broader policy goal still remains in place, which is the verifiable denuclearization of the entire peninsula." He added that an end of "the bluster and the rhetoric and the threats is a good thing," but called on Pyongyang to comply with its international obligations.
• S. Korea, US and China coordinating North Korea strategies
  Posted on : May.2,2013 16:19 KST Freight trucks cross the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge between Dandong, China and Sinuiju, North Korea on Apr. 11. Due to UN sanctions that were assessed in February for North Korea’s December 2012 long-range rocket launch, inspections on cargo entering North Korea have reportedly been strengthened, but no major effect has been observed at the border. (Reuters/Yonhap News) Relevant countries holding series of bilateral meetings to reach a consensus on dealing with Pyongyang By Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter and Seong Yeon-cheol, Beijing correspondent The circumstances of the North Korean issue are developing rapidly. As part of efforts to reduce tensions on the Korean peninsula, South Korea, the US, and China are briskly moving to coordinate their positions through consecutive bilateral meetings. “Lim Sung-nam, South Korean representative for Korean peninsula peace and security affairs (and South Korea’s chief negotiator to the six-party talks) is visiting Beijing, China, on May 1-2,” the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on May 1. “While there, he will meet with Wu Dawei, China’s special representative for Korean Peninsula Affairs (and Lim’s Chinese counterpart in the six-party talks) to share their assessments of recent affairs on the Korean peninsula and to deliberate about the major issues of North Korea and its nuclear weapons program.”
• Former US diplomat doubts Kim Jong-un’s abilities as a diplomat
  Posted on : May.2,2013 16:31 KSTModified on : May.2,2013 16:31 KST James Steinberg, former US deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg says North Korean leader is more concerned with internal control than diplomatic engagement By Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter In a May 1 interview with the Hankyoreh, former US deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg said, “There is some uncertainty about whether North Korea fully understands the alternatives it has been presented. It also appears that Kim Jong-un may have too little experience negotiating with the high-ranking officials of other countries.” Steinberg was in Seoul for the Asan Plenum 2013, hosted by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. He is currently serving as the dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. “There is no reason for the US and South Korea to be afraid of talks with North Korea,” Steinberg said. But despite this emphasis, he did not conceal his skepticism about North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s abilities as a diplomat. [KJU] [Leap Day Agreement]
• Jimmy Carter seeking trip to N. Korea: sources
  Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter may soon travel to North Korea as part of his efforts, not always fruitful, to broker the resumption of dialogue and win the release of a Korean-American man detained there, diplomatic sources said Wednesday. But the South Korean and U.S. governments apparently take a dim view of Carter's possible trip to North Korea out of concern that the communist nation may try to exploit it for propaganda purposes. Carter recently sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, calling for talks with North Korea and expressing his intent to visit Pyongyang again, a source said, requesting anonymity. "North Korea appears to have invited him to visit," the source said. [Jimmy Carter]
• North Korea sentences American on charges he tried to topple government
  Uncredited/AP - This 1988 file photo provided by Bobby Lee shows Kenneth Bae, right, and Lee together when they were freshmen students at the University of Oregon. Bae, detained for nearly six months in North Korea, has been sentenced to 15 years of "compulsory labor" for unspecified crimes against the state, Pyongyang announced Thursday, May 2, 2013. By Chico Harlan, SEOUL — North Korea on Thursday sentenced a detained American to 15 years of “compulsory labor,” punishment for what Pyongyang describes as an attempt to overthrow its government. In a brief statement released by its state-run news agency, the North said the sentence for Kenneth Bae, a tour operator from Washington state, had been handed down by its Supreme Court on Tuesday.
• North Korea’s nuclear path and the West’s response
  By Emily Chow, Anup Kaphle and Bill Webster, Published: April 24, 2013 North Korea has performed a series of nuclear tests and continues to develop long-range missile systems, drawing strong international reaction. Here is a look at some of the major events of the past decade between North Korea, the United States and other nations:
• The US’s Outrageously Provocative Actions Will Likely Bring the Korean Peninsula and the Region to the Verge of War
  Paul Gottinger / The 4th Media News | Thursday, April 25, 2013, 23:48 Beijing Dissecting the “Insanity”: Reviewing the Korean Crisis Things seemed to have calmed on the Korean peninsula for now. This despite the fact that the U.S. and South Korea are continuing their outrageously provocative Foal Eagle “war games” through April 30. The Foal Eagle is one of the largest and longest military exercises in the world. This year’s military exercises brought the peninsula to such a volatile place that even a senior Obama administration official was quoted in the Wall Street Journal admitting the U.S. had pushed things too far. [Spring crisis] [Joint US military]
• North Korea: Taking into Account the View from Pyongyang
  Paul Rogers 30 April 2013 With rising tensions between North Korea and the United States, this month, Paul Rogers asks: what lies behind North Korea’s sense of insecurity and what is the impact of western policy since 9/11 on decision-making by North Korea’s leadership? Context While tensions between North Korea and the United States peaked early in April, by the end of the month, there were indicators that relations were entering a longer-term period of difficulty. Following the withdrawal of many thousands of North Korean workers from the Kaesong joint economic zone, over a hundred South Korean managers stayed on to oversee the considerable investments of their companies. By the end of the month, they had been reluctantly withdrawn across the border to South Korea, making it likely that the zone would remain inoperative for many months in spite of the inevitable impact this will have on the North Korean economy. This - together with the regime’s decision to prosecute Korean-American Kenneth Bae on charges that carry the death penalty, and the announcement of plans for new military exercises on the west coast of North Korea - suggests that the regime is intent on maintaining a forceful image, with little prospect of progress on negotiations over the status of its nuclear programme. [Spring crisis]
• US asking N. Korea to release American citizen
  Posted on : May.1,2013 16:20 KSTModified on : May.1,2013 16:51 KST Kenneth Bae (Korean name Bae Jun-ho), Korean-American who has been detained in North Korea since Nov. 2012. Tour operator Kenneth Bae could be indicted on charges of trying to overthrow the Pyongyang regime By Kang Tae-ho, senior staff writer The US Department of State asked North Korea to immediately release Korean-American Kenneth Bae (Korean name Bae Jun-ho), 44, who has been detained in North Korea since Nov. 2012. In response, the North used the Rodong Sinmun, a state-run newspaper, to urge the US to take decisive measures to find a fundamental solution to the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula. Considering that the remarks were made just as the Foal Eagle South Korea-US military exercises are ending, which North Korea has identified as the greatest cause of the crisis on the peninsula, the next question is what light they may shed on the possibility of future talks.
• US envoy for six-party talks moved and not yet replaced
  Posted on : May.1,2013 16:32 KSTModified on : May.1,2013 16:33 KST Clifford Hart, former US Special Envoy for the Six-Party Talks With the talks on hold, Clifford Hart moves to Hong Kong; no word on a replacement yet The US announced on Apr. 29 (EST) that it had appointed Clifford Hart, who had been the special envoy for the six-party talks, as the consul general for Hong Kong and Macao. It appears that he will start his post in Aug. 2013, the usual time for rotation of diplomats. Hart was appointed as envoy in Jun. 2011 to take the position of Sung Kim, who is now the current US ambassador to South Korea. Since the six-party talks have been on hold since Dec. 2008, Hart will be leaving his post without having taken part in the talks even once. However, Hart had carried on unofficial diplomatic activity with North Korea. He has served as the US representative in the so-called “New York channel.” It was in this capacity that he met with Han Song-ryol, North Korean deputy ambassador to the UN, in April 2013. An official at the US State Department said that nothing has yet been determined with regard to Hart‘s replacement. [Six Party Talks]
• KCNA Commentary Slams U.S. Hypocritical Talk about Dialogue
  Pyongyang, April 30 (KCNA) -- Voices that the DPRK's stand is unacceptable are heard from among high-ranking officials of the U.S. after a statement was issued by the Policy Department of the DPRK National Defence Commission. A spokesman for the White House in a press conference on April 18 claimed that the U.S. is still keen to "have trustworthy and sincere negotiations with north Korea" but it has not shown any sincere approach toward its dismantlement of nukes. On the same day U.S. secretary of State Kerry said at the Senate meeting that the U.S. cannot accept conditions raised by north Korea, adding that the U.S. can start negotiations with north Korea only when it makes a bold decision to dismantle its nukes. The U.S. hypocritical talk about dialogue is nothing but rhetoric for confrontation with the DPRK as it is aimed to evade the blame for the tension on the Korean Peninsula and carry out its policy for stifling the DPRK. [US NK Negotiations]
• Core US-ROK Issues
  by Phillip Yun April 30, 2013 Philip Yun writes: “While the actual events leading to a unified Korea are virtually impossible to forecast, it is safe to assume (barring unforeseen or catastrophic events) that the Korean Peninsula, politically and economically, will eventually come to resemble South Korea’s current democratic government and open-market economy. The question is simply, when? Managing the Korean Peninsula’s transition — from status quo to an unknown, but more peaceful and stable regional Northeast Asian system — therefore becomes essential.” [Unification]
• Secretary Kerry’s First Visit to Northeast Asia: Rolling the North Korea Stone Back Up the Hill
  by Scott A. Snyder April 16, 2013 Secretary of State John Kerry’s first visit to Northeast Asia came against the backdrop of increasing tensions stoked by North Korean evacuation announcements and missile-launch threats. His meetings with new leaders Park Geun-hye, Xi Jinping, and Abe Shinzo succeeded in changing the tone of the conversation about North Korea from a military to a diplomatic focus and to strengthen diplomatic consultation processes with new administrations in South Korea and China, but it remains to be seen whether there will be substantive shifts in the respective policies of the various governments. [US NK Negotiations] [Spring crisis] [Inversion]
• U.S. Names New Point Man for East Asia-Pacific Affairs
  Daniel Russell, a senior director for Asian affairs at the White House National Security Council, has been named assistant secretary of state for East Asia-Pacific affairs. Russell will replace Kurt Campbell, who resigned when U.S. President Barack Obama was inaugurated for his second term. He is well-versed in East Asian affairs but is chiefly seen as a Japan expert. He was a Japan desk officer at the State Department and is married to a Japanese woman. In January, Russell visited Seoul alongside Campbell, where he met President Park Geun-hye.
• S.Korea-U.S. Joint Military Drills Conclude
  Epic joint exercises between South Korea and the U.S. come to an end on Tuesday, Combined Forces Command has announced. The "Foal Eagle" joint exercises took place amid heightened inter-Korean tensions, and Washington was keen to make a strong show of commitment to defend South Korea. In a rare move, the nuclear-capable strategic B-52 bomber jets and the stealth B-2 bombers were wheeled out as a warning message to North Korea. Now that the drills which so upset North Korea are over, the question is whether the climate on the peninsula will improve. Many North Korea experts say the tensions will likely continue for the foreseeable future, especially since the North and the South remain at odds over the Kaeseong Industrial Complex, the last project that linked the two Koreas. The possibility of a North Korean missile launch or a fourth nuclear test still remains. The Defense Ministry says the military will stay on high alert even after the drills come to an end, and keep a keen eye on Pyongyang's missile activities. [Joint US military]

• 7 Things North Korea Is Really Good At
  Hey, even a basket case is good at something. BY JOHN HUDSON | APRIL 29, 2013 In the spirit of Ben Smith's "11 BuzzFeed Lists That Explain the World" for the May/June 2013 issue of Foreign Policy, the FP staff decided to look at the world through BuzzFeed's eyes for a day. For more, check out 14 Hairless Cats That Look Like Vladimir Putin, 9 Disturbingly Good Jihadi Raps, 36 Mustaches That Explain Why There's No Peace in the Middle East, and 1 Pentagon Weapons System That Was on Time and Under Budget. 1. Building tunnels Twelve million North Koreans live in extreme poverty, but the country's citizens are very good at building underground tunnels [Media] [Humour] [context]
• U.S. Congress Looks at Tough Sanctions Against N.Korea
  A U.S. lawmaker on Saturday proposed tougher sanctions against North Korea, including a "secondary boycott" of firms and banks in third countries engaged in illegal business with the North. The sanctions would be the toughest yet against the renegade country. The sanctions were submitted to Congress by Ed Royce, the chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs. A similar secondary boycott is already in effect against Iran. It would affect business with American corporations by third-country firms dealing with the North and is aimed at making it more difficult for Pyongyang to get the hard currency it needs to develop nuclear weapons and missiles. The secondary boycott targets mainly Chinese companies and banks since few other countries have any business dealings with North Korea. But that will make it difficult to implement because a conflict with Beijing could be detrimental to the U.S. economy. The bill therefore also includes a waiver clause that would allow the U.S. government to delay sanctions at its discretion. It also includes a clause that would stop U.S. aid to third countries engaged in arms deals with the North. [Sanctions]
• Kim Family 'Has US$1 Billion in European Banks'
  North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's family has stashed away at least US$1 billion in secret European bank accounts, the Washington Times reported last Thursday quoting a U.S. intelligence official. The unnamed official told the paper that the Kim family's money sits in bank accounts in Switzerland, Austria and Luxembourg. U.S. Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen recently said Washington is trying to track down the slush funds amassed by the North’s ruling family. Meanwhile, the paper said North Korea owes $14 billion to around 30 countries. It owes the most money to China ($6.98 billion), followed by Russia ($1.01 billion), but they are not pressing the North to repay the debt. France is owed $280 million, Austria $210 million and Syria $140 million, and they are also refraining from demanding their money back. But Japan wants back $400 million, Sweden $330 million, Iran $300 million and Germany $300 million. A U.S. intelligence official said China, France and Russia seem to have given up on getting their money back. He called on them to be more aggressive in trying to recover their money in order to put pressure on the North Korean regime. [Freeze]
• Time to Talk? North Korea gives tensions a breather, but hurdles to dialogue remain high
  By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, April 29, 7:49 PM PYONGYANG, North Korea — After weeks of fiery rhetoric, military posturing and threats that it’s willing to strike back hard if provoked, North Korea appears to be taking a bit of a breather. The U.S.-South Korea war games it despises are winding down, and feelers are out in diplomatic circles that it might be best to open up some avenue for dialogue. If that sounds familiar, it should — it’s a pattern that has been repeated for decades. So here’s the question: Can we talk? [US NK Negotiations]
• In North Korea, the state-run news agency is the weapon of choice
  View Photo Gallery — Inside North Korea:?A rare visual tour inside the reclusive and secretive country. By Chico Harlan, SEOUL — North Korea has kept this region on edge in recent weeks primarily by using its weapon of choice in times of warmongering: the state-run news agency. The massive wire service, known as the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), serves as the primary mouthpiece for the North’s authoritarian government, lauding upticks in factory production, documenting the arrival of floral baskets for the ruling Kims and occasionally warning about possible nuclear strikes on neighbors. . But the agency also serves a broader purpose, setting the mood for a nation — and changing that mood at the direction of the nation’s leaders. [Media] [Propaganda]
• N. Korea says it will try detained Korean-American for 'crimes'
  North Korea said Saturday it will try a Korean-American detained in Pyongyang for unspecified "crimes" he has admitted to committing. In a short dispatch, Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), monitored in Seoul, said Pae Jun-ho will soon be taken to the North's Supreme Court to face trial. The report said the preliminary inquiry into Pae's crimes has been closed. It said Pae entered Rason City in the North on Nov. 3 of last year and was arrested "for committing crimes" against the communist country. The crimes were not specified.
• The US and NATO need a reason to expand into the Asia-Pacific Region, and North Korea serves that purpose – Rick Rozoff
  US Air Force B-2US Air Force B-2 Photo: AFP Download audio file 213,000 military personnel are involved in live fire training “exercises” involving nuclear capable hardware near North Korea’s borders. Hence it is no surprise North Korea feels threatened. Even if North Korea did not exist as the “evil” threat in the region, the United States would need to create a boogey man to justify its pre-planned military expansion in the Asia-Pacific region. Voice of Russia regular contributor Rick Rozoff, from Stop NATO, spoke about these things and more in this interview. I am speaking with Mr. Rick Rozoff, the Owner and Manager of the Stop NATO website and international mailing list. Rick Rozoff Robles: Could we get your views on what is going on currently in North Korea? Rozoff: Yes, what we are seeing is intensification of saber-rattling, of gunboat diplomacy, by the United States in the first instance, but standing behind is its two major military allies in the area; the Republic of Korea, South Korea, and Japan. More: http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_04_04/The-US-and-NATO-need-a-reason-to-expand-into-the-Asia-Pacific-Region-and-North-Korea-serves-that-purpose-Rick-Rozoff-964/ [Spring crisis] [Pretext] [China confrontation]
• Obama’s Flawed Korea Policies
  by CONN HALLINAN In the current crisis on the Korean Peninsula the Obama administration is virtually repeating the 2004 Bush playbook, one that derailed a successful diplomatic agreement forged by the Clinton administration to prevent North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons? While the acute tensions of the past month appear to be receding—all of the parties involved seem to be taking a step back— the problem is not going to disappear and, unless Washington and its allies re-examine their strategy, another crisis is certain to develop. [US NK policy] [Engagement]
• A look at the strengths and weaknesses of North Korea’s military
  By Associated Press, Friday, April 26, 3:27 PM SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea’s military, founded 81 years ago Thursday, is older than the country itself. It began as an anti-Japanese militia and is now the heart of the nation’s “military first” policy. Late leader Kim Jong Il elevated the military’s role during his 17-year rule; South Korea estimates he boosted troop levels to 1.2 million soldiers. The military’s new supreme commander, Kim Jong Un, gave the Korean People’s Army a sharpened focus this year by instructing troops to build a “nuclear arms force.” Yet the army is believed to be running on outdated equipment and short supplies. [KPA] [Military balance]
• Reviewing the Korean Crisis
  by PAUL GOTTINGER Things seemed to have calmed on the Korean peninsula for now. This despite the fact that the U.S. and South Korea are continuing their outrageously provocative Foal Eagle “war games” through April 30. The Foal Eagle is one of the largest and longest military exercises in the world. This year’s military exercises brought the peninsula to such a volatile place that even a senior Obama administration official was quoted in the Wall Street Journal admitting the U.S. had pushed things too far. The unnamed official stated, “The concern was that we were heightening the prospect of misperceptions on the part of the North Koreans, and that that could lead to miscalculations”. Should a “miscalculation” have taken place, it could very well have led to an open conflict with catastrophic results for not only both the Koreas, but also the region. It’s very possible that a conventional war with North Korea could go nuclear. [Playbook] [US NK policy]
• CPRK Secretariat Blasts Foal Eagle Joint Military Exercises
  Pyongyang, April 24 (KCNA) -- The Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK) released information bulletin No. 1033 Wednesday blasting the U.S.-south Korea Foal Eagle joint military drills that have reached their height. The U.S. and south Korean warmongers have staged a joint landing drill codenamed Ssangyong exercise, a joint drill for unloading goods from ships and munitions support and an emergency runway takeoff and landing drill. They even opened to media those exercises, fanning up the atmosphere for a war against the DPRK. [Joint US military]
• Dynamic Dance, Steady Landscape: Getting ready to negotiate with North Korea
  by Roger Cavazos April 25, 2013 Roger Cavazos writes “China’s relationship is complex and richly interconnected with others in the region and the world.… The way China discusses the North Korea issue with many countries indicates that China may seek to change the international system at the margins, but has no interest in fundamentally changing the system. Nor does the U.S.” Roger Cavazos is a Nautilus Institute Associate and retired US military intelligence officer. The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Nautilus Institute. Readers should note that Nautilus seeks a diversity of views and opinions on significant topics in order to identify common ground. We’re watching the initial preparations for a diplomatic dance with North Korea play out via meetings at the most senior levels. The preparations, meetings and discussions also indicate that neither the U.S. nor China is ready to see the strategic landscape in Asia changed in a fundamental way. Yet. China’s Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Affairs was in Washington, D.C. earlier this week meeting with the U.S. State Department Special Envoy on North Korea. South Korea’s Foreign Minister just finished a meeting with China’s Foreign Minister. The triangular relationship and coordination is consistent with preparing positions and pre-arranging the steps of the delicate task of engaging North Korea in discussions. But those meetings only happened when there was top-level agreement to deal with the North Korean issue – always a difficult task. [US NK Negotiations] [US China]
• US and China seeking dialogue, but N. Korea not budging on preconditions
  Posted on : Apr.24,2013 16:10 KST Pyongyang is still unlikely to come to the negotiating table as long as denuclearization is being insisted upon By Park Hyun and Seong Yeon-cheol, Washington and Beijing correspondents Fang Fenghui, Chief of the General Staff of the Chinese military, said that North Korea could carry out a fourth nuclear weapons test, strongly urging regional parties to engage in talks to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue. On Apr. 22, Fang held a joint press conference following a meeting with Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of staff, who was on a visit to China. “To summarize the present situation, North Korea carried out a third nuclear test, and it is possible that they will carry out a fourth test,” Fang warned. “We ask all sides to work actively to work on the North Koreans to stop nuclear tests and stop producing nuclear weapons. Denuclearization of the Korean peninsula is in the interest of everyone. We hope that the problem will be resolved through resuming the six-party talks.”
• Gary Samore says dialogue with N. Korea could be on the way
  Posted on : Apr.24,2013 16:11 KST The next question is what conditions will need to be set to restart discussions and eventually resume six-party talks By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent Dialogue is imminent for the Korean Peninsula, a former White House National Security Council (NSC) coordinator on weapons of mass destruction said on Apr. 22. [US NK Negotiations]
• U.S. "Human Rights" Ballad Will Never Work on DPRK: DPRK FM Spokesman
  Pyongyang, April 23 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK issued the following statement on Tuesday: Recently the U.S. released the "2012 report on human rights" in which it malignantly slandered the DPRK. It is unbecoming for the U.S. to style itself a "human rights judge" though it is the biggest human rights abuser that killed innocent people and caused untold disasters in all parts of the world through aggression and interference. The U.S. stages the farce of evaluating the human rights performance in more than 190 countries of the world every year, which is aimed to invent a pretext for putting pressure on those countries disobedient to it and toppling them.
• Transfer of wartime control to S. Korea could be delayed again
  Posted on : Apr.23,2013 15:42 KST On May US visit, President Park likely to discuss S. Korea taking over amid North Korean nuclear threat By Gil Yun-hyung and Kim Kyu-won, staff reporters Since North Korea’s third nuclear test, key South Korean and US authorities have been suggesting a possible postponement of the scheduled December 2015 transfer of wartime operational control to South Korea. Speaking with reporters on an airplane to Beijing after meeting with his South Korean counterpart Jeong Seung-do, US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Martin Dempsey said they had “exchanged opinions” on major issues affecting the alliance, and that the current situation with North Korea was a “central topic.” As a concrete example, Dempsey mentioned the issue of operational control for wartime alliance activities on the Korean Peninsula being transferred to South Korea in December 2015.[OPCON]
• Religionists Blame U.S., S. Korea for Escalating Tension on Korean Peninsula
  Pyongyang April 22 (KCNA) -- An emergency meeting of the Religious Believers Council of Korea took place here Monday as the U.S. and the south Korean authorities are pushing the situation on the Korean Peninsula to the worst phase, being engaged in sanctions and pressure on the DPRK despite their lip-service for "dialogue". Present at the meeting were chairman, vice-chairmen, permanent members and members of the council and representatives of organizations of religious fraternities at all levels in Pyongyang and local areas. The meeting set "On dynamically waging nationwide protest movement for immediately ending the U.S. and the south Korean authorities' moves for confrontation with the DPRK" as its theme. Jang Jae On, chairman of the Council who is also chairman of the Central Committee of the Catholic Association of Korea, made a keynote address. Pastor O Kyong U, secretary general of the Central Committee of the Christian Federation of Korea, Ryo Jong Son, secretary general of the Central Guidance Committee of the Chondoist Association of Korea and the chief priest of Songbul Temple, who are all members of the Central Committee of the council, made speeches. [Religion]
• North Korea’s official response to Boston bombing cites conspiracy site World Net Daily
  Posted by Max Fisher on April 22, 2013 at 4:50 pm Narcissism comes in many forms, but one of them is interpreting all events as primarily important for how they affect or otherwise relate to you. The North Korean state news agency has finally turned its attention to the bombings last week at the Boston Marathon — to formally defend the real victim in all this: North Korea. The Korean Central News Agency dedicated Saturday’s “commentary” message to a response to a bizarre article at World Net Daily, a conservative American Web site mostly known for advocating outlandish conspiracy theories, such as that President Obama is not a U.S. citizen. The offending article, published on Wednesday, suggested that North Korea may have secretly orchestrated the Boston attacks. World Net Daily based this suspicion on anonymous “analysts,” though I do not know of any analysts anywhere who have even darted a glance in that direction. Still, it was enough to leave North Korea’s state media feeling victimized and aggrieved. Not about to leave this provocation unanswered, the Juche keyboard commandos struck back in a semi-coherent fury: Pyongyang, April 20 (KCNA) — The U.S. internet newspaper World Net Daily speaking for U.S. conservative forces recently released a false story linking the bomb explosion during the Boston Marathon to the DPRK. It reported the misinformation that the DPRK used such an agent as Al Qaeda for attacking the U.S. The DPRK categorically dismisses this anti-DPRK ruckus made by the conservative daily bereft of any elementary appearance as a medium as a false propaganda which does not deserve even a passing note. [Terrorism] [Media]
• North Korea hints at openness to talks, despite still-venomous rhetoric
  Lee Jin-man/AP - A South Korean protester holds a sign and flowers during a rally in Seoul on Tuesday, demanding peace on the Korean peninsula. By Chico Harlan, Published: April 18 SEOUL — Government officials and security analysts in the region say North Korea is scaling back its campaign of threats and showing signs it wants to ease tensions with South Korea and the United States. That assessment, gaining credence among policymakers in recent days, does not mean that North Korea will soon agree to talks or that the long-term threat posed by its weapons program has been reduced. But officials say they are encouraged by a shift over the past week in Pyongyang’s rhetoric, which, though still venomous, now includes hints about reconciliation. [US NK Negotiations]
• Hey, Obama: Keep Out of North Korea
  by Peter Beinart Apr 8, 2013 4:45 AM EDT Kim Jong-un may be threatening to blow the U.S. into oblivion, but the best way to bring an end to the Hermit Kingdom is to keep American soldiers far, far away. Ever since the Cold War’s end, the government of the United States has done its best to pretend that the government of North Korea does not exist. And again and again, Pyongyang’s leaders have reminded Washington that, unfortunately, it does. The most recent reminder came in February, when North Korea conducted its third nuclear test. Since then, leader Kim Jong-un has scrapped his country’s 1953 armistice with South Korea and threatened the United States so graphically that even Fidel Castro has pleaded with his Marxist brethren not to blow up the planet. The Obama administration, for its part, has sent warplanes and ships to the region, called for economic pressure, and pursued diplomacy—all of which stand a decent chance of defusing the current row and virtually no chance of ensuring that such rows do not return whenever the North Korean regime so chooses. [Joint US military] [Inversion] [Takeover] [Approval]
• New prospects for peace on the Korean Peninsula?
  April 20th, 2013 Authors: Bruno Hellendorff, GRIP, and Thierry Kellner, ULB Tensions have ratcheted up on the Korean Peninsula since Pyongyang’s successful launch of an ICBM-like rocket in December 2012. North Korea, a country famous for its sabre rattling, has tuned up its bellicose rhetoric in the face of international condemnation. Now, its purpose in employing these tactics is a subject of contending perspectives and analyses. This is not the first time North Korea has threatened its neighbours with a major military conflagration. Historically, these episodes of provocation have been followed by periods of accommodation — a familiar pattern for US General Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Will history repeat itself this time? It seems unlikely, for a number of reasons. [Domestics] [US NK negotiations] [Occam]
• US turns down North Korea’s preconditions for dialogue
  Posted on : Apr.20,2013 12:17 KST While conditions won’t be met, US officials taking response as a sign that N. Korea is willing to talk By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent In response to North Korea’s foreign ministry placing preconditions on talks with the US, US Secretary of State John Kerry said that the conditions would not be accepted. At the same time, he sees the North Korean actions as an early sign that they want to negotiate. On Apr. 18 (EST), Secretary of State Kerry attended a hearing for the Foreign Relations Committee of the US Senate. At the hearing, he noted that it was after his visit to Northeast Asia that the North Korean foreign ministry laid down the conditions that it says are necessary for negotiations. "That's the first word of negotiation or thought of that we've heard from them since all of this has begun,” Kerry said. [US NK Negotiations]
• John Kerry hints at an N. Korea policy of “strategic impatience”
  Posted on : Apr.19,2013 17:15 KST US Secretary of State apparently seeking a more active approach to North Korea By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent and Park Byong-su, staff reporter US Secretary of State John Kerry hinted that the Barack Obama administration in its second term may be abandoning the “strategic patience” approach to North Korea from its first term. The change suggests that Washington may be playing a more active role in North Korea issues going ahead. Kerry’s reworking of his North Korea policy appears to have come in the wake of visits to South Korea, China, and Japan between Apr. 12 and 14. When questioned about the policy in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on Apr. 17, he dubbed the current approach one of “strategic impatience.” He also expressed confidence that diplomatic measures may have some effect on policy - a stark contrast with the hands-off approach of the Obama administration’s previous foreign affairs and security team, which suffered from “fatigue” over negotiations with Pyongyang. [US NK policy] [Kerry]
• DPRK NDC Policy Department Issues Statement
  Pyongyang, April 18 (KCNA) -- The Policy Department of the National Defence Commission (NDC) of the DPRK released the following statement Thursday: An acute situation that has persisted on the Korean Peninsula since the end of last year is now putting the peninsula on the verge of war. Much upset by the development, U.S. President Obama on April 11 reportedly stated in public of his intention to seek a negotiated and diplomatic settlement of the situation, saying that he does not want a war on the Korean Peninsula. The chief of Chongwadae of south Korea, who is accustomed to currying favor with her master, let the "minister of Unification" make public a "statement". She even loudly spoke of "the authorities' proposal for dialogue to tide over the situation", a U-turn from her previous attitude of stoking confrontation. She used to say that there can be neither dialogue nor dispatch of a special envoy at present. [US NK Negotiations] [SK NK Negotiations]
• Enter Realpolitik: Is the US Thinking About Backpedaling on North Korean Nukes? Will the Pivot Go Wobbly?
  Will President Obama become a late and unlikely convert to realpolitik and allow John Kerry to sacrifice America’s nuclear non-proliferation principles on the battered altar of North Korean diplomacy? And will the fearsome pivot to Asia turn into a dainty pirouette, an American pas de deux with China as the two great powers search for a way to dance around the North Korean nuclear problem? Potentially, the North Korean nuclear crisis is a good thing for the US and South Korea--and perhaps even for China!—if President Obama is ready to bend on some cherished non-proliferation beliefs. That’s what the North Korean leadership is begging him to do, amid the nuclear uproar. His Secretary of State, John Kerry, seems to be interested in getting, if not on the same page, in the same chapter with North Korea, and maybe pick up a geopolitical win (with Chinese acquiescence) similar to the successful effort to push Myanmar (Burma) out of its exclusive near-China orbit. John Kerry is very much the pragmatist—normalization of US-Vietnam relations was his signature geostrategic success as US Senator—and apparently would enjoy negotiating with the North Koreans and weaning them away from the Chinese at the cost of finessing the nuclear weapons issue. [US NK Negotiations]
• N.Korea Attaches 'Strings' to Dialogue
  North Korea took a step back on Thursday from its recent bellicose threats by saying that South Korea and the U.S. must stop what it called "provocations" and "nuclear war maneuvers" and issue an apology if they want to engage in dialogue and ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula. The North's powerful National Defense Commission issued a statement dismissing offers of dialogue from South Korea and the U.S. as being "foolish" and demanded that UN Security Council sanctions imposed against Pyongyang be lifted first. North Korea's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea reiterated the same rhetoric, saying, "If they had a true will to have dialogue, they should have halted all acts of hurting the dignity of [North Korea], and stopped the north-targeted war exercises and smear campaign and given assurance to the nation that they would not resort to such hostile acts in the days ahead." A Unification Ministry official here expressed "regret" over North Korea's blaming of the South for inciting tensions, dismissed its "absurd" preconditions for talks and urged Pyongyang to stop its "stereotypical and preposterous" claims. "North Korea is making absurd claims which imply it has no intention of holding talks for the time being," said Shin Beom-chul at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses [US NK Negotiations] [Preconditions]
• Obama needs to show 'audacious' leadership
  By Rep. Choo Mi-ae Rep. Choo Mi-ae Northeast Asia now faces seemingly the greatest ever crisis since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. The current situation can be described as an “all-out and comprehensive” crisis as North Korea has been mobilizing even conventional weapons compared to the first and second crisis period when it had exploited only nuclear tests and missile launches. North Korea has been playing international politics with its nuclear program and it has long been a tool of politics beyond the simple meaning of a weapon. Nevertheless, there have only been calls for military options from the South Korean and U.S. authorities and in the process politics has been missing. Now is high time to exercise politics and diplomacy to resolve the nuclear standoff. [Obama] [Engagement] [US NK policy]
• North Korea and the Fallacy of Accidental Wars
  East AsiaRegionSecurityTopicNorth Korea April 05, 2013 By Robert Farley Few wars happen by accident. Given the situation on the Korean Peninsula, a war seems unlikely, as none of the combatants stand to benefit. Accidental wars rarely happen. Historians have demonstrated that most wars initially deemed “accidental,” (perhaps most notably the First World War), have in actuality resulted from deliberative state policy, even if the circumstances of the war were unplanned. While war seems discordant, it actually requires a great deal of cooperation and coordination. Fundamentally, two parties have to agree to conduct a war; otherwise, you have either a punitive raid or an armed surrender negotiation. Consequently, the baseline for evaluating the chances for accidental war on the Korean Peninsula should be judged as quite low. [Spring crisis]
• How to Talk to a North Korean
  Advice from a career Pyongyang hand to would-be nukes negotiators: Bluster won’t get you very far.
  BY JOEL WIT | APRIL 20, 2011
  Last week, China's nuclear envoy Wu Dawei proposed after a meeting with his North Korean counterpart that the two Koreas hold dialogue as a first step to reopening the six-party talks, the nuclear negotiations that have been stalled for two years. The Chinese proposal may or may not succeed. But until official talks resume, figuring out what Pyongyang is thinking must be done through deciphering messages in its state-controlled media or through unofficial contacts, such as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's upcoming visit to Pyongyang. When left to experienced hands, both can yield insights. When practiced by inexperienced observers, they can do more damage than good. [US NK Negotiations] [Engagement]
• North Korea, the hand of history
  Paul Rogers 18 April 2013 All states involved in the Korean crisis are influenced by their historical experience, but the recent past weighs most heavily on Pyongyang. The reaction to events is determined partly by historical experience, and this is especially true of wars. Most countries have memories that serve to influence behaviour and these can sometimes be powerful in determining their course of action. The British still talk of the “Dunkirk spirit”, the French continue to invoke memories of the German occupation and of the fall of Dien Bien Phu, while the Soviet Union's memory of the “Great Patriotic War” informed its outlook during the cold war. In a remarkable way, such history has a much greater effect on the current crisis involving North Korea than is commonly realised, and not just in terms of the Pyongyang regime but also of China. For Beijing, the Korean war of 1950-53 provides a context, and North Korea itself has the much more recent experience of being declared part of an “axis of evil”. [US NK Negotiations] [Deterrence]
• Crisis in Korea - Twenty Years in the Making
  "Bomb North Korea before it's too late" was the title of a recent New York Times op-ed. As the drumbeat of war crescendos on the Korean peninsula, we bring together leading experts and activists to discuss what's really happening - from the failure of the past twenty years of denuclearization talks, to the deleterious impact of decades of sanctions on the people of North Korea. Nodutdol, a New York City-based grassroots organization that works for peace and demilitarization of the Korean peninsula, teams up with APF to produce this timely roundtable. Guests Christine Hong is an assistant professor of Asian American literature, Korean diaspora studies, and critical Pacific Rim studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is a coordinating committee member of the National Campaign to End the Korean War, a steering committee member of the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea, and a member of the Working Group on Peace and Demilitarization in Asia and the Pacific. Gregory Elich is the author of ‘Strange Liberators: Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit’. He is on the board of directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute and on the advisory boards of the Korea Policy Institute and the U.S. chapter of the Korea Truth Commission. Tim Shorrock is the author of "Spies for Hire." He is a writer and commentator on US foreign policy, national security and intelligence, as well as East Asian politics. His work has appeared in Harper's, Mother Jones, The Nation, and Salon. [US NK policy]
• N. Korea lists conditions for talks
  Xinhua, April 18, 2013 The powerful defense commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Thursday urged Washington and Seoul to stop provocations, part of conditions laid out by Pyongyang for restoring talks amid tensions on the Korean Peninsula. The commission also demanded the United States and South Korea fully apologize for their aggressions, and give assurances not to carry out nuclear war games designed to intimidate the DPRK, according to the official KCNA news agency. It also urged Washington and Seoul to withdraw nuclear weapons stationed in and around South Korea, and refrain from redeploying them, if they want to reopen negotiations with Pyongyang. [US NK negotiations] [Preconditions]
• Upcoming S. Korea-US summit could be turning point
  Posted on : Apr.18,2013 16:46 KST With tensions lingering on the Korean peninsula, there is hope that Park and Obama can come up with a new NK policy By Park Byong-su, staff reporter With North Korea rejecting the proposal for talks made by the US and South Korea, it appears less likely that the critical situation on the Korean peninsula will be solved anytime soon. Neither are there any signs that North Korea will immediately move to ratchet up military tensions again by going ahead with another provocation. It has become more likely that the slow-simmering but potentially deadly confrontation will continue for the time being. On Apr. 16, North Korea dismissed the overture for dialogue made by John Kerry, US Secretary of State, as “a cunning ploy,” and on the following day refused to give South Korean businessmen access to the Kaesong Industrial Complex, saying that “the South is responsible for the current situation.” The moves make clear that North Korea has no intention of accepting denuclearization, which is the precondition that the US and South Korea have placed on talks. [US NK Negotiations]
• Obama says N. Korea isn’t capable of mounting a nuclear warhead
  Posted on : Apr.18,2013 16:26 KSTModified on : Apr.18,2013 16:36 KST US president hoping for a diplomatic solution to the tensions on the Korean peninsula By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent US President Obama expressed hopes for a diplomatic solution to the tensions on the Korean peninsula, saying that he does not believe North Korea has the capacity to load a nuclear warhead onto a long-range missile. The comments came during an interview with NBC News broadcast on April 16 prior to the April 15 Boston Marathon bombings and prior to the statement by North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson. Regarding North Korea’s nuclear capabilities, Obama said “Based on our current intelligence assessments we do not think that they have that capacity. But we have to make sure that we are dealing with every contingency out there. That’s why I repositioned missile defense systems.” President Obama hinted that if North Korea ends its provocative actions, dialogue could begin. [US NK policy]
• KCNA Commentary Urges U.S. to Properly Understand Root Cause of Grave Situation in Korea
  Pyongyang, April 17 (KCNA) -- The U.S. is becoming craftier in its moves to stifle the DPRK. Having rapidly deployed huge armed forces for aggression on the Korean Peninsula and in its vicinity and rounded off the preparations for attack through Foal Eagle joint military exercises, the U.S. is now pretending to be interested in detente in a bid to mislead the public opinion. Its high-ranking officials vied with each other to assert that "the U.S. keeps the door of dialogue with north Korea open," while disclosing before media that "planned military actions have been shelved" and "military-related meetings put off." This is another poor charade to conceal its criminal nature as the arch criminal who created a touch-and-go situation on the peninsula. It is a product of base intrigues to shift the blame for tension on to the DPRK and invent a pretext for igniting a war. What matters is that those following the U.S. are dancing to the tune of its farce. As shown by history, truth cannot be voted down by a hand-raising machine. If one truly wants to defuse the tension on the peninsula, one should properly understand its root cause. The worst situation on the peninsula is entirely attributable to the U.S. vicious policy and hostile acts against the DPRK. It is pursuant to the U.S. sinister scenario to stifle the DPRK at the early stage of its historical turn. [Hostility] [Spring Crisis]
• North Korea wants withdrawal of sanctions, end of US-SKorea drills as preconditions for talks
  By Associated Press, Updated: Thursday, April 18, 6:44 PM PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea on Thursday demanded the withdrawal of U.N. sanctions and the end of U.S.-South Korea military drills as conditions for resuming talks meant to defuse tension on the Korean Peninsula. The statement from the Policy Department of the National Defense Commission, the country’s top governing body, came four days after Pyongyang rejected Seoul’s latest dialogue offer as insincere. The U.S. says it is prepared to talk to the North but Pyongyang must first bring down tensions and honor previous disarmament agreements. [US NK Negotiations] [Preconditions] [Joint US military]
• North Korea’s six-party trap
  By Nicholas Eberstadt, Two years into the Obama administration — after detonating a nuclear weapon, test-firing long-range ballistic missiles, killing dozens of South Korean sailors in an unprovoked torpedo strike, unveiling a long-denied uranium enrichment facility, and murdering South Korean civilians in a daylight artillery attack that was broadcast globally — Pyongyang has decided to return to the negotiation tables. [US NK Negotiations] [MISCOM]
• North Korea Is Like a Misbehaving Child—Ignore It
  By Ivan Eland | Posted: Mon. April 15, 2013, 1:15pm PT No doubt exists that North Korea’s recent belligerent and irresponsible rhetoric is kinda scary. The question, of course, is how to respond to it. The usual response of a superpower, which conducts an overly militarized foreign policy, is counter-threats and intimidation. The United States pulled out its most fearsome weapons—the B-2 stealth bomber, the B-52 bomber, and the F-22 stealth fighter and had them essentially buzz the North. Even worse, the United States, in an agreement with South Korea, further enmeshed itself in the intra-Korean histrionics. The United States pledged, in addition to coming to South Korea’s assistance if a full blown war breaks out, to assist that nation in the event of even minor North Korean provocations—for example, the North’s shelling of a border island. Because the North is paranoid of a U.S. attack, American involvement for such minor provocations is just more likely to unintentionally lead to an escalation to major war. Another important question is why does North Korea play this high-risk game? Although one reason may be for a young, weak North Korean leader to seem tough to consolidate his influence with the North Korean defenses, the most important power broker in North Korean society, another may be because, in the past, North Korean bluster has paid off. In prior episodes, despite martial demonstrations against North Korea’s threats, South Korea and the United States have caved in to bribery by providing foreign assistance to calm the situation down. [Tantrum] [Libertarian] [US NK policy]
• Obama Expects More N.Korean Provocations
  U.S. President Barack Obama said he expects another North Korean provocation "over the next several weeks." But Obama expressed hope that this can be averted and that North Korea will instead try to resolve any problems diplomatically. Obama was speaking in an interview with NBC taped a day before North Korea rejected an offer of dialogue as a "cunning ploy." The U.S. president stressed that North Korea lacks the technology to mount a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile. "Based on our current intelligence assessments we do not think that they have that capacity," Obama said. But he added, "We have to make sure that we are dealing with every contingency out there."
• President Park to visit US for summit in May
  Posted on : Apr.17,2013 16:21 KST First overseas trip will feature discussion of the ROK-US alliance, N. Korea policy and atomic energy By Seok Jin-hwan, staff reporter President Park Geun-hye will hold a summit with US President Barack Obama on May 7 at the White House. Blue House spokesman Yoon Chang-jung explained on Apr. 16 that Park will visit Washington from May 6 to 8 at Obama’s invitation, with the meeting scheduled for the second day of her trip. “It will be an important occasion for examining our bilateral relationship on the 60th anniversary of the alliance, setting a course for new cooperation, and bringing the comprehensive strategic alliance forward another step,” Yoon said.
• DPRK FM Spokesman Dismisses U.S. Talk about Dialogue as Rhetoric Misleading World Opinion
  Pyongyang, April 16 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry issued the following statement on Tuesday: Recently U.S. high-ranking officials are vying with each other to talk about dialogue. This is nothing but a crafty ploy to evade the blame for the tension on the eve of a war by pretending to refrain from military actions and stand for dialogue. It is none other than the U.S which sparked off a vicious cycle of tension, pursuant to its hostile policy to stifle the DPRK by force of arms, and pushed the situation on the Korean Peninsula to the worst phase. The tension began escalating there due to the U.S. wanton violation of the DPRK's right to satellite launch for peaceful purposes. [US NK Negotiations]
• North Korea nuclear talks: Did John Kerry soften conditions? (+video)
  North Korea nuclear talks are possible if the North gives up its nuclear program, Secretary of State John Kerry said this weekend. That's not new, but Kerry's tone has worried some analysts. By Peter Grier, Staff writer / April 15, 2013 That question arises due to statements made by Secretary of State John Kerry over the weekend. In Tokyo on an East Asia swing, Secretary Kerry said Pyongyang would find a “ready partner” in the US if it began to give up its nuclear ambitions. Kerry added that he might dispatch a US representative to discussions in North Korea or talk through backchannels if North Korean officials first made the right concessions. “I’m not going to be so stuck in the mud that an opportunity to actually get something done is flagrantly wasted because of a kind of predetermined stubbornness,” Kerry told US-based reporters. In terms of substance this is hardly different from past US statements on the subject. Obama administration officials have long insisted they won’t meet with North Korean counterparts unless the latter say they will curtail their nuclear weapons efforts. They prefer that all dealings with Pyongyang occur in the international context of six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program. But some critics are worried about the tone of Kerry’s words, the implication of a sort of let’s-get-on-with-it attitude. They want to make sure the White House does not make it easier for North Korea to meet preconditions for negotiations. For instance, the conservative Foreign Policy Initiative on Monday issued a statement titled “Kerry’s Dangerous Overtures on North Korea.” [Preconditions]
• FPI Bulletin: Kerry’s Dangerous Overtures on North Korea
  By Chris Griffin, Robert Zarate | April 15, 2013 The U.S. recovery of the front section of a ballistic missile fired by North Korea in December 2012 was the basis for the Defense Intelligence Agency’s assessment with moderate confidence that Pyongyang already has nuclear weapons that can be delivered with missiles, reporter Eli Lake revealed today in The Daily Beast. This revelation is a game changer. As North Korea prepares to test yet another ballistic missile that could strike our allies and military forces in Asia, it is essential that the United States demonstrate resolve in its standoff with Pyongyang. Instead, Secretary of State John Kerry has offered to cut U.S. ballistic missile defense deployments if China reins in North Korea and suggested that the United States may lower the bar for direct talks with Pyongyang. After weeks of careful efforts to manage this crisis, Kerry’s apparently off-the-cuff remarks—both made during pressers—threaten to undermine the confidence of our allies. First, Congress should call on the Obama administration to rebuke Secretary Kerry’s comments about potential missile defense concessions to China and instead reaffirm America's commitment to our missile defense efforts. There is no reason to suggest weaker U.S. missile defenses after learning that North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile threat is much more advanced than previously believed. [MISCOM] [Preconditions]
• Exclusive: How North Korea Tipped Its Hand
  by Eli Lake Apr 15, 2013 4:45 AM EDT The U.S. recovered the front section of the rocket used in North Korea’s satellite launch in December, which gave away the status of the regime's nuclear-arms program. When North Korean engineers launched a satellite into space December 12, it seemed like business as usual, with the familiar cycle of condemnations from the West and statements of defiance from the Hermit Kingdom. But that launch also led many U.S. intelligence analysts to assess that Pyongyang possessed the ability to miniaturize the components necessary to yield a nuclear explosion for a crude warhead that would sit atop a ballistic missile. South Korea North Korea Rocket Launch South Korean Navy sailors stand guard in December near a part of debris believed to be a fuel container from a rocket launched by North Korea. (Shin Young-gun/AP) After the North Korean launch, U.S. Navy ships managed to recover the front section of the rocket used in it, according to three U.S. officials who work closely on North Korean proliferation. That part of the rocket in turn provided useful clues about North Korean warhead design, should the next payload be a warhead rather than a satellite. The same basic engineering and science needed to launch a satellite into space is also used in the multistage rockets known as intercontinental ballistic missiles. The front of the satellite rocket, according to three U.S. officials who work closely on North Korean proliferation, gave tangible proof that North Korea was building the missile’s cone at dimensions for a nuclear warhead, durable enough to be placed on a long-range missile that could reenter the earth’s atmosphere from space. [Nuclear weapons] [Intelligence]
• The Korean Crisis: Just Who is the Mental Case?
  by JERRY KROTH In view of the fact that the U.S. military has quite unexpectedly announced North Korea has the capability of launching a nuclear weapon atop a missile, and in view of the fact that the young, untested, unstable, paranoid, and maybe even trigger-happy, North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un is as labile as he is, wouldn’t it be advisable for the craven American media to at least try to mention that the U.S. is, in fact, taunting North Korea by engaging in its ridiculously inflammatory military exercises? [Joint US military]
• The Doctrine of Kimilsungism
  by NILE BOWIE Each year on April 15th, North Koreans pay homage to the founder of their nation, Kim il-Sung – the most revered figure in the North Korean psyche. Despite the tense state of affairs on the Korean peninsula and war-like rhetoric emanating from the North, the mood in the country is one of patriotic celebration as citizens of Pyongyang take part in communal dancing and other festivities to remember their departed leader. Kim il-Sung was a guerilla fighter who fought for Korean independence against the Japanese, who occupied the peninsula prior to the Korean War. He was installed into power by the Soviet Union, which bankrolled the North’s post-war reconstruction efforts and shaped its economic policy. After a turbulent history of being under the thumb of larger regional powers, Kim il-Sung is credited with freeing Korea from the yoke of colonialism, even earning him sympathy from some of the elderly generations living in the South. North Korea’s reverence for Kim il-Sung appears wholly Stalinistic to the Western eye, but there are complex reasons why the North Korean ruling family continues to be venerated unquestionably, part of which deals with North Korea’s race-based brand of nationalism that few analysts take into account. [Nationalism] [Racism]
• Hope that Kerry and China can bring N. Korea into dialogue
  Posted on : Apr.16,2013 15:57 KSTModified on : Apr.16,2013 16:01 KST Seagulls don’t know the tensions A fishing boating comes back to port on Yeonpyeong Island shrouded in seagulls, Apr. 15. The area around Yeonpyeong is still a flashpoint in inter-Korean relations since the island was shelled by North Korea in 2010. (by Kim Bong-kyu, staff photographer) North Korea appears to be holding off on any provocations while the possibility of talks is still being considered By Park Byong-su, staff reporter Last weekend, tensions on the Korean Peninsula seemed to begin calming. The combination of President Park Geun-hye’s offer of inter-Korean dialogue and US Secretary of State John Kerry’s message that he was willing to sit down with the leaders in Pyongyang has had an alleviating effect on the situation. But the situation remains fluid. A South Korean government official said, “North Korean people are obviously concerned about how North Korea is going to take Mr. Kerry’s message.”
• Top diplomat says US is ready to speak with N. Korea
  Posted on : Apr.16,2013 15:54 KST Speaking on Asian tour, John Kerry says the US is willing to talk, but N. Korea needs to make some actions “in good faith” By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent US Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington was prepared to speak directly with Pyongyang to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula, US news outlets reported on Apr. 14. Kerry’s approach is drawing attention as a break from the Barack Obama administration’s previous approach of avoiding any dialogue with North Korea at all since the latter backed out of a Feb. 29, 2012, agreement after less than one month. [Leap Day Agreement] [Inversion]
• US yet to ask S. Korea to join in asset freeze
  By Chung Min-uck Will South Korea join a U.S.-led effort to strangle North Korea’s cash flow? Foreign ministry officials said that the country has not been asked to join, but declined to comment further. This tactic proved to be effective in 2005 when Washington sanctioned Banco Delta Asia in Macau, the key conduit of Pyongyang’s cash flow. As a result, the North came out for what were considered at that time as serious talks with the outside world. A senior United States official said Sunday that Washington was tracing funds of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his family. The move is in line with the latest United Nations sanctions imposed that tightened restrictions on financial dealings to prevent the regime from further developing nuclear weapons and missiles. [Financial sanctions] [Personalisation] [Freeze]
• More Marines may deploy to South Korea
  Feb. 14, 2012 - 05:30AM | Last Updated: Feb. 14, 2012 - 05:30AM | U.S. and Republic of Korea Marines train at Camp Rodriguez in South Korea. U.S. and South Korean leaders may expand their military partnership. U.S. and Republic of Korea Marines train at Camp Rodriguez in South Korea. U.S. and South Korean leaders may expand their military partnership. (Cpl. Kentavist Brackin / Marine Corps) By Gidget Fuentes Amid well-publicized plans to shift upwards of 5,000 Marines from Okinawa, Japan, to Guam, and rotate thousands more between Hawaii, Australia and the Philippines, there are quiet indications the Marine Corps also may seek greater military ties with South Korea, where 28,000 U.S. troops are permanently stationed. Recent South Korean media reports have highlighted two items of interest. The first was a Jan. 19 meeting in Seoul attended by the commanding generals of Marine Corps Forces-Korea and the Republic of Korea Marine Corps. There, the two sides agreed to expand combined training exercises, including a large joint-landing operation planned for the first half of this year. [Amphibious] [Joint US military]
• U.S. willing to talk, but wants North Korea to make the first move
  Posted: 04/15/2013 12:01:00 AM MDT Updated: 04/15/2013 07:48:17 AM MDT By Denver Post wire services U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, right, greets upon his arrival at Seoul military airport in Seongnam, South Korea, Friday, April 12, 2013. Kerry warned North Korea to not test-fire a missile. (Lee Jin-man, AP Photo) TOKYO — Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that the United States was prepared to reach out to Kim Jong-Un of North Korea if he made the first move to abandon his nuclear weapons program. "We need the appropriate moment, appropriate circumstance," Kerry told reporters in Tokyo. While he did not say specifically what steps would be needed, according to the long-standing U.S. position, they might include a public commitment to denuclearization and such measures as halting the production of nuclear material, refraining from testing missiles and ceasing threats to attack its neighbors. [Preconditions]
• North Korea: The history of its relationship with the United States and with nuclear weapons
  Over the past three months, tension on the Korean Peninsula has increased. In February, North Korea carried out a nuclear test, while in March the UN responded by imposing travel and financial sanctions on North Korean leaders. North Korea then threatened the US with a pre-emptive nuclear strike. What’s going on in North Korea and why is it that North Korea and the United States have been in a state of war for over half a century? This week on Rear Vision, the story behind the current political crisis on the Korean Peninsula. Bruce CumingsProfessor of History, University of ChicagoMarcus NolandSenior Fellow, Institute for International Economics, WashingtonDr Tat Yan KongSenior Lecturer in Politics, The School of Oriental and African Studies, London University [Audio]
• How to Talk Kim Jong Un Off the Ledge
  By Joel Wit and Jenny Town 14 April 2013 U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Asia is an important opportunity to start fashioning an off-ramp from the crisis on the Korean peninsula. “We are seeking a partner to deal with in a rational and reasonable way,” he said upon landing in Seoul Friday. But if Kerry is to succeed in his mission, the United States will need to discard two historical myths: that Pyongyang has used bellicose behavior to squeeze aid out of a cringing United States, and that the North always cheats on its agreements. This caricature is not only wrong but also hamstrings America’s ability to deal effectively with a dangerous adversary. [US NK negotiations]
• U.S. in Disarmament Offer to N.Korea
  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told Chinese officials that Washington is willing to reduce its missile defense system in Northeast Asia if North Korea scraps its nuclear weapons program. The missile defense shield supported by Seoul and Tokyo has been a thorn in the side of Beijing, which is wary of the increased U.S. military influence in Northeast Asia. Kerry's comments come amid increasingly belligerent threats from Pyongyang. "Obviously if the threat disappears -- i.e. North Korea denuclearizes -- the same imperative does not exist at that point of time for us to have that kind of robust, forward leaning posture of defense,” Kerry told reporters Saturday. “And it would be our hope in the long run, or better yet in short run, that we can address that.” Meeting with Chinese leaders, Kerry stressed that the missile shield targets North Korea rather than China, the New York Times reported. [Missile defense] [China confrontation]
• Revisiting the Sept. 19 Joint Statement 8 years later
  Posted on : Apr.15,2013 12:00 KSTModified on : Apr.15,2013 14:16 KST Seoul and Washington have arrived at the agreement’s terms, but Pyongyang still holding off on dialogue By Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter, and Seong Yeon-cheol, Beijing correspondent After eight years of twist and turns, South Korea and the US have arrived at the terms of the September 19 Joint Statement - originally agreed upon back in 2005. In a joint communique issued after foreign minister talks on Apr. 12, Washington and Seoul said they were prepared to execute the pledges from the statement, issued as part of the six-party talks in 2005, if North Korea made the choice to denuclearize. With their statement, the foreign ministers sent a clear message to Pyongyang that they wanted to sit down face to face, using the older agreement as a starting point. [JS050919]
• US alludes to possibly withdrawing missile defense system from Asia
  Posted on : Apr.15,2013 11:44 KSTModified on : Apr.15,2013 14:51 KST While visiting Beijing, Secretary of State John Kerry seeks Beijing’s help in reining in North Korea By Jung E-pil, staff reporter and Seong Yeon-cheol, Beijing correspondent The US has made a proposal to China to reduce or withdraw the missile defense network it is building in East Asia as a way of defusing tensions on the Korean Peninsula. This is the strongest and most specific proposal Washington has made since the tensions began. With the measures emphasizing China’s role as the only country will any real influence over North Korea, the question now is how Beijing will react. Speaking at an Apr. 13press conference at Beijing’s Daoyutai Hotel, US Secretary of State John Kerry suggested that the US might withdraw its newly strengthened missile defense network if North Korea ends its nuclear program. [Missile defense] [China confrontation] [US NK negotiations]
• Inventing a North Korean Threat: “Attacking North Korea or Iran could Precipitate a Global War”
  By Stephen Lendman Global Research, April 14, 2013 Washington needs enemies. When none exist, they’re invented. Pyongyang threatens no one. Obama claims no one wants war on the Korean peninsula. He urges Pyongyang “to pursue peace.” On the other, he’s heightening tensions. He accused its leaders of “bad behavior,” “threats,” and “provocations.” He’s creating crisis conditions that didn’t exist. He’s spoiling for trouble doing so. [Threat]
• Crisis in Korea: Obama Must Change US Approach to Stop Kim
  A Commentary by Andreas Lorenz North Korea's most recent irrational behavior has made clear the government's indifference to sanctions. Some believe China is the only country that can talk Pyongyang into toning down its rhetoric. In reality the United States can do much more to calm the situation. The scene from the recent screenplay about the Cold War in East Asia was carefully orchestrated. Its message: The young leader Kim Jong-un is just as popular among the people as was his father, Kim Jong-Il. And the military is ready for anything.
  A second step would be to agree on a common path forward with China, Russia, South Korea and Japan, then to start talks with North Korea without preconditions. And all parties have to give up the goal of trying to force North Korea to get rid of its nuclear weapons. Because Kim and his military will never consider such a thing. Their logic is that nuclear weapons protect them from attacks. [Irrational] [Media] [Engagement] [Deterrent]
• N.Korea Triggers Nuclear Arms Race in Northeast Asia
  The U.S. Defense Department plans to assess the strategic value of deploying additional conventional and nuclear weapons to the West Pacific to submit a report to Congress in June as required under the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2013. The west Pacific region covers South Korea, Japan and Guam. [Buildup]
• North Korean leader Kim Jong Un offers many faces, many threats
  By Ernesto Londoño, Sunday, April 14, 9:52 AM When Kim Jong Un first appeared in Pyongyang’s carefully stage-managed public spotlight in the fall of 2010, North Korea watchers began scouring for clues to learn whether the pudgy heir apparent would be a reformist or simply the newest face of a despotic regime. Nearly 16 months after taking the reins of the hermit state following the death of his stoic father, North Korea’s 30-year-old leader appears to be careening toward the latter — at least on the surface. Having disavowed his country’s armistice with South Korea and threatened to fire his increasingly capable missiles toward the United States, Kim has put the Korean Peninsula and Washington on a war footing. His behavior follows the playbook of his predecessors, with one notable and potentially dangerous departure that appears to have him backed into a corner. “His father and his grandfather always figured into their provocation cycle an off-ramp of how to get out of it,” Adm. Samuel Locklear III, the commander of U.S. troops in the Pacific, told Congress this past week. “It’s not clear to me that he has thought through how to get out of it. This is what makes this scenario, I think, particularly challenging.” [Kim Jong Un] [Personalisation] [Agency]
• War on Korean Peninsula unlikely, despite strong words from both sides
  Video: Secretary of State John Kerry has kicked off four days of talks in East Asia amid speculation that the North's unpredictable regime would launch a mid-range missile designed to reach as far as the U.S. territory of Guam. By Max Ehrenfreund, Published: April 13 Lawmakers discussed a report from the Defense Intelligence Agency on Thursday suggesting that North Korea may have the ability to equip a missile with a nuclear warhead: Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) read what he said was an unclassified section of the DIA report while questioning Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a session of the House Armed Services Committee. Lamborn said the DIA had concluded “with moderate confidence” that Pyongyang “has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles; however, the reliability will be low.” .?.?. Lamborn, who failed to draw a substantive response from Dempsey, said in an interview after the hearing that he chose to slip the assessment into the public domain because he worries the Obama administration is not investing enough in missile defense. [Missile defense]
• Behind the North Korean Crisis
  By Dennis J. Bernstein April 06, 2013 "Information Clearing House" - In early March, the U.S. and South Korea launched an expanded set of war games on the Korean Peninsula, prompting concerns in some circles that the military exercises might touch off an escalation of tensions with North Korea. Christine Hong, a professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz, worried that the U.S. “was lurching towards war” since “the military exercises that the U.S. and South Korea just launched are not defensive exercises” but rather appear to promote a “regime change” strategy. Those military pressures have, indeed, led to threats of escalation from North Korea’s young leader, Kim Jong Un, and have set the Korean security situation at “hair-trigger dangerous,” Professor Hong said in the following interview with Dennis J. Bernstein. DB: There’s a lot of disinformation and patriotic reporting coming out of the U.S. Why don’t you tell us what is going on right now. What is the situation and how dangerous is it? CH: You put your finger on it. All we see is media reporting that singularly ascribes blame to North Korea, which is portrayed as a kind of unquestionable evil, so what the U.S. is doing in response to the supposed provocation seems eminently justified. I think we are in a crisis point. It doesn’t feel dissimilar to the kind of media rhetoric that surrounded the run-up to the U.S. invasion in Iraq. During that time also, there was a steady drumbeat to war. … [Buildup]
• Representative Forbes on crisis
  North Korea has been among the most troublesome and persistent problems in U.S. foreign policy since the Cold War. The United States has never had formal diplomatic relations with North Korea, and negotiations over its nuclear weapons program have been at the forefront of the national security agendas of the past three administrations. U.S. interests in North Korea involve critical security, political, and human rights concerns. American troops occupying U.S. military bases in the Pacific are stationed within known striking distance of North Korean missiles. A conflict on the Korean peninsula or the collapse of the government would have severe implications for both the regional and global economy. Negotiations and diplomacy surrounding North Korea's nuclear weapons program necessarily dictate U.S. relations with all the major powers in the region. The United States and its allies in the east are now faced with an isolated, authoritarian regime, currently under pressure from transferring power following the death of Kim Jong-il in December 2011. Multilateral Six-Party negotiations (made up of China, Japan, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, and the United States) have previously reached some key agreements on aid to North Korea in exchange for denuclearization; however, problems with implementation have persisted and talks have been suspended since 2008. After launching a long-range rocket in December of 2012, North Korea conducted a nuclear test in February 2013, and increased its rhetoric against South Korea and the United States to include the threat of pre-emptive nuclear strikes. Leadership in North Korea under Kim Jong-un is unpredictable because so little is known about him. The United States now faces the challenge of navigating a course toward a peaceful resolution of the nuclear issue with a potentially rogue actor. Question of the week: What should be the response from the United States to the recent actions taken by North Korea? ( ) Push North Korea’s best ally and economic lifeline, China, to pressure North Korea to suspend its dangerous and reckless behavior ( ) Re-engage North Korea diplomatically and encourage them to return to the Six-Party Talks ( ) Work with South Korea and other regional allies to build a strong deterrent to contain North Korea ( ) Strengthen our missile defenses to prevent North Korea from being able to threaten our homeland ( ) Ignore North Korean provocations and assume that they are not a threat to the U.S. and its allies ( ) Actively encourage a regime change in North Korea, with the goal of reunifying the Peninsula under a Democratic government. ( ) Other. Take the poll here. [US NK policy] {MISCOM]
• Pentagon: North Korea has capacity to make nuclear warhead for ballistic missile
  By Ernesto Londoño, North Korea probably has a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on a ballistic missile, according to a new assessment by the Pentagon’s intelligence arm that comes amid growing alarm over Pyongyang’s warmongering. The conclusion by the Defense Intelligence Agency said the weapon would have “low reliability,” but the disclosure during a congressional hearing Thursday is likely to raise fresh concerns about North Korea’s capabilities and intentions. Anne Gearan and Greg Miller Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) read what he said was an unclassified section of the DIA report while questioning Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a session of the House Armed Services Committee. Lamborn said the DIA had concluded “with moderate confidence” that Pyongyang “has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles; however, the reliability will be low.” [Military balance] [Intelligence]
• Rolling the Iron Dice Can Kim Jong Un use his nukes and get away with it?
  BY JOHN ARQUILLA | APRIL 8, 2013 The rushed deployment of American missile interceptors to Guam last week, buttressing those already in place at Fort Greely, Alaska, makes for good politics but reflects poor strategic vision. The apparent threat posed by North Korea -- that Kim Jong Un might lob a lone, long-range missile toward the United States -- is illusory. Pyongyang has no missile with that kind of range, and almost surely no nuclear warhead small enough to fit on such a delivery vehicle anyway. As to striking closer to home, say against Japan, the North Korean history of faulty, inaccurate missiles suggests they'd have a hard time even hitting land at all, much less any specifically designated target. More to the point, though, any one-off attack of this sort would invite an absolutely devastating response to which North Korea would have no adequate defense. Rather than behaving in such suicidal fashion, Kim could be thinking more creatively about the strategic utility of his small nuclear arsenal across the spectrum of bad behavior open to him.
• Exclusive: U.S. and North Korea held secret meeting in March
  Posted By Josh Rogin Tuesday, April 9, 2013 - 2:08 PM Share A top State Department official met with a top representative of the North Korean government in New York in March, The Cable has learned. Clifford Hart, the State Department's special envoy to the now-defunct six-party talks, met North Korea's deputy ambassador to the United Nations Han Song-ryol in mid-March, just before North Korea began its latest string of provocative statements and actions, diplomatic sources said. The meeting was done through what's known in diplomatic circles as the "New York channel," the most common method of direct communication between Washington and Pyongyang. No real progress was made during the meeting and no new offers were made by the U.S. officials present, the sources said. The U.S. side simply reiterated the administration's call for North Korea to avoid provocative actions as well as its offer for a return to diplomacy if North Korea recommitted to fulfilling its international obligations and pursuing a path of denuclearization. The North Korean side simply agreed to communicate that information back to Pyongyang. For outside experts critical of the Obama administration's current approach to North Korea, which is based on the principle of "strategic patience," or waiting for Pyongyang to change its calculus and rejoin multilateral talks, the meeting is only the latest indication that the administration's policy is stagnant. [US NK negotiations]
• Pundits Disagree Whether to Respond to N.Korea
  International pundits are divided over whether North Korea is bluffing and has no intention of starting a war, and whether it should be ignored or engaged in talks. Writing in the New York Times under the headline, "Stay Cool. Call North Korea's Bluff," Andrei Lankov on Wednesday said, "North Korea is a tiny dictatorship with a bankrupt economy, but its leaders are remarkably adept at manipulating global public opinion. In recent weeks, we have been exposed to yet another brilliant example of their skill." Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University, argued that "it does not make sense to credulously take their fake belligerence at face value and give them the attention they want now." [Media] [Inversion]
• Will Washington Send More Nukes to S.Korea?
  The U.S. plans to look into the strategic value of deploying additional nuclear and conventional weapons in South Korea and elsewhere in the West Pacific. A report is to be submitted to Congress in June. According to diplomatic sources on Wednesday, the U.S. Defense Department is compiling the report under this year's National Defense Authorization Act. Section 1046 of the act stipulates that the defense secretary in consultation with the secretary of state is to report on the issue "to ensure the presence" in the West Pacific "of a robust conventional and nuclear capability, including a forward-deployed nuclear capability... in response to the ballistic missile and nuclear weapons developments of North Korea and the other belligerent actions North Korea has made against allies" of the U.S. Although it does not name South Korea, the West Pacific includes South Korea, Japan and Guam. The Obama administration has opposed the deployment of so-called tactical nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula because the U.S. nuclear umbrella already in place is enough to defend South Korea and because the deployment is likely to upset China. Observers say rising demands within Congress for more pressure on North Korea could sway the government. But in Seoul, Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Tae-young told reporters Thursday that the government here is not considering the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons and that Washington agrees. [Tactical nuclear weapons] [Buildup]
• PROPAGANDA, FIRE-THRASHING, AND THE RISK OF NORTH KOREAN FIRST-USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN KOREA
  by Peter Hayes and Roger Cavazos 11 April, 2013 I. Introduction In this report, Peter Hayes and Roger Cavazos “examine one North Korean account of the limited war it might fight to occupy Seoul, including the use of nuclear weapons or other unspecified WMD to neutralize American forces. We find that while this account makes for fine propaganda, when viewed through the lens of conventional capabilities, the plan is mainly smoke and mirrors. Nonetheless, if this account is indicative of the belief system of North Korea’s leadership, then it is truly alarming. It suggests that North Korea still adheres to military strategies and tactics that failed in the Korean War, and would fail again, only faster, should war break out in Korea. Moreover, it suggests a fantastic belief that somehow early escalation to nuclear war could make possible a conventional pre-emptive attack on Seoul.” [Response]
• Former US diplomat suggests sending an envoy to North Korea
  Posted on : Apr.11,2013 16:07 KST Evans Revere says denuclearization isn’t realistic, but that efforts toward dialogue should nevertheless be made By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent A former US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs called for the US to send a special envoy to North Korea to send the message that it is ready for dialogue. Evans Revere said the US should send a senior envoy on behalf of President Barack Obama to show its willingness to reach an agreement on matters such as denuclearization and the normalization of relations between Pyongyang and Washington. [Engagement]
• North Korea: Turning in the Wrong Direction
  By Alexandre Mansourov 10 April 2013 When Kim Jong Un assumed power, the world saw him as a young new leader who, given his education in Europe, might be reform-minded. Just over a year later, he comes across more like a reckless bully. Since the beginning of 2013, the security situation on the Korean peninsula has taken a dramatic turn for the worse, following North Korea’s satellite launch in December 2012, its third nuclear test in February 2013, and the passage of UN Security Council Resolutions 2087 and 2094, which condemned both tests and imposed new international sanctions on the North Korean regime. Pyongyang’s nuclear breakout has emboldened its young and untested leader to set aside decades-old security commitments made by his predecessors and to issue repeated threats of preemptive nuclear strikes against the North’s enemies—the US, South Korea, and Japan. Why is Pyongyang engaging in such reckless and confrontational behavior? Is there anything Seoul and Washington can do to alter this stance? Or is this mission impossible? [Buildup] [Agency]
• Korea: B2 bombers offering a path to peace?
  Who is provoking whom? A look behind the rhetorical war games between Washington and Pyongyang. Last Modified: 09 Apr 2013 11:59 Pepe Escobar Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times. His latest book is named Obama Does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). Missile defence is on the up - soon there will be 44 interceptors along the Pacific Coast, instead of the current 30 [AP] Based on the ear-splitting levels of hysteria deployed by American networks, mighty superpower Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is about to bomb the poor, undefended United States of America into the Stone Age. Oops, sorry, that was the mighty superpower itself shocking and awing Baghdad 10 years ago. And still, with the DPRK holding eight nuclear warheads against Iran's zero, I repeat, zero; and with the DPRK even threatening to nuke the US (which they can't) as opposed to no such threats from Iran, the usual Washington armchair warriors have their chattering ballistic missiles all pointed towards… Iran. Those poor defensive bombers Let's try to inject a little bit of sanity into such voluminous nonsense. Essentially we just need this Wall Street Journal piece (paywall), where the proverbial, unnamed White House "officials" leaked to a Rupert Murdoch-owned operation that this whole thing was about provoking Pyongyang. Anybody with minimal reading skills and an IQ not relevant to sub-zoology had already figured that out at least two weeks ago. [Buildup] [Playbook]
• North Korea’s Justifiable Anger
  Does Obama Want More War? by STANSFIELD SMITH The corporate media reduces the DPRK (North Korea) to the Kim family and prefaces their names with the terms “madman”, “evil” and “brutal”. Such vilifications of foreign leaders are used here not only to signify they are target for US overthrow. They are meant to intimidate and isolate anti-war activists as being out in left field for ever wanting to oppose a war against countries ruled by “madmen” – be they Saddam, Fidel, Hugo Chavez, Ahmadinejad, Qaddaffi. Yet to a sensible person, it is crazy that the US, with nuclear weapons thousands of miles from home, in South Korea, denies North Korea has a right to have its own nuclear weapons on its own land – particularly when the North says it is developing nuclear weapons only as a deterrent because the US won’t take its own weapons out of the Korean peninsula. Missing in what passes for discourse on the DPRK in the corporate media is that the US was conducting month-long war maneuvers last March in Korea, now extended into April, using stealth bombers, undetectable by radar, capable of carrying nuclear weapons. And this year these are not “deterrent” war maneuvers, but “pre-emptive war” maneuvers. [US NK policy] [Buildup]
• In this nuclear standoff, it's the US that's the rogue state
  The use of threats and isolation against Iran and North Korea is a bizarre, perilous way to conduct foreign relations Jonathan Steele The Guardian, Tuesday 9 April 2013 21.00 BST 'The alleged crises over North Korea and Iran are just not serious enough to warrant the classroom language of ­shunning and punishment.' Illustration by Belle Mellor By coincidence two clashes over nuclear issues are hitting the headlines together. North Korea and Iran have both had sanctions imposed by foreign governments, and when they refuse to "behave properly" they are submitted to "isolation" and put in the corner until they are ready to say sorry and change their conduct. If not, corporal punishment will be administered, since they have been given fair warning by the enforcers that "all options are on the table". It's a bizarre way to run international relations, one we continue to follow at our peril. For one thing, it is riddled with hypocrisy, and not just because states that have hundreds of nuclear weapons are bullying states that have few or none. The hypocrisy is worse than that. If it is offensive for North Korea to talk of launching a nuclear strike at the United States (a threat that is empty because the country has no system to deliver the few nuclear weapons that it has), how is it less offensive for the US to warn Iran that it will be bombed if it fails to stop its nuclear research? [Double standards] [US NK policy] [Exhortation]
• North Korea: What’s really happening
  Saturday, Apr 6, 2013 07:02 AM +1300 Are we primed for war? Here's everything you need to know about our current -- and past -- relationship with DPRK By Tim Shorrock Before getting to those questions, everybody should take a deep breath. First, as anyone familiar with North Korea knows, any attack by the DPRK on the U.S. or its allies would be suicide for the country of 30 million: It would be met by a relentless counterattack by the most powerful military force the world has ever seen. Threats sound ominous, but at this point that’s all they seem to be: threats, designed to trigger a response in Washington that, in the mind of Kim and his military advisers, might lead to direct talks. (Remember his plaintive request to Dennis Rodman? “Obama should call me.”) [US NK policy]
• Kerry to seek diplomatic 'off-ramp' for North Korea
  By Elise Labott When he visits Asia later this week, Secretary of State John Kerry will discuss potential diplomatic incentives for North Korea once it stops its bellicose rhetoric and threatening behavior, senior administration officials tell CNN. Officials warn any resumption of talks with North Korea is premature, and could only come once Pyongyang adheres to its international obligations. But they say Kerry hopes the new emphasis on diplomacy will give the North Koreans a face-saving way to de-escalate the current situation.
  The shape of a possible eventual deal, the sources said, is likely to take the form of previous attempts at satisfying what the United States sees as North Korea's ultimate goal of survival, which could include security guarantees, a road map to a peace treaty and a lifting of sanctions. [US NK negotiations] [Engagement] [Inversion] [Buildup]
• How Obama is Creating a Crisis on the Korean Peninsula
  What’s Annoying the North Koreans?
  by GREGORY ELICH Relations between the United States and North Korea have reached a nadir, and in most Western media reports it is the seemingly irrational harsh rhetoric emanating from North Korea that is to blame. Inexplicably, we are told, North Korea has chosen to raise tensions. What is missing from this image of hostile North Korean behavior and blameless American victimhood is context. As is often the case, the media present events in an isolated fashion as if arising suddenly and without cause. One does not have to look very far back in time to discern what is troubling the North Koreans. In recent months, the Obama Administration has taken a number of steps that the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the official name for North Korea) has perceived as threatening. The first step on the path to worsened relations came in October 2012, when the United States granted South Korea an exemption under the Missile Control Technology Regime, permitting it to extend the range of its ballistic missiles so that they could cover the entire territory of the DPRK. i As a result, there was one set of terms that applied to every nation which had joined the treaty, and a different set applying only to South Korea, clearly for the purpose of targeting its neighbor to the north. [US NK policy] [Buildup]
• "We learned the lesson in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan: be strong."
  What North Koreans Think
  by STANSFIELD SMITH I recently returned from a late March trip to North Korea [Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, DPRK], along with 45 others, through Koryo Tours. On that tour I had the opportunity to discuss with the Korean tour guides their views on the current situation. I only recall the DPRK view mentioned here once in the corporate media, when Dennis Rodman returned with a message from new President Kim Jong. The message was “I don’t want war, call me.” Nobel Peace Prize winning President Obama refused to accept it, evidently preferring an escalating threat of a regional nuclear war to talking. I asked my Korean tours guides to be interviewed so I could present their views to US people. [EWA]
• White Paper Reveals Danger of US-S. Korea War Drills
  Pyongyang, April 8 (KCNA) -- The National Reunification Institute Monday released a white paper revealing the gravity and danger of the war drills being held by the U.S. imperialists and the south Korean regime to prove who is the provoker increasing the danger of a nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula. The white paper said: The U.S. and south Korea have kept up staging war drills against the DPRK for six decades since the ceasefire. The U.S. imperialists and south Korean warmongers waged more than 18,000 north-targeted war drills and military trainings in south Korea since the ceasefire. It is the number that was officially made public. The Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military drills have been staged every year in south Korea, involving hundreds of thousands of troops including the U.S. aggression troops in south Korea, south Korean puppet army, U.S. forces from its mainland, Pacific region and Japan and even troops of its allies such as Britain, Australia, Colombia, Canada and Denmark.
• North Korea diplomatic channel loses its luster
  By Colum Lynch, Tuesday, April 9, 11:26 AM UNITED NATIONS — Han Song Ryol, the North Korean diplomat who serves as the principal liaison between Washington and Pyongyang, has spent the better part of the past two decades exploring the prospects for a normalized relationship between his country and the United States. From his perch at the North Korean mission to the United Nations on Manhattan’s East Side, Han oversees Pyongyang’s end of the New York channel, a diplomatic conduit that was established in the early 1990s and that, in a more hopeful era, paved the way for the first visit by a high-ranking North Korean official to Washington. But the importance of the New York channel has been noticeably diminished over the years, according to diplomats. Today, with the United States and North Korea at a standoff and the threat of a fourth nuclear test by the North looming, Han’s channel has been reduced to a diplomatic P.O. box that passes occasional messages between capitals and arranges travel for VIP visits to Pyongyang. [US NK negotiations] [Inversion]
• North Korea readies missile launch as fears of a covert cyberwar grow
  As Pyongyang moves ballistic weapons to the coast, it may also be planning to disable computer networks in the US Justin McCurry in Seoul The Observer, Saturday 6 April 2013 22.18 BST South Korean soldier at border. A South Korean soldier patrols at the crossing to the jointly managed Kaesong industrial complex on the border. Photograph: Lee Jae-Won/Reuters South Korea is bracing for a protracted standoff with the North that could include at least one missile test-launch and a border skirmish. [Cyberwar] [Media]
• U.S. delaying missile test as Korea tensions rise
  By Lolita C. Baldor, Published: April 7 WASHINGTON — Amid mounting tension with North Korea, the Pentagon has delayed an intercontinental ballistic missile test that had been planned for this month at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, a senior defense official told the Associated Press on Saturday. The official said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel decided to put off the long-planned Minuteman 3 test until next month because of concerns the launch could be misinterpreted and exacerbate the Korean crisis. Hagel made the decision Friday, the official said. . The test was not connected to the U.S.-South Korean military exercises that have been going on in that region and have stoked North Korean anger, fueling an escalation in threatening actions and rhetoric. [Buildup]
• N.Korea Urges Embassies to Consider Evacuating
  North Korea is urging foreign embassies to consider evacuating their missions in Pyongyang due to rising tensions on the Korean peninsula. Russia and Britain confirmed they received a request Friday from the North for their embassy staff to evacuate, but that they have no immediate plans to withdraw. An official at Russia's embassy in Pyongyang, Denis Samsonov, said the situation in North Korea's capital is calm. Britain also said North Korea warned embassies and international organizations in the country it cannot guarantee their safety after April 10 in the "event of a conflict."
• N.Korea Keeps Up the Bellicose Rhetoric
  North Korea on Thursday threatened to "smash the U.S." with its own "cutting-edge" nuclear devices that have been made "smaller, lighter and diversified." The statement from the North Korean Army's General Staff described recent joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises as a "nuclear war exercise targeting us." "The merciless operation of its revolutionary armed forces in this regard has been finally examined and ratified," it said. "We formally inform the White House and Pentagon" of this. [Response] [Military balance]
• North Korea warns embassies over safety following missile threat
  Pyongyang authorities have advised foreign officials to leave the capital following the positioning of missiles on the east coast Justin McCurry in Seoul and Ewen MacAskill in Washington guardian.co.uk, Friday 5 April 2013 18.53 BST North Korea has warned foreign embassies in Pyongyang that it cannot guarantee their safety from the threat of conflict after 10 April, and has advised them to consider pulling their staff out of the capital. The message to diplomats came as tensions in the region continued to escalate despite international efforts to defuse the situation.
• Kim Jong-un has made a decent fist of rattling the US
  Beneath bloodcurdling threats of nuclear war, the north Korean leader's agenda is simple: survival Justin McCurry The Guardian, Friday 5 April 2013 22.20 BST Kim Jong-un The North Korean leader’s motivation is not war, but regime survival, defectors in the South have told the Guardian. Photograph: Kns/AFP/Getty Images At the end of a week in which North Korean leader Kim Jong-un shattered the illusion that his rule would mark a departure from bellicosity, signs are emerging that there may be method in his apparent madness. His motivation is not war, but simple regime survival, top-level defectors in the South have told the Guardian. And he wants his future, says one of the regime's former fundraisers, to be guaranteed by largesse from the same country the North recently threatened with nuclear annihilation: the US. [Media]
• US peace gesture presses NK to respond
  2013-04-05 17:09 North Korean officials wait by the docks along the bank of the Amrok River (Yalu River) in the North Korean town of Sinuiju across from the Chinese city of Dandong, Thursday. / AFP-Yonhap Pyongyang in big dilemma not to show weakness while pursuing nuclear status By Chung Min-uck Kurt Campbell, former U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, speaks during a forum hosted by the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, Thursday. He said there are clear signs of a subtle change in China’s approach toward North Korea, which may affect calculations on regional security conditions. / Yonhap The United States has tried to cool its one-upmanship with North Korea. Now it is up to Pyongyang whether to take this opportunity or press ahead with the game of chicken. The problem is the North may take the lull in the U.S. show of force as a sign of weakness. The U.S. State Department, via its Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, said Thursday the current shoring up of defense postures by both sides “does not need to get hotter” and that Washington “can change course” if Pyongyang comes back to compliance with its international obligation of denuclearization. [US NK policy] [US NK Negotiations] [Preconditions]
• North Korean Nukes: How Worried Should We Be, and What Is Kim Jong Un Thinking?
  By Christina Larson April 03, 2013 On Tuesday, North Korea announced it would be restarting its shuttered Yongbyon nuclear reactor and nuclear weapons program—prompting United Nations head Ban Ki-moon to tell reporters yesterday that the North Korea “crisis has gone too far” (and prompting Reuters columnist Jack Shafer to round up in a blog “the enduring clichés of North Korea coverage”). For a quick reality check, David Kang, professor of international relations and business at the University of Southern California and a co-author of Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies, shared thoughts over e-mail on how to interpret the news—and how worried we should be. [Conditionality] [Media]
• Missed Opportunity in North Korea
  In response to a query, here is my take on North Korea’s seemingly outlandish behavior (I might also direct interested readers’ attention to my article Big Bang Theory in North Korea in the March 2013 edition of CounterPunch Magazine—subscribe at www.counterpunch.org--which covers the issue in more detail): 1. China’s influence on North Korea’s nuclear policy is minimal. The DPRK knows that the PRC values North Korea both as a buffer and as a profitable hinterland for cheap labor and raw materials that it is completely unwilling to cede to South Korea. Therefore, the PRC will not push the DPRK to the wall about its nukes. 2. It is understood both by the United States and the DPRK that, absent a regime implosion countenanced by the PRC, North Korea will never discard its nuclear weapons arsenal, given the negative examples of Iraq (no nukes) and, under the Obama administration, Libya (denuclearized completely in accordance with US demands but subjected to US backed regime change anyway). 3. However, beyond the genuine security risks of a nuclear North Korea and the theoretical US commitment to nuclear non-proliferation (the somewhat shaky basis for President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize) there are immediate and compelling geostrategic reasons why the United States finds it virtually impossible to accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons power. With a nuclear DPRK, there are increasing calls within South Korea and Japan to establish independent nuclear deterrents and, with them, independent security policies that would undermine the US claims to serve as the indispensable, arms-race-averting superpower in the Western Pacific…and call into question the strategic validity of the “pivot to Asia” which is so dear to the heart of the Obama administration. Therefore, whenever North Korea churns out another nuclear provocation, the US is compelled to respond with a lot of high profile, aggrieved bellowing and posturing.
  4. The DPRK is desperate to break out of its isolation and its exploitation as a Chinese satrapy and reach out to the United States, much as Burma did. [US NK policy]
• N.Korea Moves Missile to East Coast
  North Korea has recently moved to the east coast a medium-range ballistic missile capable of hitting Guam, reports said. The Asahi Shimbun daily reported that a U.S. reconnaissance satellite detected a cargo train with an object presumed to be a KN-08 missile moving to the east coast. The missile is believed to have a range of 5,000-6,000 km. But South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin in a session of the National Assembly's Defense Committee denied it was a KN-08. Instead, the South believes it is a missile of the older Musudan type, which has a range of some 3,000-4,000 km. Since 2008, the North has deployed about 50 Musudan missiles ready for warfare, but none has been test-launched yet. [Intelligence]
• North Korea missile movement detected
  Posted on : Apr.5,2013 16:17 KSTModified on : Apr.5,2013 16:39 KST Pyongyang apparently targeting the US base on Guam in its latest show of force By Kim Kyu-won, staff reporter North Korea is once again firmly warning the US, whose has mobilized high-tech strategic weaponry in military exercises with South Korea. Meanwhile, signs were detected of the North moving what is believed to be an intermediate-range Musudan missile to a location on the East Sea coast. An Apr. 4 statement by a spokesperson for the (North) Korean People’s Army Chief of Staff accused the US causing the current tensions on the Korean Peninsula. “Responsibility for this entire threatening situation lies fully with the White House and the Pentagon, which is attempting to violate our sovereign rights and trigger a collapse in our regime,” the statement said, adding that the country would continue taking strong measures to prepare for a possible military confrontation as declared previously by the Supreme Command.
• US countering North Korean threat with expanded missile system
  Posted on : Apr.5,2013 16:25 KST On November 22, 2005 a successful launch was achieved of a THAAD interceptor missile. This test starts a new round of THAAD developmental testing that builds on the investment from earlier THAAD tests, which included two consecutive target intercepts in 1999. It is the first missile defense system that is capable of intercepting a target missile both inside and outside the atmosphere. Missile interception system being brought to Guam for the first time to defend US residents and interests in the area By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent The US Department of Defense announced plans on Apr. 3 to introduce a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) intermediate-range missile interception network to beef up its defense posture against the North Korean ballistic missile threat. This would be the first time the system has been deployed outside US territory. In a statement that day, the department said the system would be positioned in Guam within the next few weeks as a preventive measure that will bolster the US defense posture. [Missile defense]
• U.S. Should Ponder over Grave Situation: Spokesman
  Pyongyang, April 4 (KCNA) -- The spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People's Army (KPA) issued the following statement Thursday: A tough-and-go situation is prevailing on the Korean Peninsula. U.S. formation of B-52s based on Guam flew into the sky above south Korea all of a sudden to stage a drill under the simulated conditions of a nuclear strike at the DPRK and formations of F-22s took off from Japan proper and Okinawa and were deployed in the Osan air force base in south Korea to watch for a chance to make a surprise strike. B-2s flew into the air over waters of the West Sea of Korea from the U.S. mainland and nuclear-powered guided missile submarines and guided missile destroyers of the U.S. Navy which had been operating in waters of the Western Pacific are busy sailing in the West and East Seas of Korea. [Buildup]
• Korean War Games
  Bruce Cumings April 3, 2013 | This article appeared in the April 22, 2013 edition of The Nation. North Koreans attend a rally against the U.S. and South Korea in Nampo, North Korea, April 3, 2013, in this picture released by the North's official KCNA news agency in Pyongyang on Wednesday. The Korean characters on the sign read, "Safeguard to the death". Reuters/KCNA North Korea greeted 2013 with a bang (or several of them), not the dying whimper that Beltway officials and pundits had hoped for—and have been predicting ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall. In December, Pyongyang launched a long-range missile that, after many failures dating to 1998, got the country’s first satellite rotating around the earth. A couple of months later, North Korea detonated its third atomic bomb. Then, as the annual US–South Korean war games got going and a new president took office in Seoul, the North let loose a farrago of mind-bending rhetoric, bellowing that events were inching toward war, renouncing the Korean War armistice of 1953, and threatening to hit either the United States or South Korea with a pre-emptive nuclear attack. In between, Chicago Bulls great Dennis Rodman brought his stainless-steel-studded, tattooed and multi-hued six-foot-eight frame to sit beside “young lad” (as the vice chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff described the North’s new leader) Kim Jong-un at a basketball game in Pyongyang. As the saying goes, you can’t make this stuff up. [US NK policy]
• DPRK’s “State of War” Declaration Is a Faulty Translation: Not an Official Policy Statement from Kim Jung Un
  By Scott Creighton Global Research, April 04, 2013 4th Media and Willyloman.wordpress.com “from that time” becomes “from this time on” and “from this moment“… little change, big difference As much as our leaders would like them to have taken the bait, North Korea has not declared war on the South or the U.S. in response to our unprecedented provocations. So when all else fails, leave it to yellow journalism like this piece of work from the New York Times or this obviously Photoshopped image that came out this past week. The much touted “state of war” declaration is not a declaration of war from Kim Jung Un but rather a statement of support for whatever decision he has too make from the “the government, political parties and organizations of the DPRK.” It claims only they will declare themselves in a state of war WHEN their leader makes that decision showing they are completely behind him. It is a statement of support from the people and perhaps a warning to the South that the North will not fold under their attack. But not a declaration of war from Kim Jung Un. [Media] [Disinformation]
• Amid tangle of lies (Cheonan, Cyber Attacks, Photoshopped War Plans) the New York Times is Warmongering Again
  Posted on March 30, 2013 by willyloman by Scott Creighton History is a funny thing. It can teach or it can kill. The trick is remembering and by doing so exposing the motivation lurking ever so darkly behind the facade of all the news that’s fit to print.. Over at the “liberal” New York Times, they’re warmongering again. Not uncharted ground for the storied publication to be sure. They’ve been here before, many times. But today they’re offering up one lie after another about the recent history of North Korea surely with malice in their hearts and regime change on their minds. The only way to succeed in a corrupt and demonstrative world is to pluck out one’s own eyes and forge heroically ahead in the self-imposed darkness side by side with your Vichy colleagues . And honestly, it seems almost like the Times is putting forward what would amount to a not-so-veiled threat of future violence and the promise that it will be unquestioningly blamed on North Korea .. again. The article is called “Pynongyang Blusters and U.S. Worries About Quieter Risk” and from start to finish it’s loaded with deliberate lies… lies that are proven deceit, if you only know the history of the world we live in. [Media] [Disinformation]
• North Korea’s ‘State of War’ May Be Mistranslation - Report
  MOSCOW, March 30 (RIA Novosti) – Recent media reports that North Korea had declared a “state of war” with South Korea might have been based on a mistranslation, Russian media reported on Saturday. International media reported the North Korean statement, published on the country's state news agency KCNA, as reading that North Korea “is entering a state of war” with South Korea, and that all issues between the neighboring countries will be handled in accordance with wartime protocol. On Saturday, the AFP news agency cited the same North Korean statement as saying "The long-standing situation of the Korean peninsula being neither at peace nor at war is finally over." Later on Saturday, however, Russian media reported that a faulty translation might have been to blame for this apparent uptick in bellicose rhetoric. The North Korean original statement apparently stressed that the country would act "in accordance with wartime laws" if attacked, and that "from that time, North-South relations will enter a state of war."
• March 29, 2013 Whoes "Provocative Action"?
  March 29 2013 - Hagel says U.S. has to take North Korean threats seriously Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Thursday that North Korea's provocative actions and belligerent tone had "ratcheted up the danger" on the Korean peninsula, ... March 28 2013 - US sends nuclear-capable B-2 bombers to SKorea The U.S military says two nuclear-capable B-2 bombers have completed a training mission in South Korea ... ... The U.S. says the B-2 stealth bombers flew from a U.S. air base and dropped munitions on a South Korean island range before returning home.
  Is Obama's plan to prevent the planting of a new crop in North Korea? Even Reuters is concerned: Washington's decision to fly B-52 and stealth bomber missions over Korea this week in a warning to Pyongyang risks pushing the North into staging an attack on the South just as its threats may have been on the cusp of dying down. ... With the looming April 15 celebrations to commemorate the birthday of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the current ruler, and large chunks of North Korea's peasant army due to head to farms for spring planting, the crisis may have been lurching to a close before the American bombers' flights on Thursday. ... If it was not for the American bomber flights, North Korea may have been willing to tone down tensions around now because of the spring thaw. This is the time of year its peasant army helps with planting, a key task in a country that suffers from perennial food shortages. While that doesn't affect missile units and the core elite troops, experts in Seoul say that large parts of the North's 1.2 million-strong armed forces spend about a month on the farm from mid-April onwards. [B52] [Buildup] [Playbook]
• The North Korea Deal That Wasn't
  I heard Pyongyang make a real offer -- but the Obama White House didn't even listen. BY JOEL WIT | APRIL 2, 2013 Given the torrent of threats and insults hurtling out of Pyongyang these days, North Korea's announcement Tuesday that it intends to restart facilities at its Yongbyon nuclear installation should come as no surprise. One of those facilities, a plutonium production reactor partially disabled under an agreement with the George W. Bush administration, should eventually be able to produce at least eight more nuclear weapons, adding significantly to Pyongyang's existing small inventory. What will come as a surprise is that, until recently, the North had been willing to agree to steps that could have prevented that outcome but was ignored by the United States and South Korea. [Yongbyon] [US NK negotiations] [Renege]
• U.S. Dials Back on Korean Show of Force
  Administration 'Playbook' Outlined Publicized Exercises, but Officials Change Course Over Worries of North's Response. By ADAM ENTOUS and JULIAN E. BARNES Kurt Campbell, head of the Asia Group and former Asst. Sec of State for East Asia & Pacific, talks with WSJ's Jerry Seib and David Wessel about what's behind North Korea's recent actions and why the U.S. has responded with so much muscle. . WASHINGTON—After a high-visibility display of military power aimed at deterring North Korean provocations, the White House is dialing back the aggressive posture amid fears that it could inadvertently trigger an even deeper crisis, according to U.S. officials. . Julian Barnes reports the U.S. plans to soften its tone in making public comments about North Korea for fear that, if caught off-guard, Kim Jong Eun could take sudden and rash action. Photo: AP Images. . The U.S. is putting a pause to what several officials described as a step-by-step plan the Obama administration approved earlier this year, dubbed "the playbook," that laid out the sequence and publicity plans for U.S. shows of force during annual war games with South Korea. The playbook included well-publicized flights in recent weeks near North Korea by nuclear-capable B-52 and stealth B-2 bombers, as well as advanced F-22 warplanes. [Playbook] [Buildup]
• Washington’s “Playbook” for Provoking North Korea
  By Stephen Gowans Global Research, April 05, 2013 In an April 3 Wall Street Journal article, “U.S. dials back on Korean show of force,” reporters Adam Entous and Julian E. Barnes revealed that the White House approved a detailed plan, called ‘the playbook,’ to ratchet up tension with North Korea during the Pentagon’s war games with South Korea. [Buildup] [Playbook]
• U.S. scripts North Korea 'playbook'
  By Barbara Starr The Obama administration established a "playbook" of pre-scripted actions and responses to the last several weeks of North Korean rhetoric and provocations, an administration official said Thursday. The plan, the official explained, basically details "if the adversary does this, we do this, we say this." [Playbook] [Joint US military] [Buildup]
• Obama’s “playbook” and the threat of nuclear war in Asia
  5 April 2013 The Obama administration has engaged in reckless provocations against North Korea over the past month, inflaming tensions in North East Asia and heightening the risks of war. Its campaign has been accompanied by the relentless demonising of the North Korean regime and claims that the US military build-up was purely “defensive”. However, the Wall Street Journal and CNN revealed yesterday that the Pentagon was following a step-by-step plan, dubbed “the playbook”, drawn up months in advance and approved by the Obama administration earlier in the year. The flights to South Korea by nuclear capable B-52 bombers on March 8 and March 26, by B-2 bombers on March 28, and by advanced F-22 Raptor fighters on March 31 were all part of the script. [Buildup] [Playbook]
• Statement in Response to U.S. Simulated Nuclear Attacks on North Korea and Cyber Attacks in North and South Korea
  American Friends Service Committee | April 2, 2013 U.S. flies nuclear capable B2 Stealth bombers in practice bombing run over South Korea on March 28, 2013. Shin Young-Keun/Yonhap, via Associated Press. The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) has long opposed military actions on the Korean peninsula that serve to deepen and prolong a conflict that has persisted since the Korean War. This month another round of military actions and escalations by all parties are now underway in the region, including repeated simulated U.S. nuclear attacks against North Korea by B-2 and B-52 bombers in the midst of ongoing U.S.-South Korean war games. We call once again for an end to such provocative actions and a concerted effort to de-escalate and resolve the longstanding regional conflict that has taken a deep, generations-long toll on the region. Such simulations and the history of U.S. nuclear threats during past Korean crises contributed to the development of North Korea's nuclear arsenal and its recent nuclear test, threatening to ignite a regional nuclear arms race. Military threats made routinely by North and South Korea as well as recent and possibly related cyber-attacks against North Korean media outlets and against South Korean broadcasters and banks further escalate the conflict. Provocations of this sort - routine or otherwise - can too easily lead to miscalculations, and generate fears and passions that make it difficult for political leaders to respond with necessary caution. We are sobered by the memory of how such miscalculations have triggered cataclysmic wars in the past and even brought nuclear powers to the brink of all-out war. [Buildup] [Peace effort]
• Kim Jong Un is owning the media right now
  Posted By John Hudson Thursday, April 4, 2013 - 10:50 AM Share Kim Jong Un may be a dangerous, totalitarian man-child, but he knows how to work the press. For the last 30 days, the 30-year-old leader has manipulated global news wires in a way even his late father would envy. In the month of April, web interest in "North Korea" climbed higher than it has at any other point in the last decade, according to Google Trends. (Search queries for news articles on the subject experienced the same meteoric rise.) In the last 30 days, a LexisNexis search of major newspapers shows a 49-percent increase in articles about the isolated Hermit Kingdom compared with the previous month. For weeks, the top hour of cable and radio newscasts has trumpeted the latest bombastic threat from the regime. [Media]
• The Dangers of War: What is Behind the US-North Korea Conflict?
  By Jack A. Smith Global Research, April 01, 2013 What’s happening between the U.S. and North Korea to produce such headlines this week as “Korean Tensions Escalate,” and “North Korea Threatens U.S.”? The New York Times reported March 30: “This week, North Korea’s young leader, Kim Jung-un, ordered his underlings to prepare for a missile attack on the United States. He appeared at a command center in front of a wall map with the bold, unlikely title, ‘Plans to Attack the Mainland U.S.’ Earlier in the month, his generals boasted of developing a ‘Korean-style’ nuclear warhead that could be fitted atop a long-range missile.” The U.S. is well aware North Korea’s statements are not backed up by sufficient military power to implement its rhetorical threats, but appears to be escalating tensions all the same. What’s up? I’ll have to go back a bit to explain the situation. [US NK policy] [Buildup
• The Only Way To Find Out North Korea's Intentions Is To Talk
  By Roger Cavazos, Peter Hayes , Associate of the Nautilus Institute, Director of Nautilus Institute April 4, 2013 "If the U.S. imperialists brandish nuclear weapons, we ... will by means of diversified, precision nuclear strike …turn not just Seoul, but even Washington, into a sea of fire." Thus wrote a North Korean official on March 6. This threat against cities was reinforced by another on March 7 that the North might "carry out preemptive nuclear strikes on the strongholds of the aggressors." Are these threats serious? A threat requires intent plus capability. North Korea's goal surely is survival, not suicide. [US NK policy] [Engagement]
• A rational approach to managing nuclear weapons: Deterrence
  By Walter Pincus, Published: April 4 Is the United States entering a period in which it has to learn to live with “the bomb,” as in the spread of nuclear weapons? Compare the apparent contradiction between the way Washington is dealing with North Korea and Iran and the effect this could have on other countries. North Korea not only has the capability to produce nuclear weapons (it has conducted three underground tests), but it has also stated an intention to build them. At last month’s plenary meeting of the North Korean Central Committee of the Workers’ Party, “a new strategic line was laid down on simultaneously pushing forward economic construction and the building of nuclear-armed forces,” said a spokesman for North Korea’s General Department of Atomic Energy. In April 2009, Pyongyang threw out inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency. Since then there has been no monitoring of those facilities. North Korea has been subjected to increasing economic sanctions, but those efforts have not slowed its progress toward a deliverable nuclear weapon. Yet I haven’t heard any official in Washington, Seoul, Tokyo or Beijing talk about attacking reactors at Yongbyon, where plutonium or uranium are being refined — or any secret facilities that may be making highly enriched uranium. [US NK policy] [Iran] [Engagement]
• DPRK to take 'counteractions' against US
  Xinhua, April 4, 2013 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Thursday said it would "take powerful practical military counteractions" against the United States following the latter's provocative actions in the past days, reported KCNA, the DPRK's official news agency. KCNA on Thursday ran the full text of a statement issued by the spokesman for DPRK's General Staff of the Korean People's Army ( KPA) in charge of all operations, which said the KPA Supreme Command had approved the decision. "Days and months have passed on this land amid the constant danger of war but never had the whole Korean Peninsula been exposed to such danger of a nuclear war as today," said the statement, pledging that the DPRK's army and people "are all out" to defend the sovereignty of DPRK and to "prevent a nuclear war of the U.S." [Response]
• The chances of dialogue between N. Korea and the US
  Posted on : Apr.4,2013 14:30 KSTModified on : Apr.4,2013 14:34 KST South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Yun Byung-se (left) at a press conference after a bilateral meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry at the Department of State headquarters in Washington DC, Apr. 2. (AFP/Yonhap News) Washington still reluctant to pursue dialogue, but there are hopes around new top diplomat John Kerry By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent The tense situation on the Korean Peninsula is drawing major attention from the international media, with some raising the possibility of a military clash between North and South. The tensions have been front-page news for more and more newspapers recently, while news TV programs have also given the issue major coverage. The situation now could be enough to push Washington into taking steps toward dialogue with Pyongyang. [US NK negotiation] [Engagement] [Precondition]
• U.S. Chemical Battalion's Redeployment in S. Korea Condemned by CPRK Secretariat
  Pyongyang, April 3 (KCNA) -- The 23rd Chemical Battalion of the U.S. Army based in Seattle City, Washington State was recently redeployed in the U.S. Second Division in south Korea. It was reported that an official ceremony in this regard will taken place in Uijongbu, Kyonggi Province on April 4. The battalion was stationed in the U.S. military base in Chilgok, North Kyongsang Province as it belonged to the 19th battle area support command of the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces till 2004. It was withdrawn to the U.S. mainland. This battalion mercilessly killed many people in the Korean war and other wars. The Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK) in its information bulletin No. 1028 on Wednesday said that the redeployment of the battalion in south Korea is a revelation of the heinous criminal attempt to inflict nuclear disasters and holocaust of a bio-chemical war on the Korean nation, another unpardonable provocation to the DPRK. The information bulletin went on: During the Korean war, the U.S. indiscriminately used germ and chemical weapons against the Korean people, stunning the world. [CBW]
• 'US won't accept nuclear NK'
  By Chung Min-uck The United States said Tuesday it has no intention of accepting North Korea as a nuclear state. "The bottom line is very simply that what (North Korean leader) Kim Jong-un has been choosing to do is provocative, it is dangerous, reckless and the United States will not accept the DPRK (North Korea) as a nuclear state," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said after talking with South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se in Washington, D.C. "And I reiterate again the United States will do what is necessary to defend ourselves and defend our allies, Korea and Japan. We are fully prepared and capable of doing so, and I think the DPRK understands that," Kerry said. [Preconditions]
• U.S. to deploy anti-missile system to Guam
  KCNA/EPA - A picture released by the North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on March 29 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un convening an urgent operation meeting at an undisclosed location, in which he ordered strategic rocket forces to be on standby to strike U.S. and South Korean targets at any time. By Karen DeYoung, Thursday, April 4, 8:48 AM The United States will deploy a sophisticated anti-missile defense system to Guam in response to North Korean threats to U.S. military bases in the Pacific, the Pentagon said Wednesday. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD) is a land-based system designed to destroy incoming short-, medium- and intermediate-range missiles by crashing into them in the air. Only two batteries of the system, produced by Lockheed Martin, are currently deployed, both at Fort Bliss, Tex. In the latest sign of escalating tensions with North Korea, the Pentagon said it will send an advanced ballistic missile defense system to Guam in the coming weeks, as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called Pyongyang a real and clear threat. In the latest sign of escalating tensions with North Korea, the Pentagon said it will send an advanced ballistic missile defense system to Guam in the coming weeks, as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called Pyongyang a real and clear threat. A Pentagon statement said the system should arrive in Guam “in the coming weeks as a precautionary move to strengthen our regional defense posture against the North Korean regional ballistic missile threat.” [Missile defense]
• US deploys 2nd defense warship to western Pacific
  Xinhua, April 3, 2013 The U.S. Defense Department on Tuesday announced that a second missile defense warship has taken position in western Pacific. Pentagon Spokesman George Little made the announcement at a press briefing. He said after Aegis guided-missile destroyer USS John McCain, another Aegis destroyer, the USS Decatur, had arrived at a "pre-determined location in the western Pacific," and they " will be poised to respond to any missile threats to our allies or our territory." Little said the destroyers are "in the western Pacific to perform a missile defense mission," adding the U.S. Pacific Command "regularly deploys a mix of assets in the region to respond to missile threats, and we're cognizant of the missile threats" from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). The deployment came after the United States conducted overflights of nuclear-capable B-2 stealth bombers to the Korean Peninsula, and the deployment of F-22 Raptor stealth fighters to South Korea. However, Little denied reports that a sea-based X-band radar platform was deployed closer to the Korean Peninsula, saying the platform is undergoing scheduled sea trials, and decisions about further deployments have not been made to this point. [Missile defense]
• U.S. Seeks to Prevent Unilateral S.Korean Action
  The U.S.' recent show of force around the Korean Peninsula was designed to send a warning to North Korea and "reduce pressure on Seoul to take unilateral action," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Monday. Carney was explaining why Washington recently announced the deployment in joint exercises with South Korea of hard-hitting weaponry such as B-52 bombers, B-2 stealth bombers, and F-22 fighter jets. Carney appeared to hint that Washington does not want South Korea to respond in kind to any North Korean provocation. "Of course, Washington is worried about provocations from Pyongyang. But it is also very worried about the possibility of South Korea taking unilateral action in response and of the situation escalating to the point that the U.S. can't control it," a diplomatic source in Washington said. "The actions we have taken... have been important steps to reassure our allies, demonstrate our resolve to the North," Carney said. [US dominance] [Client]
• US bringing destroyers and radar system to Korea
  Posted on : Apr.3,2013 15:44 KSTModified on : Apr.3,2013 15:44 KST A 2005 photo showing the sea-based X-band radar (SBX-1) loaded on a cargo ship in a port in the Gulf of Mexico. It is scheduled to be positioned in South Korean waters for the first time. (US Department of Defense photo pool) Relocation of sophisticated equipment apparently a response to North Korea’s threats to attack the mainland US By Park Min-hee and Kim Kyu-won, staff reporters The US navy is placing missile defense sea-based X-band radar (SBX-1) and sophisticated destroyers in the waters near the Korean Peninsula to prepare for the possibility of a North Korean missile launch, US news outlets reported. According to an Apr. 1 CNN report, the navy is currently positioning SBX-1 with ballistic missile detection radar in waters close to North Korea. A US Department of Defense official was quoted as saying that the system, which is capable of monitoring military movement and detecting missile launch activity, was on its way to the East Sea. The official also said this was the navy’s first response to the threat of a North Korean provocation. [Buildup]
• Do allies need to keep pressure on?
  A U.S. U-2 reconnaissance aircraft is photographed while flying over Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, during the Foal Eagle exercise, Tuesday. Some fear no letup in show of force may lead NK to more provocation By Kang Seung-woo There is a saying that, when cornered, a rat can turn around and bite a cat. Finding a sense of wisdom in this, some North Korea experts say it is about time to moderate the recent show of force by the United States in joint drills with South Korea and see how Pyongyang will react. It is obvious this show of force by the world’s largest military superpower is acting as a deterrent against the North, which has been spewing belligerent vitriol to jack up tension. “As the North was ramping up its rhetoric and military show of force, the South and the United States needed to display their deterrence capability against its threats,” said Chang Yong-seok, a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University. “But an excessive demonstration of U.S. military might unnecessarily spike the tension. We need to be cautious and control the level of show of force. We do not have to slap a crying child in the face.” The situation is so precarious that President Park Geun-hye ordered a meeting of national security-related ministers Monday night. Park presided over the meeting to go over the situation in detail. [Joint US military] [Park Geun-hye] [Friction]
• U.S. struggling to contain nuclear threats from North Korea, Iran
  View Photo Gallery — Is North Korea serious about war?:?Following a threat to launch a nuclear attack on the United States, North Korea’s state news arm released dozens of photos that show the country’s army and navy performing military drills. By Anne Gearan and Chico Harlan, Wednesday, April 3, 9:59 AM After more than four years of diplomacy, the Obama administration is struggling to contain the nuclear threats posed by North Korea and Iran, a pair of nations already isolated internationally and resistant to the economic incentives offered in return for an end to their programs. The nuclear ambitions of both countries predate the Obama administration, which has focused its efforts on international diplomacy to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and to stop North Korea from restarting its once- dormant nuclear program. [Yongbyon] [Hysteria] [Iran] Inversion] Agency
• North Korea Moves to War Footing
  Posted by Felix K. Chang March 31, 2013 - 1:09pm It seems like we've all seen this movie before. North Korea feels affronted and blusters; South Korea and the United States respond with negotiations and a concession or two; China and Russia seek a peaceful resolution (plus the survival of their buffer neighbor); and Japan just wants the problem to go away, which it does—until the next time North Korea feels affronted. [US NK policy] [MISCOM]
• US moving radar platform to watch DPRK
  China.org.cn, April 2, 2013 A U.S. Defense Department official said Monday that the Navy is moving a sea-based radar platform closer to the Korean Peninsula in order to monitor military moves of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), including possible new missile launches, CNN reported. The report said the Navy deployed an oil rig-like SBX-1 radar, and is the first of what may be other deployments. It also came after the United States has conducted overflights of nuclear-capable B-2 stealth bombers to the peninsula, and the deployment of F-22 Raptor stealth fighters to South Korea. [Buildup]
• F-22 Stealth Jets Join Drills in S.Korea
  Two supersonic stealth fighter jets arrived here on Sunday to take part in the last days of joint annual South Korea-U.S. exercises. The F-22, nicknamed "Raptor," is designed to infiltrate enemy airspace and strike strategic targets. Their presence is another show of force against North Korea, which has ratcheted up nuclear and missile threats. The two F-22s came from Kadena Air Base in Okinawa. They have a combat radius of more than 3,000 km and could strike strategic targets anywhere in North Korea within 40 minutes to an hour after taking off from there without mid-air refueling. They can almost avoid radar detection, appearing on the screen as if they were the size of a bug. They have joined drills in South Korean airspace on several occasions, but this is only the second time their presence has been openly announced. The first time was in July 2010 after the North sank the Navy corvette Cheonan. U.S. military authorities had invited reporters to see the planes at an air base in Osan, Gyeonggi Province on Tuesday but suddenly canceled the plan. Last week, the U.S. also announced that a pair of massive B-2 stealth bombers were flying dry runs over the Korean Peninsula as part of the exercises. That "already sent a strong message to the North," a South Korean government source said. The source added that South Korean military authorities apparently asked their U.S. counterparts not to show the F-22 to the public because they felt it would unnecessarily provoke the North. [Buildup]
• S.Korea, U.S. to Keep Combined Forces Command
  Seoul and Washington have decided to keep the Combined Forces Command after full control of South Korean forces has been handed back to Seoul, and develop it into a bigger joint command structure to strengthen cooperation. Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin briefed President Park Geun-hye on the plan on Monday. The heads of the South Korean and U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff are to outline the plan when they meet in Washington this month for annual consultations. The new command structure will then be officially adopted at the bilateral Security Consultative Meeting in October. The CFC was originally to be dismantled when the U.S. hands back wartime operational control of South Korean troops to Seoul in 2015, but there were fears here that this could weaken South Korea's defenses. The change of heart comes amid increasingly belligerent rhetoric from North Korea. Park told her military brass at the briefing to launch "immediate and strong counterattacks" against any North Korean provocation. She said she considers the North's threats "very serious," and added, "If any provocations against our people and country ake place, the military has to respond quickly and strongly without any political consideration." She vowed to "trust the decisions of the military." [OPCON]
• Transfer of wartime control unclear in military’s plans
  Posted on : Apr.2,2013 16:00 KST Officials from South Korea and the United States shake hands with each other during a meeting to discuss the transfer of wartime operational command at the Ministry of Defense in Seoul’s Yongsan district, November 2007. Reduction in mandatory service time not among planned Ministry of National Defense ventures By Kim Kyu-won, staff reporter A question mark is hovering over the scheduled transfer of wartime operational command to South Korea on December 1, 2015. Reductions in the mandatory military service period for males, which then-candidate Park Geun-hye promised just before the election, appear to be off the table now. Meanwhile, the Ministry of National Defense announced plans to revive the National Defense Spirit Education Center, which was operated during the presidency of Park’s father, Park Chung-hee, before being closed down under the Kim Dae-jung administration. [OPCON]
• U.S. moves warship, sea-based radar to watch North Korea
  The U.S. Navy is moving a warship and a sea-based radar platform closer to the North Korean coast in order to monitor that country's military moves, including possible new missile launches, a Defense Department official said Monday. The decision to move at least one ship, the destroyer USS John S. McCain, and the oil rig-like SBX-1 are the first of what may be other naval deployments, CNN has learned. They follow weeks of belligerent rhetoric from North Korea, including threats to use nuclear weapons. The United States and South Korea have gone ahead with joint military exercises despite the threats, and South Korea warned Monday that any provocative moves from North Korea would trigger a strong response "without any political considerations." [Buildup]
• U.S. F-22 stealth jets join South Korea drills amid sabre-rattling
  WASHINGTON, March 31 | Sun Mar 31, 2013 5:54pm EDT (Reuters) - The United States sent F-22 stealth fighter jets to South Korea on Sunday to join military drills aimed at underscoring the U.S. commitment to defend Seoul in the face of an intensifying campaign of threats from North Korea. The advanced, radar-evading F-22 Raptors were deployed to Osan Air Base, the main U.S. Air Force base in South Korea, from Japan to support ongoing bilateral exercises, the U.S. military command in South Korea said in a statement that urged North Korea to restrain itself. "(North Korea) will achieve nothing by threats or provocations, which will only further isolate North Korea and undermine international efforts to ensure peace and stability in Northeast Asia," the statement said. Sabre-rattling on the Korean peninsula drew a plea for peace from Pope Francis, who in his first Easter Sunday address called for a diplomatic solution to the crisis on the Korean peninsula. [Buildup] [Joint US military]
• Serious armed clash on the Korean Peninsula unlikely
  March 28th, 2013 Author: Andrei Lankov, Kookmin University and ANU If the world media is to be believed, the Korean Peninsula is now on the brink of war. Indeed, over the last few days the North Korean government has been engaged in some seriously bellicose rhetoric.
• N.Korea Maps Attack on Mainland U.S.
  North Korea raised the stakes in belligerent posturing over the weekend by revealing a map that apparently details its plans to strike the U.S. mainland. The North's official KCNA news agency on Friday carried photos of leader Kim Jong-un at an emergency meeting of a strategic missile unit with a strategic map on the wall behind titled "The Strategic Forces' Plan to Strike the U.S. Mainland."
• Stealth Bomber Dry Runs Over S.Korea 'Cost $5.6 Million'
  A dry run by two state-of-the-art American stealth bombers over South Korea last week cost an estimated US$5.56 million, Foreign Policy reported Thursday. The magazine quoted a 2012 report by the Center for Public Integrity as saying the B-2 bombers cost $3 billion apiece and flights by some estimates $135,000 per hour. [B-2]
• Displays of advanced US weaponry likely to continue
  Posted on : Apr.1,2013 14:38 KSTModified on : Apr.1,2013 15:04 KST B-2 Spirit bombers fly over Osan Military Base in South Korea on Mar. 28 after having come directly from the US in the first exercise of its kind, apparently intended to show the ability to conduct long-range, precision strikes against North Korea. (Yonhap News) Amid tensions, South Korean and US senior diplomats to make overseas visits By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent and Kim Kyu-won, staff reporter Following a flight over the Korean peninsula by B-2 strategic bombers capable of carrying nuclear bombs, there are imminent plans for yet another display of sophisticated weaponry, the Wall Street Journal reported on Mar. 30 (EST). As North Korean threats and American shows of force continue to escalate, it appears that the situation on the Korean peninsula will continue to deteriorate for the time being. The US Department of Defense refused to disclose what other advanced weaponry it would be dispatching to the Korean peninsula. “The United States will continue to demonstrate unique advanced capabilities as these exercises continue,” an unnamed government official told the Wall Street Journal. “Next week, another high-tech US weapon may be dispatched here,” said Wi Yong-seop, a spokesperson for the South Korean Ministry of Defense. “There have been stealth bombers and nuclear submarines so far, but not any nuclear aircraft carriers. There is no way to know if a nuclear carrier will actually be sent.” [Joint US military] [Buildup]
• US media showing alarm over North Korean rhetoric
  Posted on : Apr.1,2013 14:35 KSTModified on : Apr.1,2013 15:04 KST Kim Jong-un is briefed by commanders from the North Korean strategic missile unit in front of a map showing strike targets in the continental United States, in an image released by the Korean Central News Agency on Mar. 29. Kim presided over a operations meeting and ordered them to remain on stand-by for a possible missile strike. (KCNA/Yonhap News) Various outlets reporting that North Korea is not yet able to strike the continental US By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent There are various reactions within the US to North Korea’s announcement that it has drawn up plans to strike the continental US and to its declaration of a state of war between North and South Korea. The US media has drawn attention to a chart with the phrase “US mainland strike plan” that can be seen in a picture taken at a Mar. 29 meeting of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and heads of the DPRK military. The New York Times ran a front-page article on the story, while CNN and Fox News treated it as major news all day on Mar. 30 (EST). While the media expressed doubts that North Korean threats will actually be carried out, they said that the possibility of a miscalculation leading to a limited military confrontation could not be ruled out. “U.S. military commanders are closely watching the situation,” the Washington Post reported, adding, “the rising tensions increase the risk of some form of limited armed conflict.” [Response]
• Arms Buildup of U.S. Forces in South Korea Blasted
  Pyongyang, March 31 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the National Peace Committee of Korea released the following statement Sunday: It has been disclosed that the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces have been drastically reinforced in the last one to two years in south Korea against the backdrop of their reckless war moves against the DPRK, stunning public at home and abroad. According to the "2012 report on structure of bases" published by the U.S. Defense Department last year, the number of the U.S. forces in south Korea increased nearly 11 000 troops in September 2009. Many latest war hardware including at least 160 Bradley armored cars, over 120 M1-A2 Abrams new type heavy tanks, 83 anti-mine special cars and 24 F-16 fighter bombers were additionally deployed in the U.S. forces in south Korea from 2011 to 2012. [Buildup]
• US dispatches F-22 Stealth fighters to S. Korea
  With North Korea continuing to threaten aggression, the United States has dispatched F-22 Stealth fighters to South Korea. The F-22 fighters, which are undetectable on radar, were flown in to the Osan Air Base in Gyeonggi Province from the Ganada Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. A statement from the United States indicated earlier that North Korea does not stand to gain anything from moves toward aggression and that they will only create further isolation from the international society. The F-22 fighters will be deployed un an upcoming joint military exercise but it is uncertain if they will be deployed in South Korea permanently. The U.S. earlier deployed the B-2 Stealth bomber in a military exercise after North Korea threatened to attack mainland United States. [Buildup]
• US stealth bomber as messenger: what it says to China, North Korea
  The B-2 stealth bomber's history of hitting China's Belgrade embassy in 1999 makes its training mission over South Korea an even more pointed message to North Korea's Kim Jong-un. By Anna Mulrine, Staff writer / March 28, 2013 The Pentagon sent its distinctive bat-wing-shaped B-2 stealth bombers flying low over the Korean Peninsula this week – dropping munitions over a remote South Korean island – in what US military officials initially described as a routine training exercise. But the B-2 bomber runs – along with the US military’s unusually frank announcement of this fact – were designed to send a far more pointed warning to North Korea, and more precisely to the country’s young dictator, Kim Jong-un, who lately has been increasingly bellicose in his words and actions, say senior US officials. [US NK policy] [China confrontation] [B-2] [Buildup]
• N. Korea nuke threats a gift to the US military industrial complex
  Posted on : Mar.28,2013 16:23 KST US and China both flexing in what appears to be a battle for hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region By Park Han-shik, Professor at the University of Georgia and Director of the Center for the Study of Global Issues (Globis) The US has announced plans to increase its West Coast missile defense force by 50%, citing the possibility of a mainland nuclear missile attack by North Korea. In particular, it plans to deploy another 14 ground-based interceptor missiles to Fort Greely, Alaska, by 2017 at a cost of one billion US dollars. The missile defense (MD) system is being criticized as a waste of taxpayer money, raising questions about its effectiveness when tests have resulting in an interception success rate of only around 50%. The country’s aim, however, is to cement its comparative superiority at a time when many other countries have long-range ballistic missiles. This is why the US has spent such astronomical sums on its MD system, and why the development accounts for such a sizable chunk of the American defense industry. The North Korean “threat” of hitting the mainland US with a nuclear weapon has already been laughed off by Washington. Its attention is focused less on the possibility of such a strike than on finding an excuse to beef up its MD budget. The big beneficiary is the defense industry. In other words, the North Korean nuclear missile threat is essentially a big gift to the American military-industrial complex. Meanwhile, South Korea has no small part in boosting this industry, as the world’s single biggest importer of US weaponry. Now the US faces a new challenge in its international relations, namely the rise of China. [Missile defense] [China confrontation]

• Kim Jong Un Convenes Operation Meeting, Finally Examines and Ratifies Plan for Firepower Strike
  Pyongyang, March 29 (KCNA) -- The moves of the U.S. imperialists to violate the sovereignty of the DPRK and encroach upon its supreme interests have entered a grave phase. Not content with letting B-52 make sorties over south Korea in succession despite the repeated warnings, they made B-2A stealth strategic bomber and other strategic strike means fly from Whiteman air force base in Missouri State, the U.S. over south Korea on March 28 for the first time in history to commit such dangerous provocation as openly staging a drill for striking ground targets of the DPRK. This fully proves that the brigandish ambition of the U.S. imperialists for aggression to stand in confrontation with the DPRK has reached an extreme phase defying the meaningful warning made by its revolutionary armed forces in the March 26 statement of the Supreme Command of the Korean People's Army. [Conditionality] [Response]
• Aggressive talk from North Korea concerns U.S. leaders
  By Ernesto Londoño and Karen DeYoung, Saturday, March 30, 11:39 AM The latest round of threats exchanged by North Korea and the United States is dragging on longer and taking on a more virulent tone than in the past, provoking deep concerns among American officials and their allies. Following blustery warnings by Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s 30-year-old leader, and videos depicting North Korean attacks on the United States, the Obama administration took the unprecedented step this week of sending two stealth bombers to South Korea as part of an ongoing military training exercise. Even as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un issues midnight battle cries to his generals to ready their rockets, none of the key players in the region wants or expects another Korean War, not even the North Koreans, an analyst says. Even as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un issues midnight battle cries to his generals to ready their rockets, none of the key players in the region wants or expects another Korean War, not even the North Koreans, an analyst says. But despite the escalating tensions, U.S. officials said they have focused more closely on what North Korea is doing than on what it is saying. “Putting on a show is not the same as taking action,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the volatile situation. “Describing the situation as akin to war is not to be remotely confused with wanting a war, let alone going to war.” The senior official and others said that U.S. military commanders are closely watching the situation, which has escalated since North Korea conducted a nuclear weapons test in December. In addition, officials cited new levels of cooperation and mutual confidence between the United States and allies in South Korea and Japan.
• Our policy toward North Korea isn’t working
  By Mike Chinoy, Saturday, March 30, 11:49 AM Mike Chinoy is a senior fellow at the U.S.-China Institute at the University of Southern California and the author of “Meltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis.” He has visited North Korea 15 times. As the United States and South Korea strengthen their defenses amid blood-curdling threats from a North Korea that continues to strengthen its nuclear and missile capability, the truth has to be faced: U.S. policy toward North Korea is not working. Every time Pyongyang has faced pressure, sanctions and coercion — as opposed to a U.S. willingness to engage — it has responded in precisely the same way: by doing the opposite of whatever the heightened pressure was designed to achieve. [US NK negotiations] [Engagement]
• DPRK orders rocket on standby to attack US, S. Korea
  China.org.cn, March 29, 2013 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) declared Friday that its rocket has been put on standby to hit the U.S. and South Korea in response to U.S. stealth bombers flew over the Korean Peninsula, the KCNA news agency reported. The KCNA news agency reports Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), has ratified a strike plan by the country's strategic rocket force at a meeting convened early on Friday, March 29, 2013. [Photo: Image China] "The time has come to settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists in view of the prevailing situation" DPRK top leader Kim Jong Un was quoted as saying after an urgent meeting with top military officials early Friday. He ratified a plan of the Strategic Rocket Force for firepower strike on the U.S. mainland, Hawaii and Guam, and South Korea if they "make a reckless provocation," said the KCNA. Kim said the latest U.S. move is "not a simple demonstration of forces" but "an ultimatum that will ignite a nuclear war at any cost on the Korean Peninsula." Two B-2 Spirit bombers were sent to the Korean Peninsula Thursday for a firing drill but U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel denied that flying the bombers to the peninsula would aggravate the situation in the region. [Response] [B-2]
• U.S. Stealth Bombers in Dry Run Over S.Korea
  U.S. stealth bombers conducted a mock bombing run over a firing range on the island of Jikdo off Gunsan on Thursday, according to the Combined Forces Command. The B-2 bombers, the most expensive aircraft in the world at about US$2 billion apiece, have conducted secret bombing runs over the Korean Peninsula several times, but this is the first time their dry runs have been made public. U.S. military authorities apparently decided to announce them because they wanted to send a warning message to North Korea in response to recent belligerent rhetoric and dampen mounting calls from South Korea to build its own nuclear weapons.
• CPRK Spokesman Issues Statement
  Pyongyang, March 28 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK) on Thursday issued the following statement: Shortly ago, the U.S. and south Korean puppet group cooked up a "joint plan to cope with the provocation of a local war," escalating the danger of a war. The joint plan signed by the commander of the U.S. forces in south Korea and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of south Korea calls on the U.S. forces to automatically get involved in the conflict in case of the north's "provocation of a local war" and thus jointly counter it together with the south Korean puppet army. The plan for aggression elaborates on the contents of the operation and proposals on joint counteraction.
• U.S. taking serious note of N. Korea’s ‘provocative’ threats, Hagel says
  By Ernesto Londoño, Friday, March 29, 12:28 PM U.S. officials are taking seriously a string of provocative threats from the North Korean government, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Thursday, hours after the U.S. military dispatched stealth planes capable of dropping nuclear-armed missiles for a training exercise in South Korea. The sorties by B-2 bombers marked a rare show of force by the Pentagon on the Korean Peninsula and followed a decision this month to bolster nuclear defenses along the U.S. West Coast by adding 14 missile interceptors in Alaska. [Inversion] [Response] [Provocation]
• Think Again: North Korea
  North Korea is a lot more dangerous than you think, but that doesn't mean that Kim Jong Un is insane. BY DAVID KANG, VICTOR CHA | MARCH 25, 2013 "North Korea's not that dangerous." Wrong. There is no threat of war on the Korean peninsula because the United States and South Korea have deterred the regime for over six decades, or so the thinking goes. And the occasional provocation from Pyongyang -- full of sound and fury -- usually ends with it blowing up in its face, signifying nothing. So why worry? Two reasons. First, North Korea has a penchant for testing new South Korean presidents. A new one was just inaugurated in February, and since 1992, the North has welcomed these five new leaders by disturbing the peace. Whether in the form of missile launches, submarine incursions, or naval clashes, these North Korean provocations were met by each newly elected South Korean president with patience rather than pique. [MISCOM]
• Intimidating Kim Jong Un with B-2 bombers is expensive
  Posted By John Hudson Thursday, March 28, 2013 - 2:30 PM Today, the United States sent a warning to North Korea by deploying two nuclear-capable B-2 bombers to drop munitions near North Korea in a joint military drill with South Korea. The Associated Press called the muscle-flexing "unprecedented." Time's ace defense writer Mark Thompson deemed the military's announcement "unusual." One of the reasons the U.S. warning shot is atypical is because the United States rarely announces the location of its top-secret B-2 bombers. But another reason this is uncharted territory is because of the exorbitant expense of taking B-2 bombers out of their home base in Missouri to frighten a bellicose regime on the other side of the world. As the Center for Public Integrity reported last year: The B-2s are actually not used much now, partly because few targets justify risking aircraft that cost $3 billion apiece in today's dollars, and partly because their flights by some estimates cost $135,000 per hour - almost double that of any other military airplane. [B-2]
• U.S. Flies Stealth Bombers Over South Korea
  Mar. 28, 2013 - 07:43AM | By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE SEOUL — The United States said two nuclear-capableB-2 stealth bombers flew “deterrence” missions over South Korea on Thursday, defying apocalyptic threats of retribution from North Korea against ongoing war games. The deployment of the stealth bombers was intended to send a potent message to Pyongyang about the U.S. commitment to defending South Korea against any aggression, as military tensions on the Korean peninsula soar. It came shortly after the North severed its last-remaining military hotline with South Korea and put its rocket units on combat status with a threat to target U.S. bases in the Pacific region. The two B-2s, from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, flew the 13,000-mile (20,800-kilometer) round-trip in a “single continuous mission,” dropping dummy ordnance on a target range in the South, the U.S. military said in a statement. “This ... demonstrates the United States’ ability to conduct long-range, precision strikes quickly and at will,” the statement said. [Joint US military] [Buildup]
• Replacing the Armistice With A Peace Treaty in Korea
  by Leon V. Sigal March 26, 2013 Leon V. Sigal: “Whether a peace treaty precedes or follows denuclearization, it is inconceivable that Pyongyang would curb its nuclear and missile programs, never mind give up its nuclear arms and missiles, without a peace process. As long as the United States and South Korea remain its foes, it will feel threatened and want a stronger “deterrent” to counter that threat.” [Peace treaty] [US NK policy]
• US dismisses Pyongyang's fresh threats
  Xinhua, March 27, 2013 The Obama administration on Tuesday dismissed Pyongyang's fresh threats of striking bases in the United States and the Republic of Korea as following a pattern "designed to raise tensions and intimidate others." "North Korea's bellicose rhetoric and the threats that they engage in follow a pattern designed to raise tensions and intimidate others," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters at a regular press briefing. "As we say consistently, the DPRK will achieve nothing by these threats or provocations, which will only further isolate North Korea and undermine international efforts to ensure peace and stability in Northeast Asia." [Chinese IR]
• North Korea announces move to combat readiness posture No. 1
  Posted on : Mar.27,2013 15:41 KST At the centenary parade for North Korea founder Kim Il-sung in Pyongyang on April 15, 2012, North Korea displayed the KN-08, a new long-range missile. YTN quoted experts as saying the missile has a range of 3,000km. If additional UN sanctions are implemented, North Korea could test this missile. So far, only engine testing has been completed. (KCNA) South Korean defense officials say they would respond forcefully to any North Korean provocation By Kang Tae-ho, senior staff writer and Kim Kyu-won, staff reporter On Mar. 26, North Korea released a statement from the Supreme Command of the People’s Army announcing that it was bringing its strategic missile units, its long-range artillery units, and all of its artillery forces in the field to combat readiness posture No. 1. The statement was released through the state-run Korea Central News Agency (KCNA). “From this moment, we are bringing all of our field artillery units to combat readiness posture No. 1,” the statement said. “This includes our long-range artillery and our strategic rocket units, which can strike all enemy targets in the continental US, Hawaii, Guam, and other American bases in the Pacific, and all targets in South Korea and in the adjoining areas.” Combat readiness posture No. 1 means that the DPRK army has reached the highest level of combat readiness. [Response]
• DPRK Will Show Its Will for Counteraction with Military Action: KPA Supreme Command
  Pyongyang, March 26 (KCNA) -- The Supreme Command of the Korean People's Army (KPA) issued the following statement Tuesday: The U.S. nuclear war racket has gone beyond the danger line and entered the phase of an actual war, defying the repeated warnings from the army and people of the DPRK. The U.S. let B-52 formation deployed in Anderson air force base on Guam fly into the sky above south Korea at around 08:00 on March 25. The formation staged a nuclear striking drill with simulated targets in the depth of the DPRK from around 11:50 and revealed it to the public. [Response] [Conditionality]
• Is North Korea serious about war?
  Following a threat to launch a nuclear attack on the United States, North Korea’s state news arm, the Korean Central News Agency (also known as KCNA) released dozens of photos that show the country’s army and navy performing military drills, many of which were attended by leader Kim Jong Eun. Images here are from KCNA and the North’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper, and distributed via Western news agencies. [Conditionality] [photos]
• Understanding North Korea
  Kongdan Oh is a Resident Staff Member of the Institute for Defense Analyses and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution. She is co-author of The Hidden People of North Korea (Rowman and Littlefield, 2009) and North Korea Through the Looking Glass (Brookings, 2000). March 2013 When the third son of dying leader Kim Jong-il was designated as the successor of his ailing father in December 2011, the media asked me to comment on the young (28 or 29) Kim’s inclination to reform North Korea’s politics and economy. Journalists pointed out that Kim Jong-un had received several years of education in Switzerland, where he could savor prosperity and freedom. Moreover, as a relatively young leader, he might favor new ways of doing things. He might, in short, reveal himself to be a reformer. Interestingly, this is what many people said about Kim Jong-il when he took over after his father’s death. The reformation of North Korea would make a great story for the media, but most of life is humdrum and repetitive rather than newsworthy and so I did not expect anything new from the young Kim. My favorite cautionary example was the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad of Syria, whose four years of post-graduate school in London failed to turn him into a political reformer when he took over from his father. [MISCOM] [Agency]
• N. Korea says military to enter combat ready posture
  North Korea's military will put its missile and artillery units into combat ready posture in order to protect its sovereignty, the country's state news media said Tuesday. "From this moment, the Supreme Command puts all of its field artillery including strategic rocket units and long-range artillery units into the No. 1 combat ready posture," the Korean People's Army's Supreme Command said in a statement carried by the (North) Korean Central News Agency.
  The artillery units target the U.S. mainland, Hawaii and Guam and other U.S. military bases in the Pacific as well as South Korea, the statement said.
  The statement said the country will "show off our army and people's stern reaction to safeguard our sovereignty and the highest dignity through military actions," referring to its leader Kim Jong-un as the highest dignity. The country's "crystal clear judgment" is that it cannot overlook the United States' nuclear threats and military actions any longer. It will also display the military's powerful intention to the South through physical actions, the statement noted. The statement came as the country ratcheted up military threats to the two allies over their two joint military drills this month and the latest punitive sanctions adopted by the United Nations following the North's Feb. 12 nuclear test.
• A photo that makes North Korea look a lot less scary
  Posted by Max Fisher on March 25, 2013 at 4:27 pm Kim Jong Un inspects “new” military technology made by unit 1501 of the Korean People’s Army. (REUTERS/KCNA) North Korea loves to threaten to start World War III. In the last week alone, it has warned Japan that it might launch a preemptive nuclear strike against it and released a video detailing its plan for a three-day invasion of South Korea. The threats – turning Seoul into a sea of flames, eradicating the American military presence and maybe America itself – are empty, of course. And not just because North Korea doesn’t actually have any incentive to start a second Korean War (it has every incentive to make empty threats). They’re also empty because the North Korean military is just not that powerful anymore. The photo at the top of this page helps to make my point, but first a bit of background. It is true that the North Korean military is very big, one of the world’s largest standing armies: 1.1 million troops! 4,200 tanks! 820 fighter jets! It’s also, by virtue of Pyongyang’s “military first” policies, perhaps the most privileged and best funded arm of the state, maybe outside of Kim Jong Un’s personal piggy banks. Even the military’s size and political backing, though, can’t make up for North Korea’s isolation and impoverishment [Military balance]
• U.S. Forces Japan to Lend Support Against N.Korean Attack
  The U.S. Forces Korea will involve the U.S. Forces Japan and the U.S. Pacific Command in case North Korea carries out any fresh provocations. The USFK will bring an aircraft carrier of the Seventh U.S. Fleet from Yokosuka Base and fighter jets and Marines from Okinawa as well as the usual reconnaissance and early warning aircraft. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Jung Seung-jo and USFK Commander Gen. James Thurman, who concurrently heads the Combined Forces Command, last Friday signed a contingency plan against North Korean provocations, the JCS said Sunday. So far South Korean forces have responded alone to local provocations while the USFK only lent support with reconnaissance and early warning aircraft. But now Seoul and Washington have worked out a detailed contingency plan for scores of scenarios. Major provocations could include shelling of the northwesternmost islands, local clashes within the demilitarized zone, a submarine attack on a South Korean Navy ship, North Korean naval boats' crossing the Northern Limit Line, the de facto maritime border, and a commando squad infiltration. [OPLAN] [Buildup] [NLL]
• SK-US sign combined operational plan to respond to N. Korea
  Posted on : Mar.25,2013 15:09 KST
  US forces may now become immediately involved in limited conflicts
  By Kim Kyu-won, staff reporter The US and South Korea have signed an agreement that stipulates that the US will get involved early on in the event of a limited conflict such as what occurred when North Korea shelled Yeonpyeong Island in 2010. Since operational control is currently divided, with the ROK military in control for limited conflicts in peace time and the US forces taking the lead in the event of all-out war, it is expected that this change will give even more leadership authority to the US military. [USFK] [OPLAN] [US dominance]
• South Korea, US sign new military contingency plan in case of future North Korean attacks
  By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, March 25, 8:41 PM SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea and the United States have signed a new military plan that lays out how the allies will communicate with each other and react to any future North Korean aggression. The signing comes amid North Korean threats to attack the allies over their joint military drills and recent punishing U.N. sanctions aimed at Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test. Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday that the plan is designed to counter a future limited attack by North Korea, but details weren’t released. Work on the plan began after a North Korean artillery attack on a South Korean island in 2010 killed four. The allies also have a separate plan in the case of a full-blown war on the Korean Peninsula. There are 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea. [USFK]
• S.Korea, US sign combined operational plan against N. Korea
  By Kim Eun-jung SEOUL, March 24 (Yonhap) -- The militaries of South Korea and the United States said Sunday they have worked out a new joint operational plan that details how they should cooperate to deal with North Korean provocations. The Combined Counter-Provocation Plan, signed between South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Chairman Gen. Jung Seung-jo and Gen. James Thurman, the commander of the U.S. Forces in South Korea, went into effect immediately. "By completing this plan, we improved our combined readiness posture to allow us to immediately and decisively respond to any North Korean provocation," the Combined Forces Command (CFC) of the two allies said in a statement. "The completed plan includes procedures for consultation and action to allow for a strong and decisive combined Republic of Korea-U.S. response to North Korean provocations and threats." [OPLAN]
• The AP Plays Defense on North Korea
  By Donald Kirk 22 March 2013 Paul Colford, director of media relations for the Associated Press (AP), has the unenviable task of publicizing the AP’s bureau in Pyongyang, opened in January of last year with a reporter and photographer hired from the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) comprising its local staff. While the AP boasts of having the first western news bureau in the North Korean capital, AP publicity does not acknowledge that the bureau operates under constraints that raise questions about whether it’s a real bureau. The lone North Korea reporter does not file often, and, when he does, generally confines himself to material from KCNA that’s already been quoted by the AP and others routinely monitoring KCNA in Seoul and Beijing. Jean Lee, the AP’s Korea bureau chief, based in Seoul, goes to Pyongyang via Beijing from time to time, but she’s not able to fly in and out whenever she pleases. Moreover, she has to be accompanied by a North Korean guide or minder when she ventures outside her hotel in search of news and features.[1] Under these difficult circumstances, Colford sometimes finds himself defending an operation whose coverage would appear at variance with the gutsy reporting that often distinguishes the AP in conflicts and crises elsewhere, including South Korea. Thus he fired off an indignant email to The Christian Science Monitor (The Monitor) protesting my story on February 4. At issue was a reference to “AP coverage from North Korea that scrupulously avoids such issues as the North’s human rights record or abuse of political prisoners.”[2] Colford requested “the name of the editor (and his or her email) to whom I may refute this erroneous characterization.”[3] [Media] [MISCOM]
• A running list of North Korea's near-daily threats
  Posted By John Hudson Thursday, March 21, 2013 - 2:00 PM Share If you're having a hard time keeping track of the multitude of threats issued by North Korea in the last few weeks, you're not alone: Kim Jong Un's young regime is on a seemingly endless tear of warnings and provocations. From threats of a nuclear holocaust to artillery strikes near disputed borders, here are the latest shots across the bow from the Hermit Kingdom, beginning with those that followed international sanctions over Pyongyang's third nuclear test in February: 1. We now have "lighter and smaller" nukes, and we're not afraid to use them against the United States. 2. Are you ready for the silent treatment? We just cut our military hotline with South Korea. 3. We also just tore up all previous non-aggression pacts with South Korea. 4. In response to these UN sanctions, we're going to "exercise the right to a pre-emptive nuclear attack." [Media]
• Report: huge increase in US troops in South Korea
  Posted on : Mar.21,2013 15:16 KSTModified on : Mar.21,2013 15:16 KST South Korean and US naval vessels participate in the Foal Eagle military exercises in the East Sea, Mar. 18. (provided by the South Korean navy) Both USFK and SK Ministry of National Defense dispute figures that show troop levels far above the agreed upon 28,500 By Kim Kyu-won and Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporters USFK troop levels, which have remained consistently in the 26,000 to 29,000 range since 2006, are being raised by around 9,000, according to a 2012 report by the US Department of Defense. Questions are now being raised about the substantial jump, which puts the amount of troops well above the 28,500 level agreed upon by South Korea and the US. The 2005-2012 edition of the department’s annual “Base Structure Report,” which was published on Mar. 21, showed a total of 37,354 US troops stationed in South Korea as of Sept. 30, 2011. This was 8,854 more than the 28,500 agreed upon at a 2008 summit between the two countries’ heads of state. It was also 11,049 more than in 2009, when USFK troop levels were at their lowest. Since 2004, when there were 37,997 USFK troops stationed in South Korea, the number had been dropping steadily as the US government implemented a plan to reposition its overseas forces. From 32,422 in 2005, the number fell to 29,477 in 2006, 28,356 in 2007, 27,968 in 2008, and 26,305 in 2009. Originally, USFK had planned to reduce its South Korean presence from around 38,000 in 2004 to 25,000 by 2008. But in April 2008 - a few months after President Lee Myung-bak took office - an agreement was reached to keep the level at around 28,500. With a few years, however, the number was rising sharply again, reaching 31,839 in 2010 and 37,354 in 2011. [Military presence]
• DPRK Has No Idea of Negotiating with U.S. Unless It Rolls back Its Hostile Policy towards It
  Pyongyang, March 16 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK issued the following statement on Saturday: U.S. high-ranking officials vied with each other to talk such nonsense as misinterpreting the present situation on the Korean Peninsula, claiming that the situation was aggravated due to the DPRK's access to nuclear weapons. Their ulterior aim is to cover up their responsibility for having compelled the DPRK to have access to nukes. This is little short of a foolish poor artifice to justify the U.S. hostile policy toward the DPRK which escalated the situation on the Korean Peninsula to an extreme phase and stifle the DPRK by creating an international atmosphere of sanctions and pressure upon it. This only fully revealed that the U.S. remains unchanged in its hostile policy toward the DPRK and it has become more pronounced. The DPRK would like to re-clarify its unshakable principled stand on its nuclear deterrence for self-defence now that the U.S. persistently sticks to its hostile policy toward the DPRK, taking issue with its access to nukes with such sophism making profound confusion of right and wrong. The DPRK's nuclear weapons serve as an all-powerful treasured sword for protecting the sovereignty and security of the country. Therefore, they cannot be disputed even in the least as long as the U.S. nuclear threat and hostile policy persist. [NK US policy] [Nuclear weapons] [Conditionality]
• North Korea Faces Heightened Human Rights Scrutiny
  By Roberta Cohen 21 March 2013 On March 21, 2013 the United Nations Human Rights Council, a body of 47 states, adopted by consensus a resolution to establish a commission of inquiry (COI) into North Korea’s “systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights.”[1] The commission is to be composed of three experts who will intensively investigate for a period of one year the human rights violations perpetrated by North Korea’s government with a view to ensuring “full accountability, in particular where these violations may amount to crimes against humanity” [emphasis added]. The establishment of the commission reflects long overdue recognition that a human rights ‘emergency’ exists in North Korea. Commissions of inquiry at the United Nations have mainly been directed at situations like Syria, Darfur or Libya where conflicts, atrocities and destruction are clearly visible and in the headlines. Adding North Korea to the list suggests a new look at what a human rights crisis might be. In contrast to other situations, North Korea has always managed to hide its crimes. [Human rights] [Manipulation]
• U.S. B-52 bombers simulated raids over North Korea during military exercises
  By Bill Gertz - The Washington Free Beacon Tuesday, March 19, 2013 United States B-52 bombers carried out simulated nuclear bombing raids on North Korea as part of ongoing U.S.-South Korean military exercises, Pentagon officials said on Monday. Pentagon press secretary George Little told reporters that B-52 bombers from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, conducted a training mission over South Korea March 8 during war games known as Exercise Foal Eagle. “It’s not any secret that we are in the midst of sending a very strong signal that we have a firm commitment to the alliance with our South Korean allies,” Little said. [Nuclear weapons]
• Tactically Smart, Strategically Stupid: Simulated B52 Nuclear Bombings in Korea
  by Peter Hayes 20 March 2013 Peter Hayes states, “Deploying nuclear capable bombers accompanied by nuclear threat rhetoric will not quell regressive proliferation sentiment in Seoul. Nor will it persuade North Korea’s leaders to desist from nuclear aggression…..quiet actions will always speak louder in Pyongyang than aggressive words.” [US NK policy] [Nuclear weapons]
• Armistice Agreement Withdrawal: North Korean Belligerence?
  Posted in north Korea by what's left on March 16, 2013 By Stephen Gowans Why has North Korea withdrawn from an armistice agreement that has kept overt hostilities on the Korean peninsula at bay since 1953? Does the withdrawal portend an imminent North Korean aggression? Hardly. North Korea is in no position to launch an attack on its Korean neighbour, or on the United States, at least not one that it would survive. North Korean forces are dwarfed by the US and South Korean militaries in size, sophistication and fire-power. The withdrawal serves, instead, as a signal of North Korean resolve to defend itself against growing US and South Korean harassment, both military and economic. [Armistice] [Sanctions]
• Crazy Korea Story
  Several of my colleagues have been scratching their heads over a bizarre story that appeared in the Joongang Ilbo (“U.S. nukes to remain in South, To deter a North attack, weapons to stay after joint drills, possibly on sub”) that attributed a number of odd statements about U.S. nuclear weapons to a “high-ranking South Korean government official.” Maybe Madame Park likes to drink? [US NK policy] [Nuclear weapons]
• U.S. nukes to remain in South
  To deter a North attack, weapons to stay after joint drills, possibly on sub Mar 12,2013 After two Korea-U.S. joint military drills end, American vessels equipped with nuclear weapons will stay in South Korean waters to fully guarantee the U.S. “nuclear umbrella” in case North Korea attacks. A high-ranking South Korean government official told the JoongAng Ilbo yesterday, “If North Korea makes a nuclear attack, retaliation can come from U.S. nuclear weapons stationed in Okinawa or Guam. But considering the time that might take, we need to have a nuclear weapon near the Korean Peninsula. “By not withdrawing U.S. weapons participating in the Korea-U.S. military exercises, we decided to let them stay a while and see what happens in North Korea,” he said. [US NK policy] [Nuclear weapons]
• Seoul Fiddles While Big Powers Determine N.Korea Policy
  U.S. President Barack Obama told ABC News on Wednesday that China is "recalculating" its North Korea policy, which until now tolerated the North's belligerence to maintain the status quo and keep the regime in place. Obama said the changes in China are "very positive." It is rare for a U.S. president to make such comments about China and hints that fundamental strategic talks have taken place behind the scenes over North Korea. China has supported two UN Security Council resolutions this year approving sanctions against North Korea. In the process, Washington and Beijing will have talked in great depth about how to deal with the North, which succeeded in launching a rocket capable of being turned into an intercontinental ballistic missile and conducted its third nuclear test. [Sidelined]
• In TV interview, Obama alludes to dialogue with North Korea
  Posted on : Mar.15,2013 14:18 KST US President Barack Obama and host George Stephanopoulos during their ABC television interview on Mar. 13. US president says that if North Korea ends provocations, Washington can respond with trust-building measures By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent On Mar. 13 (EST), US President Barack Obama appeared on TV and delivered a direct message to North Korea. The message expressed the forward-looking position that if North Korea takes measures to establish trust by ending nuclear testing and missile launches, the US will respond in kind. During an interview with ABC, Obama was asked what needs to happen before dialogue with North Korea can take place. “There are a lot of things,” Obama said. “But they could start by ending nuclear testing. They could start by ending some of this missile testing. There are a whole battery of confidence-building measures that they could engage in.” George Stephanopoulos, the interviewer, asked Obama whether the pledge he made during his 2008 presidential campaign to hold direct talks with North Korea was still valid, mentioning that Kim Jong-un had said recently that he wanted to talk on the phone with Obama. “You always want to create the conditions where, if you have a conversation, it’s actually useful,” the president responded. “The South Koreans, the Chinese, all the six-party talk players need to be involved.” [US NK policy] [Spin]
• FM Spokesman Hits Out at US for Contending AA Can't Be Dissolved Unilaterally
  Pyongyang, March 14 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK gave the following answer to a question put by KCNA Thursday as the U.S. and the forces kowtowing to it are insisting that the Korean Armistice Agreement (AA) can not be unilaterally dissolved: The Supreme Command of the Korean People's Army announced that the AA will be totally nullified from March 11 when the U.S. nuclear war exercises aimed to stifle the DPRK get into full swing. Accordingly the army and people of the DPRK turned out in an all-out action for foiling the U.S. moves aimed at a nuclear war and reunifying the country at an early date, completely unrestrained by AA. But the U.S. and its allies are asserting that AA was adopted with mutual agreement and can not be dissolved unilaterally. This shows a sleight of hand they have employed to use the threadbare AA for escaping the DPRK's toughest counteraction. Unlike other agreements, AA is not one that requires bilateral agreement to be rendered invalid from its peculiar nature and it will be naturally nullified if one side does not abide by it. AA has long been invalid due to the systematic scrapping of it by the U.S. and the unreasonable behavior of the UN Security Council that backed the U.S. moves for the last six decades. Armistice could remain though in name only because the DPRK exercised utmost self-restraint and patience. The U.S. and the south Korean puppet forces are now holding Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military drills to light a fuse for a nuclear war with the involvement of huge aggression troops, the biggest violation of AA and an act of scrapping it. Under the prevailing situation which is little different from a war in fact, the DPRK can no longer be bound to AA. This is a stark reality in which AA is no longer valid. The U.S. will have to hold full responsibility for scrapping and finally nullifying AA, in case the situation entails a catastrophic consequence on the Korean Peninsula. [Armistice]
• We petition the Obama administration to:
  Negotiate and Ensure Peace in the Korean Peninsula
  To avert war and help reduce military tensions in the Korean Peninsula, we respectfully ask the following: First, initiate dialogue with North Korea on the road to peaceful resolution, culminating in the formulation of peace treaty to officially end the Korean War. Under the current armistice mechanism, this kind of crisis will repeat itself constantly. The only way is to convert temporary armistice to real and lasting peace, guaranteed by a peace treaty. Second, we ask the repeal of the UN Security Council Resolution No. 2094 as it is a catalyst of bringing the Korean Peninsula closer to war. Third, we ask the end of Key Resolve/Foal Eagle joint US-SK military exercises as it only increases tension in the peninsula. Concerned Korean Americans, Koreans in the US, and Americans Created: Mar 11, 2013 [Peace effort]
• Sustainable discussions
  by Roger Cavazos, NAPSNet contributor, March 14, 2013 Even though war talk on the Peninsula is receiving all the attention, there are plenty of other threats in North Korea that can be just as devastating to future stability. In particular, ecological devastation is a sovereign topic which all countries in the region are going to have to address. North Korea has made attempts at dealing with the issues, but as with most governments, there are never enough resources or in-house expertise to address the issues thoroughly. Isolation whether internally or externally mandated only makes the problem more intractable – and expensive. Yet, therein lay the seeds for discussion.
• Why Women Must End the Korean War
  Christine Ahn* | March 12, 2013 [Originally published in Foreign Policy in Focus, March 8, 2013] As women around the world gather to celebrate International Women's Day, a light needs to be shone upon the Korean peninsula where a tinderbox situation is about to erupt into a full-blown military conflict. In response to the U.S.-led UN Security Council sanctions against North Korea for testing its third nuclear weapon last month, the DPRK has threatened to both nullify the 1953 armistice agreement that halted the Korean War and preemptively strike the United States. The North Korean foreign ministry said in a statement: "Since the United States is about to ignite a nuclear war, we will be exercising our right to preemptive nuclear attack against the headquarters of the aggressor in order to protect our supreme interest." While escalations of tension are nothing new, what they are revealing is that a major game changer is needed to break the silent stalemate between the United States and North Korea. And it's going to take more than Dennis Rodman's trip to North Korea. It will require the United States to take greater responsibility and leadership to end the Korean War, as well as a feminist, anti-militarist approach to achieve peace and justice on the Korean peninsula. [Naiveté] [US NK policy] [Peace effort]
• U.S. Intelligence Chief Warns of N.Korean Provocation
  U.S. National Intelligence Director James Clapper on Tuesday warned North Korea's "bellicose rhetoric," while "propaganda-laced," may be an "indicator of their attitude." Clapper was speaking in a hearing of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee. He added he is "very concerned about the actions of the new young leader" Kim Jong-un. He recalled the North's sinking of the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan and shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, adding that the North Korean army is well prepared to launch a limited attack without prior warning. [Media]
• Nuclear War Through North Korean Eyes
  by NILE BOWIE There is little doubt that civilians on both sides of the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) are weighed down with anxiety as both countries carry out provocative large-scale military drills amid threats of nuclear war. North Korea has recently announced that it will no longer abide by the UN-brokered armistice that ended the Korean War with a ceasefire in 1953 and authorities have severed its communications hotline with the South, the only diplomatic channel of contact between the two countries. Pyongyang has imposed no-fly and no-sail zones off both its coasts as part of comprehensive military drills that may see the test firing of short-to-medium range missiles. The US-South Korea joint command forces have launched their Foal Eagle field training exercises that will be ongoing until end of April. 200,000 South Korean troops and 10,000 US troops will take part in the exercise, which will include land, air, sea, and special operation drills. North Korea’s state newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, has reported that the North’s army, navy, air force, and anti-aircraft units were “just waiting for the final order to attack.”
• New unilateral US sanctions target North Korean banks
  Posted on : Mar.14,2013 14:36 KSTModified on : Mar.14,2013 14:39 KST Measures are meant to isolate North Korea financially, but their effectiveness could depend on China playing along By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent The US Treasury Department has added its own financial sanctions against North Korea to ones recently imposed by the United Nations Security Council. The new measures are expected to have major repercussions - and trigger a major outcry from Pyongyang - as they are similar in many ways to the sanctions the US imposed against Macau’s Banco Delta Asia (BDA) in 2005. According to Executive Order 13382 on “Blocking Property of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferators and Their Supporters,” the department included North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank (FTB), the country’s institution in charge of foreign banking transactions and foreign exchange, as one of the targets for sanctions. The measures bar it from doing business with US banks and freeze all assets under US legal jurisdiction. The US already has executive orders sanctioning more than 20 North Korean institutions, but the latest measures are different in that they target the country’s key foreign exchange bank. Some North Korean financial institutions were subjected to sanctions in the past, but those banks, which included Tanchon Commercial Bank and Korea Kwangson Banking, were involved in a limited range of activities. [Financial sanctions]
• North Korea’s high-stakes bluster
  By Fareed Zakaria, Thursday, March 14, 1:49 PM Karl Marx wrote that history repeats itself the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. And the third time, he might have added, as North Korea. Just when you thought the place could not get any stranger, it did. In the past few weeks, this impoverished, isolated nation has tested a nuclear bomb, threatened a preemptive nuclear attack on the United States, abrogated the armistice that ended the Korean War and declared its intention to “rain bullets” on its neighbor to the South. No one knows for sure what is going on. It is highly unlikely that these moves are being conceived and directed by Kim Jong Un, the young leader who succeeded his father, Kim Jong Il. North Korea’s military dictatorship has wedded itself to the third generation of the Kim dynasty, which now seems to serve mostly as a unifying symbol for its people. But it is unlikely that a 28-year-old with almost no background in politics or experience in government is conceiving and directing these policies. (He does appear to have free rein on basketball policy in the hermit kingdom.) The most likely explanation for North Korea’s actions is that it is trying to get attention. In the past, its provocations usually led to international (especially American) efforts to defuse tensions. Then came negotiations, which led to an agreement of sorts, which the North soon cheated on, which led to sanctions, isolation and, finally, North Korean provocation again. [MISCOM] [US NK policy]
• President Park to make first overseas visit to the US in May
  Posted on : Mar.13,2013 11:15 KST President Park Geun-hye met with White House national security adviser Tom Donilon on Feb. 26 at the Blue House, the day after her inaguration ceremony. Also at the meeting were US ambassador to South Korea Sung Kim (second from the right) (provided by the Blue House) American official may have breached protocol by announcing the date of Park’s visit prematurely By Seok Jin-hwan, Blue House correspondent and Park Hyun, Washington correspondent Park Geun-hye plans to follow the precedent set by previous presidents by visiting the US on her first overseas visit, with a summit meeting scheduled with president Barack Obama in early May. While the decision was expected, given the US’s diplomatic importance, a number of issues remain to be addressed between the two leaders.
• Tense Situation in Korean Peninsula Is Due to US Hostile Policy
  Pyongyang, March 12 (KCNA) -- An acute situation is now prevailing in the Korean Peninsula due to the U.S. undisguised hostile policy towards the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. This is reminiscent of the crisis 20 years ago. On March 12, Juche 82 (1993), the DPRK declared its withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to defend its sovereignty, security and supreme interests from the increased U.S.-led imperialists' anti-DPRK moves. The DPRK's withdrawal from the treaty was not intended to get access to nukes, and it was a self-defensive step only to defend its right to existence by removing a pretext for military intervention on the part of the hostile forces. [NPT]
• U.S. officials warn N. Korea after it scraps armistice
  Video: White House Press Secretary Jay Carney is repeating calls for Pyongyang to comply with its international obligations. His comments come as North Korea piles on several threats including one to launch a nuclear strike on the U.S. By Anne Gearan and Chico Harlan, Published: March 11 The Obama administration bluntly warned North Korea on Monday that it will use military force if necessary to protect the United States and its allies in Asia from a North Korean nuclear strike or to prevent the impoverished North from selling nuclear weapons or expertise. Washington announced fresh sanctions against North Korea on Monday amid rising tension on the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. military also began annual joint exercises with ally South Korea, over objections from North Korea and an announcement that it would nullify the 60-year armistice that ended the Korean War. “Recently, North Korean officials have made some highly provocative statements,” White House national security adviser Thomas E. Donilon told the Asia Society in New York. “North Korea’s claims may be hyperbolic, but as to the policy of the United States, there should be no doubt.” “We will draw upon the full range of our capabilities to protect against, and to respond to, the threat posed to us and to our allies by North Korea,” he said.
• The Korean Peninsula: Flirting with Conflict
  Seoul/Brussels | 13 Mar 2013 North Korea has taken a number of recent steps that raise the risks of miscalculation, inadvertent escalation and deadly conflict on the Korean peninsula. On 12 December, it launched a small satellite into orbit in defiance of UN Security Council Resolutions 1695, 1718 and 1874. The Council condemned this in Resolution 2087 (22 January). Three weeks later, Pyongyang conducted its third underground nuclear explosion. In response, the Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2094 (7 March) condemning the test and expanding economic sanctions. This was preceded by multiple vitriolic threats from the North. While none of this is unprecedented, the danger of unintended consequences has increased considerably. All sides need to issue more reassuring statements, exercise caution during planned military exercises and, especially, the North must avoid further blatant disregard of its international obligations. [Us NK policy] [Shill] [Conditionality] [Inversion] [Joint US military]
• Pyongyang Cuts Off Inter-Korean Hotline
  North Korea on Monday made good a threat to cut off a Red Cross hotline in the truce village of Panmunjom. The move came as South Korea and the U.S. started their annual joint military drills. The North's official Rodong Sinmun daily carried pictures of battleships, fighter jets and armored vehicles and said, "The time has come to fight the last decisive battle." But there were no other provocations, and the joint-Korean Kaesong Industrial Complex, where about 800 South Koreans work, operated normally. Another military hotline in the western coastal area also remains operative. [Joint US military] [Response]
• Kim Jong-un's Secret Billions
  North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has stashed away some US$4-5 billion in bank accounts in other people's names in Austria, China, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Russia, Singapore and Switzerland, intelligence agencies believe. "Since the launch of the Lee Myung-bak administration in February of 2008, South Korea and the U.S. have been tracking more than 200 North Korean accounts that appear to be linked weapons of mass destruction and export of drugs, counterfeit money and cigarettes," a diplomatic source said on Monday. [Canard] [IAI] [Personalisation] [Financial sanctions]
• First day of SK-US military exercises passes without provocation
  Posted on : Mar.12,2013 14:26 KSTModified on : Mar.12,2013 14:46 KST Residents of Yeonpyeong Island go about their regular lives as they board a boat to Incheon on the mainland, Mar. 11. As the Key Resolve South Korea-US military exercises are going on, daily life has continued for the island’s residents. (by Park Jong-shik, staff photographer) North Korea has made no detectable military moves during tense period on the peninsula By Kim Kyu-won, staff reporter Despite North Korea‘s threats to nullify the 1953 Korean War armistice agreement, South Korea and the US went ahead as planned with the Key Resolve combined military exercises on Mar. 11. So far, the North has not reportedly made any noticeable military moves. Around 10,000 ROK troops and 3,000 US soldiers, including 2,500 reinforcements from US Pacific command in Hawaii, are taking part in the military exercise, which will continue through Mar. 21. Another 10,000 US soldiers will be deployed by the end of this month for the Foal Eagle exercises. Also flown in to participate in the exercises were B-52 bombers and F-22 stealth fighters, which boast the world’s highest levels of performance. These two kinds of aircraft can maneuver throughout Korean airspace without landing. In addition, the 9750t Aegis destroyers USS Lassen and USS Fitzgerald arrived in South Korea.[Joint US military]
• North Korea cannot unilaterally nullify Armistice agreement
  Posted on : Mar.12,2013 14:34 KST South Korean soldiers keep watch on a foggy day at the Panmunjom Joint Security Area in Paju, Gyeonggi province. Military tensions are growing on the Korean peninsula. as the two sides faced off in a kind of “chicken race” of large-scale military exercises under a pseudo-state of war on the peninsula. (by Kim Jeong-hyo, staff photographer) While Pyongyang can’t alter the agreement, it can violate the terms meant to keep peace on the Korean peninsula By Kim Kyu-won, staff reporter In principle, the 1953 Armistice agreement that ended combat in the Korean War cannot be amended or abandoned by any one of its three parties - the UN, North Korea, and China. But no realistic means exist to stop one of them from unilaterally violating it. The agreement consists of five parts. Article I is an article on the Military Demarcation Line (MDC) and Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), article II concerns special steps for a cease-fire and armistice (cessation of hostilities), article III has to do with prisoners of war, article IV lists proposals for the two governments, and article V is a list of supplementary provisions. Articles I, II and V are in question when North Korea unilaterally decides to pull out.
• US, S. Korea to Be Held Accountable for Catastrophic Consequences: CPRK
  Pyongyang, March 11 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK) issued the following statement on Monday: The U.S. and south Korean puppet warmongers finally kicked off Key Resolve joint war maneuvers, the provocative saber-rattling for invading the DPRK, despite its repeated warnings and strong denunciation at home and abroad. The madcap joint war maneuvers under way in the sky, ground and seas of south Korea in parallel with Foal Eagle joint war exercises which started on March 1 are participated in by U.S. imperialist aggressor forces, south Korean puppet troops, armed forces of satellite countries including the UK and Australia, U.S. nuclear carrier group, B-52 strategic bombers, F-22 Stealth fighters, Aegis destroyers and other ground, air and naval strike means equipped with nukes and live shells. Timed to coincide with the large-scale north-targeted war exercises, the puppet authorities and military gangsters are openly letting loose a spate of provocative outbursts calling for "striking commanding forces and strongholds" and "bringing down the north's regime". [US Joint military] [Response]
• Rep. Chung says 'scrap command transfer'
  By Chung Min-uck Rep. Chung Mong-joon, former chairman of the ruling Saenuri Party, said Monday that Seoul should not take over wartime operational control (OPCON) of the nation’s military from the United States amid increasing threats from North Korea. A transfer of OPCON is scheduled for 2015 under a bilateral agreement made between Seoul and Washington in 2010. “The plan to transfer OPCON must be scrapped. At the same time, we must beef up our conventional weapons,” stated Chung in a news release. “North Korea is ratcheting up its threats to attack and we should be prepared.” [OPCON]
• North Korea ends armistice that halted Korean War, leaving world to wonder what’s next
  By Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Monday canceled the armistice agreement that nearly 60 years ago brought a cease-fire to the Korean War, leaving a world of analysts wondering how far the secretive police state will go to show its displeasure with South Korea and its American ally, which still has 28,500 troops based here. The move, reported by the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper, was anticipated – Pyongyang had said last week that it intended to do so in the wake of new United Nations’ sanctions over its nuclear weapons program. But the ramifications of the development – the papers cited a military spokesman as saying the armistice had been “scrapped completely” – are far from clear.
• Considering a Departure in North Korea's Strategy
  March 12, 2013 | 0900 GMT By George Friedman Founder and Chairman On Jan. 29, I wrote a piece that described North Korea's strategy as a combination of ferocious, weak and crazy. In the weeks since then, three events have exemplified each facet of that strategy. Pyongyang showed its ferocity Feb. 12, when it detonated a nuclear device underground. The country's only significant ally, China, voted against Pyongyang in the U.N. Security Council on March 7, demonstrating North Korea's weakness. Finally, Pyongyang announced it would suspend the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953, implying that that war would resume and that U.S. cities would be turned into "seas of fire." To me, that fulfills the crazy element. My argument was that the three tenets -- ferocity, weakness and insanity -- form a coherent strategy. North Korea's primary goal is regime preservation. Demonstrating ferocity -- appearing to be close to being nuclear capable -- makes other countries cautious. Weakness, such as being completely isolated from the world generally and from China particularly, prevents other countries from taking drastic action if they believe North Korea will soon fall. The pretense of insanity -- threatening to attack the United States, for example -- makes North Korea appear completely unpredictable, forcing everyone to be cautious. The three work together to limit the actions of other nations. .[MISCOM]
• Basketball diplomacy a new curiosity in DPRK–US relations
  March 9th, 2013 Author: Mark Caprio, Rikkyo University On a list of Americans most likely to publicly appear with DPRK leader Kim Jong-un, Dennis Rodman would not be the most unlikely person, but he has to be pretty far down the list. Yet on 28 February the ex-NBA star sat alongside Kim as three members of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team joined North Korean hoopsters in a game that fittingly ended in a non-conclusive 110–110 tie. Is this meeting just another instance of the controversial, flamboyant Rodman being Rodman, or is there a hidden, more complex agenda woven into his adventure to the DPRK capital? Should the latter prove to be true, his visit would join a series of unconventional exploratory advances in US–DPRK diplomatic history. Among the earliest were secret meetings in New York that DPRK officials held in 1986 with CIA director William Casey. A few years later, just as the DPRK took serious steps to advance its nuclear program (as both the Chinese and the Soviets normalised relations with the ROK), a State Department official was instructed to speak Korean in a loud voice at a party to attract the DPRK officials also in attendance. In 1994, former president Jimmy Carter travelled to Pyongyang as a private citizen to meet with Kim Il-sung to discuss the DPRK’s nuclear intentions. Of these efforts, those undertaken by the State Department official and Jimmy Carter proved most successful. Both helped to kick-start talks that led to the 1994 Agreed Framework, the first DPRK–US agreement since July 1953, when the two states joined China to sign the armistice that halted the battles of the Korean War. {US NK policy] [US NK interactions] [Inversion]
• U.S.-S.Korea Joint Drill Gets Underway
  South Korean and U.S. troops are staging their joint annual exercises from Monday until March 21, incensing North Korea But a South Korean military source on Sunday said no unusual troops movements have been observed in North Korea. The drills, dubbed Key Resolve, are a joint annual simulation exercise that Seoul and Washington have staged since 1994. This year, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff rather than the Combined Forces Command take the lead in preparation for the handover of full operational control of Korean troops to Seoul in 2015. Some 10,000 South Korean and about 3,500 U.S. troops are participating in this year's drills. The guided missile destroyers USS Lassen (DDG 82) and USS Fitzgerald (DDG62) enter a port on the east coast on Saturday. The destroyers take part in a naval drill which is part of annual joint military exercise by the U.S. and South Korea. /Courtesy of Korean Navy The guided missile destroyers USS Lassen (DDG 82) and USS Fitzgerald (DDG62) enter a port on the east coast on Saturday. The destroyers take part in a naval drill which is part of annual joint military exercise by the U.S. and South Korea. /Courtesy of Korean Navy The South Korean and U.S. militaries notified North Korea of the dates through the truce village of Panmunjom on Feb. 21. In response, the North threatened to scrap the armistice that halted the 1950-1953 Korean War and cancel a bilateral non-aggression pact. On March 5, it also threatened to close hotlines between the UN Command and the North Korean army and on March 8 to close another hotline in Panmunjom. But the regime has taken no measures so far. "It's possible that the North will launch a surprise provocation," a military source here said. The South Korean military has stepped up surveillance of the North and upgraded its military preparedness. North Korea also looks poised to stage a massive military drill of its own in Wonsan, Kangwon Province. [Joint US military]
• Kim Jong-un's Slush Funds Found
  South Korean and U.S. authorities have found dozens of accounts presumed to belong to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in several banks in Shanghai and other parts of China. They contain hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet for some reason the accounts were excluded from financial sanctions under the new UN Security Council Resolution 2098, which was adopted last Thursday, posing questions over the effectiveness of the measures. A government source here said an investigation that lasted for several years led South Korea and the U.S. to the accounts. "We have located the names of the account holders and account numbers, some of them set up in the days of former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il," the source added. [Espionage] [Financial sanctions] [Personalisation][Intelligence] [Coattailing]
• As US-SK military exercises begin, world is watching the Korean peninsula
  Posted on : Mar.11,2013 15:28 KST Modified on : Mar.11,2013 15:40 KST The Key Resolve joint military exercises between the US and South Korea begin on Mar. 11. General consensus says that military provocation is unlikely at a time when South Korea is on high alert By Kim Kyu-won, staff reporter With North Korea having declared that it will nullify the Korean War armistice agreement when the Key Resolve joint military exercises between the US and South Korea begin on Mar. 11, attention is focusing both in Korea and abroad on what Pyongyang’s next move will be. While the chances of a major military provocation against the South are not considered to be very high, analysts believe it is more likely that we will see provocative behavior taking the form of pressure on the US to come to the negotiating table. On the morning of Mar. 11, North Korea announced that it had gone through with its threat to cut off the Red Cross communication hotline with South Korea. [Joint US military]
• Korean peninsula bracing for war amid tension
  Posted on : Mar.11,2013 15:31 KST Modified on : Mar.11,2013 15:41 KST South Korean soldiers walk along a beach on Yeonpyeong Island, Mar. 10. On Mar. 11, the US-ROK Key Resolve Joint Military exercises begin, amid high military tensions on the Korean peninsula. (Yonhap News) North Korea follows through with threat to cut off communication hotline with South Korea, but large-scale conflict still unlikely By Kang Tae-ho, senior staff writer A grim mood hovers over the Korean Peninsula on Mar. 11, the day North Korea has said it would nullify the Korean War armistice agreement and other inter-Korean non-aggression agreements. North Korean troops were reported to be in a combat mobilization posture, while the South planned to go ahead as scheduled with its Key Resolve combined exercises with the US. As the two sides faced off in a kind of “chicken race” of large-scale military exercises under a pseudo-state of war on the peninsula, many observers are voicing growing fears of a potential clash. The belligerent conditions date back to March 12, 1993, when North Korea responded to International Atomic Energy Agency demands for special inspections by pulling out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Almost twenty years to the day later, both sides are once again issuing rhetoric about “unsparing retribution” and “annihilating the other side’s regime.” [Joint US military]
• US soldiers who handcuffed civilians found to have left Korea
  Posted on : Mar.11,2013 15:40 KST An image captured from a cell phone video taken by a bystander who witnessed American military police handcuffing and dragging Korean civilians in Pyongtaek last July. The MPs claimed to have handcuffed the civilians as a response to a perceived threat. The video footage shows no evidence to support that claim. Prosecutors say investigation is “going smoothly”, but critics worry soldiers will ultimately evade the charges By Hong Yong-duk, south Gyeonggi correspondent Five of the seven USFK military police officers questioned by prosecutors over the handcuffing of civilians in Pyeongtaek last July were confirmed to have left the country recently. According to accounts released on Mar. 9 by Pyeongtaek Police station and the local branch of the Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office, each of the five departed South Korea separately since late 2012. Reasons for their departure applications reportedly included the end of one MP’s one-year period of service in South Korea, and the illness of the wife of another.[SOFA]
• Rodong Sinmun Warns Enemy Not to Repeat History of Disgraceful Fiasco
  Pyongyang, March 10 (KCNA) -- The U.S. and the south Korean puppet forces' moves to ignite a war against the DPRK are so foolish an option as repeating the history of their miserable fiasco, says Rodong Sinmun Sunday in a bylined article. It goes on: Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military drills are their premeditated saber-rattling to ignite the second Korean war by straining the situation on the Korean Peninsula to an extreme phase under the pretext of the DPRK's exercise of its sovereign right. The aggressor forces of injustice are fated to meet their destruction. In the 1950s the U.S. imperialists perpetrated a surprise armed invasion against the young DPRK by mobilizing the Syngman Rhee puppet clique and even mercenaries of satellite countries. However, the aggressors suffered a miserable defeat in face of the heroic struggle waged by the army and the people of the DPRK all out in the sacred war of justice. The U.S. armed spy ship Pueblo incident and large spy plane EC-121 incident which took place against the backdrop of ceaseless military provocations of warmongers in the post-war period ended in the surrender of the U.S
• Wartime command transition now in doubt
  By Kim Tae-gyu The transition of wartime operational command (OPCON) from Washington to Seoul scheduled in Dec. 2015 may be delayed once again as Pyongyang continues to ramp up tensions on the Korean Peninsula. A growing number of senior officers have raised the possibility that the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC) will keep wartime control of all troops even after 2015. [OPCON]
• FACT SHEET: UN Security Council Resolution 2094 on North Korea
  Susan E. Rice U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations U.S. Mission to the United Nations New York, NY March 7, 2013 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE The UN Security Council today unanimously adopted a resolution to impose additional sanctions on North Korea in response to that country's February 12th announcement of a nuclear test. This resolution, the fifth since 2006, builds upon, strengthens and significantly expands the scope of the strong sanctions regime already in place. The Security Council's adoption of this resolution shows that the international community is united in its condemnation of North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs and continued violation of UN Security Council resolutions. The new sanctions contained in this resolution will significantly impede North Korea's ability to develop further its illicit nuclear and ballistic missile programs, as well as its proliferation activities. These strong sanctions -- in addition to the commitment to take additional measures in the event of a further launch or nuclear test -- demonstrate to North Korea that there are real costs for its continued violations of its international obligations. 2094 Highlights · Condemns in the strongest terms North Korea's ongoing nuclear activities, including its uranium enrichment program, and reaffirms the obligation on North Korea to abandon all existing nuclear, other weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs. · Imposes new financial sanctions to block financial transactions in support of illicit DPRK activity, crack down on bulk cash transfers, and further restrict ties to North Korea’s financial sector, if there is a link to illicit DPRK activity; · Strengthens states’ authority to inspect suspicious cargo and deny port and over flight access to DPRK-affiliated shipments where warranted; · Enables stronger enforcement of existing sanctions by UN Member States. · Sanctions new individuals and entities; · Adds new items to the Security Council sanctions list. [Sanctions] [UNUS]
• DPRK vows severer measures against UN resolution
  Xinhua, March 9, 2013 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said Saturday it would take severer measures to counter the latest UN resolution on it. "The world will clearly see what permanent position the DPRK will reinforce as a nuclear weapons state and satellite launcher as a result of the U.S. attitude of prodding the UNSC into cooking up the 'resolution,'" the official KCNA news agency quoted a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry as saying in a statement. It is the U.S. hostile policy that "compelled the DPRK to conduct an underground nuclear test for self-defense," said the statement, adding that the UN sanctions had "only resulted in the DPRK's bolstering of its nuclear deterrent qualitatively and quantitatively quite contrary to what they expected."
• US diplomatic experts speak on need for dialogue with North Korea
  Posted on : Mar.9,2013 12:25 KST Modified on : Mar.9,2013 12:28 KST By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent In a hearing on North Korean policy held in the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on Mar. 7 (EST), current and former representatives at the six-party talks spoke of the necessity of dialogue with North Korea. Glyn T. Davies, the US State Department's special representative for North Korea, was among those testifying at the hearing. "The Obama administration's dual-track policy of engagement and pressure toward the DPRK reflects a bipartisan recognition that only a policy of openness to dialogue when possible, combined with sustained, robust pressure through sanctions when necessary, can maximize prospects for progress in denuclearizing North Korea," said Davies.
• US experts debate Obama’s DPRK policy options
  20 February 2013 — Erich Weingartner [Now that the volume of international outrage following the 12 February detonation of the DPRK's third nuclear test has faded, the international community is waiting to see whether the Obama administration has any new ideas on how to meet this challenge. As always, Washington-based Chris Nelson takes the pulse of the American policy community, challenging his “Loyal Readers”, i.e. North Korea experts, to comment. The following is taken from the 19 February 2013 edition of The Nelson Report, with kind permission by the author. --CanKor.] OBAMA N.K. POLICY White_House Repeated here is the message from a senior informed source we ran in Friday’s Nelson Report (2/15), so you can make sense of the consequent Loyal Reader comments which follow: The Obama Administration has never had an ideological problem with talking to the North Koreans – directly or multilaterally — and has been pushing without success since early 2009 for authentic and credible negotiations. The problem has been North Korea’s unwillingness to negotiate over its nuclear program, let alone to provide anyone with reason to believe that it will abide by any commitment it makes. The purpose of the Feb 29 understanding last year was to put in place a moratorium that would open the door to negotiations — but the North immediately blew that up. So: [US NK policy] [Leap Day Agreement]
• UN imposes new sanctions on N. Korea
  China.org.cn, March 8, 2013 Members of the United Nations Security Council vote for tough new sanctions to punish North Korea for its latest nuclear test, during a meeting at U.N. headquarters, March 7, 2013. The United Nations Security Council has unanimously passed a new resolution imposing new sanctions on North Korea. While China lends its support to the new sanctions, it's also calling for a diplomatic solution. The UN Security Council has adopted the new sanctions on North Korea for its prohibited nuclear test last month. The United States UN Ambassador Susan Rice said the new sanctions are going to have a strong impact. "First, Resolution 2094 imposes tough, new financial sanctions, when North Korea tries to move money, to pay its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, countries must now block those transfers, even if the money is being carried in suitcases full of bulk cash. " In addition to tightening sanctions on North Korea's banking and trade sectors, the existing travel restrictions have also been extended. Stringent checks are also going to continue on North Korean cargo ships. And for the first time, Pyongyang's diplomats are also included on the checklist, with the resolution calling for countries to expel any North Korean agent if he or she is found involved in Pyongyang's nuclear or ballistic missile programs. [Sanctions]
• UN Security Council Passes Tougher N.Korea Sanctions
  The UN Security Council unanimously passed tougher sanctions against North Korea on Thursday in response to the North's latest nuclear test. The resolution tightens financial sanctions and mandates checks on North Korean cargo. In Seoul, meanwhile, diplomatic and security officials meet Friday to discuss responses to any North Korean provocation that may be triggered by the decision. The new resolution, which now goes to a UN plenary session, prohibits North Korea from opening accounts in overseas banks if the money "could contribute to [North Korea's] nuclear or ballistic missile programs." It also bans foreign banks from opening branches in the North. [Sanctions]
• UN unanimously passes tougher sanctions on North Korea
  Posted on : Mar.8,2013 12:12 KST UN Security Council members vote unanimously to pass heightened sanctions on North Korea during a meeting at UN headquarters in New York, Mar. 7. (Reuters/Yonhap News) Expanded measures request member states to refrain from transactions that could benefit NK weapons programs By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent and Park Byong-su, staff reporter On the morning of Mar. 7 (EST), the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) unanimously adopted new sanctions that ban financial transactions with North Korea that are suspected of being linked to the development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. The sanctions also make it mandatory to search vessels and aircraft associated with such activities. Shortly before the UNSC passed resolution 2094, North Korea once again threatened to “exercise the right to launch a preemptive nuclear strike at the aggressor’s strongholds.” The UN sanctions against North Korea come 23 days after Pyongyang conducted a third nuclear test on Feb. 12. This is the sixth resolution related to the North Korean nuclear and missile programs. The resolution invokes Article 41 of the United Nations Charter, which stipulates nonmilitary measures for preserving and restoring international peace and security and is binding on the 193 UN member states. The UNSC resolution condemns North Korea’s nuclear test, which took place on Feb. 12. It also “Reaffirms its decision that the DPRK shall abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs, in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner and immediately cease all related activities.” A key objective of the resolution is to shut down North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and to prevent related items from entering the country through imposing financial sanctions and making it obligatory for vessels and aircrafts to be searched. One noteworthy point is that the financial sanctions have been elaborated in considerably more detail. First of all, the resolution urges member states to ban the opening of branches of North Korean banks and the establishment of joint ventures or partnerships with domestic banks if there are any reasonable grounds for thinking that such actions could contribute to North Korea’s nuclear weapons or ballistic missile programs. For the same reason, it also forbids member states from providing export subsidies or export insurance to individuals or companies in those states who wish to trade with North Korea. [Sanctions]
• Second Korean War Is Unavoidable: DPRK FM Spokesman
  Pyongyang, March 7 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry Thursday issued the following statement: The U.S. is now working hard to ignite a nuclear war to stifle the DPRK. Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises kicked off by the U.S., putting the situation on the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war, are maneuvers for a nuclear war aimed to mount a preemptive strike on the DPRK from A to Z. The U.S. is massively deploying armed forces for aggression, including nuclear carrier task force and strategic bombers, enough to fight a nuclear war under the smokescreen of "annual drills." What should not be overlooked is that the war maneuvers are timed to coincide with the moves to fabricate a new "resolution" of the UN Security Council against the DPRK, pursuant to a war scenario of the U.S. to ignite a nuclear war under the pretext of "nuclear nonproliferation". [Response] [Conditionality]
• U.N. Security Council approves new sanctions against North Korea
  By Colum Lynch and Joby Warrick, Friday, March 8, 2:16 AM UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council took direct aim at North Korea’s leadership Thursday with new sanctions targeting cash transfers and luxury items, punishing the reclusive regime for its latest nuclear test while evoking a fresh torrent of threats from the North Korean capital. The sanctions, drafted by the United States and China and approved unanimously, were adopted against a backdrop of apocalyptic rhetoric from Pyongyang, including a threat to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against foreign “aggressors,” a term traditionally interpreted to include the United States. The Obama administration dismissed the threat and warned North Korea of further isolation and economic pain if it conducts more nuclear tests. “We are fully capable of defending the United States,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters in Washington shortly after the U.N. vote. [Sanctions] [UNUS]
• A Very Special Envoy Why Obama should make Dennis Rodman his man in Pyongyang. Seriously.
  BY JOEL WIT, JENNY TOWN | MARCH 7, 2013 Just back from quality time with Kim Jong Un, Dennis Rodman delivered a message: U.S. President Barack Obama should give North Korea's dictator a call. The administration has been quick to dismiss his suggestion, as has most of the press. And it certainly hasn't helped Rodman's argument that North Korea is now threatening to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against American targets in response to new United Nations sanctions. Still, while there is a strong element of truth to these criticisms, Rodman may be onto something here. In the aftermath of the North's recent missile and nuclear tests, there is widespread agreement in Washington that the Obama administration's policy of strategic patience has failed. It has done nothing to stop North Korean provocations aimed at our South Korean ally or to slow down Pyongyang's growing weapons of mass destruction programs. Moreover, the cycle of action and reaction we have been caught in for the past several years (they test, we sanction), has had little effect on Pyongyang, its WMD programs, or its overall behavior despite the administration's claims to the contrary. The latest developments in this time loop seem to have been lifted straight from the movie Groundhog Day, in which a TV weather forecaster finds himself repeating the same day over and over again. Following almost universal denunciation of the third North Korean nuclear test, the United States sought international sanctions. Speculation that China, Pyongyang's closest ally, had finally become fed up with North Korean misbehavior has proven to be untrue. After weeks of U.S.-Chinese haggling at the United Nations, sanctions now emerge that are much more limited than the United States wanted. American officials trumpet that this resolution will have an important impact on North Korea's nuclear program (just like the previous ones). Sound familiar? [US NK policy] [Domestic]
• North Korea following old pattern of warnings, threats and provocations
  Posted on : Mar.7,2013 15:35 KST Modified on : Mar.7,2013 15:39 KST General and head of North Korea’s General Bureau of Reconnaissance Kim Yong-chul gives an address explaining the nullification of the Korean War armistice agreement, Mar. 5. (image captured from a Korean Central Television broadcast) With military exercises coming up on both sides of the 38th parallel, the choice is ultimately between dialogue and war By Kang Tae-ho, senior staff writer The North Korean supreme command’s threat to nullify the ceasefire that ended the combat phase of the Korean War is at once carefully calculated and also something they have already warned about. In addition, it once again shows the North doing what it has always done: countering the actions of Seoul and Washington with increasingly severe threats. If, for example, the third nuclear test was a response to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)’s resolution to impose sanctions on the North, this measure is aimed at the “Key Resolve-Foal Eagle” joint US-South Korea military exercises. [Response] [Joint US military]
• N.Korea Blusters as UN Gears Up to Tighten Sanctions
  Gen. Kim Yong-chol speaks on North Korean state TV on Tuesday. /[North] Korean Central TV-News 1 Gen. Kim Yong-chol speaks on North Korean state TV on Tuesday. /[North] Korean Central TV-News 1 The UN Security Council is poised to adopt a new resolution entailing tougher sanctions against North Korea in response to the North's latest nuclear test. Reuters cited unnamed diplomatic sources as saying the U.S. and China after some wrangling agreed on a draft resolution that "significantly expands" sanctions against the renegade country. A closed-door meeting of the Security Council on Wednesday with the representatives of 15 member nations is to discuss the draft. If it passes, it will be adopted by a plenary session of the UN. The agreement authorizes tougher inspections of North Korean vessels suspected of carrying illicit cargo and new pressure on Pyongyang’s international financial activities. Also, more North Korean entities and individuals are expected to be affected. [Sanctions]
• Spokesman for Supreme Command of KPA Clarifies Important Measures to Be Taken by It
  Pyongyang, March 5 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Supreme Command of the Korean People's Army issued the following statement on Tuesday: On Dec. 12 last year the DPRK legitimately and successfully launched a satellite for peaceful purposes, ensuring international transparency, going beyond practice, and choosing a comparatively mild situation for it. Seizing the DPRK's satellite launch as an occasion for stifling it from the outset, the U.S. and its allies deliberately negated the DPRK's sovereignty over its satellite launch. They finally prodded the UN Security Council into adopting a "resolution on sanctions" before opting for high-handed hostile acts against the DPRK. These hostile acts are still going on. Under this situation the DPRK was compelled to take practical counteractions to defend the security and sovereignty of the country. On Feb. 12 it admirably and successfully conducted the third underground nuclear test for self-defence at the highest level as part of those counteractions. [US NK policy [NK US policy
• U.S. offers tough new U.N. sanctions against North Korea
  Lee Jin-man/AP - A South Korean watches news reporting about a nuclear test conducted by North Korea on a TV screen in Seoul, South Korea. With China’s backing, the U.S. has proposed tough new sanctions aimed at missiles and nuclear technology. By Colum Lynch, Wednesday, March 6, 9:40 AM UNITED NATIONS — Backed by China, the United States introduced a U.N. resolution Tuesday that would impose fresh financial and diplomatic sanctions on North Korea and tighten measures aimed at preventing Pyongyang from importing or exporting technology for its nuclear or ballistic missile programs. The United States proposed the new round of sanctions in a draft resolution three weeks after North Korea conducted its third, and most advanced, nuclear test. China’s public support for the move underscored its displeasure with its unpredictable neighbor, which has repeatedly dismissed Beijing’s appeals to halt its nuclear tests. But at China’s insistence, the sanctions were crafted to impede North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs without blocking its legal trade. [Sanctions]
• USFK Must Work Harder to Keep Soldiers in Check
  Three U.S. soldiers led police on a high-speed car chase through Seoul late Saturday night that resulted in a standoff where one of the soldiers got shot. The Americans sped away in their car after apparently firing a BB gun in the crowded bar district of Itaewon. The car traveled around 12 km from Itaewon to Jayang-dong in eastern Seoul at speeds of up to 170 km/h and crashing into four other cars during the chase. [SOFA]
• Korean policeman says, “I thought I might die” about incident with US soldiers
  Posted on : Mar.5,2013 12:04 KST A US staff sergeant identified by the initial “L” hides his face as he arrives at Yongsan Garrison for questioning, March 4. (by Ryu Woo-jong, staff photographer) Lim Seong-mook now recovering after American soldiers’ attempt to run him over By Choi Yu-bin and Heo Jae-hyun, staff reporters Lim Seong-mook, now in his third year as a police officer, had a cast all the way from his left foot to his thigh. He managed to avoid a fracture, but the muscles and ligaments were injured. “I thought I might die,” he said, blinking as he lay on a h [SOFA]
• No criminal action yet taken against US soldiers who handcuffed Koreans
  Posted on : Mar.5,2013 12:07 KST An image captured from a cell phone video taken by a bystander who witnessed American military police handcuffing and dragging Korean civilians in Pyongtaek on July 5. The MPs claimed to have handcuffed the civilians as a response to a perceived threat. The video footage shows no evidence to support that claim. Feet-dragging in dealing with illegal handcuffing raises questions over lax treatment of US soldiers who commit crimes in Korea By Kim Gi-seong, South Gyeonggi correspondent No criminal action has yet been taken against seven USFK military police officers who caused a scene in Pyeongtaek last July by handcuffing citizens who were arguing over a parking violation. Police investigated the matter for over 40 days before submitting a recommendation for indictment. But the prosecutors have not made any decision on how to proceed in the six months since then. Pyeongtaek Police Station in Gyeonggi province investigated seven MPs with K-55 Air Force Base for violation the Punishment of Violences, etc. Act by illegally detaining three civilians. It handed the case over to prosecutors on August 20 with a recommendation to indict. [SOFA]
• North Korea planning joint military exercises to counter US-SK combined exercises
  Posted on : Mar.4,2013 14:17 KST Modified on : Mar.4,2013 14:18 KST U.S. soldiers from 145th Field Artillery Battalion deployed from the United States and South Korean soldiers chant their slogans on the Paladin self propelled gun after the Foal Eagle training exercise at firing point 180 at the Rodriguez Live Fire Range on March 15, 2012 in Pocheon, South Korea. The annual combined field training exercise, part of Foal Eagle 2013, 1s conducted between the Republic of Korea and United States forces and is one of the largest annual military training exercises in the world. In the past, this annual training has caused tensions with North Korea. Military action could include missile or nuclear testing as new government settles into power in Seoul By Kang tae-ho, senior staff writer Signs of large-scale North Korea military exercises have been detected in the East Sea, coinciding with the US and South Korea’s regular combined Foal Eagle field-training exercises, which enter full swing this week. North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper also warned again of the possibility of additional nuclear testing. A source with the South Korean military said on Mar. 3 that the North Korean armed forces had been detected preparing for joint exercises of their army, navy, and air force. “They’re preparing for the exercises all over North Korea, and it looks like they’re planning joint army, navy, and air force firepower training in the East Sea early this month,” the source said. [Joint US military]
• US soldiers and Seoul police wounded after Saturday night clash
  Posted on : Mar.4,2013 14:28 KST Modified on : Mar.4,2013 14:28 KST Car chase broke out after police called to investigate allegations that soldiers were threatening people in Itaewon with an air rifle By Um Ji-won and Park Hyun-chul, staff reporters Gunshots were fired during a chase between police and USFK soldiers that broke out in downtown Seoul late on the night of Mar. 2, resulting in two injuries. One policeman was struck by a USFK vehicle, while a soldier was wounded in the shoulder after being shot by police. According to Seoul’s Yongsan Police Station and witnesses, the incident began with a report at around 11:53 pm on Saturday about Americans firing an air rifle on the road in front of the Hamilton Hotel in the Itaewon neighborhood. Two police officers arrived at the scene, one of them a detective named Gwak with the police station’s Itaewon branch. They found a white Optima with three passengers and attempted to inspect it, but the passengers, who included 26-year-old USFK staff sergeant “L” and 23-year-old private first class “D,” refused to comply and drove off. [SOFA]
• Statement Opposing U.S.-South Korea Joint Military Exercises Key Resolve Foal Eagle
  Stop War Games, Start Peace Talks The Korean War, known in the United States as “The Forgotten War,” has never ended. Every year, the United States stages a series of massive joint war games with its ally, South Korea (ROK). These coordinated exercises are both virtual and real. Among other things, they practice live fire drills and simulate the invasion of North Korea—including first-strike options. While we - peace, human rights, faith-based, environmental, and Korean solidarity activists– are deeply concerned about North Korea’s third nuclear weapons test, we also oppose the U.S.-ROK joint war games as adding to the dangerous cycle of escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula. North Korea views these war games as an act of provocation and threat of invasion like that which we have witnessed in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya and routinely condemns these maneuvers as aimed at “bring[ing] down the DPRK by force” and forcing it to“bolster up the war deterrent physically.” South Korean activists also decry the role of these war games in the hostile perpetuation of the division of the Korean peninsula and are often persecuted for their protests under South Korea’s draconian National Security Law. The U.S.-ROK “Key Resolve” and “Foal Eagle” annual war games, usually staged in March, and “Ulchi Freedom Guardian” in August, typicallylast for months and involve tens of thousands of U.S. troops stationed in South Korea and deployed from the United States, as well as hundreds of thousands of their ROK counterparts. U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, and Space Command forces will participate in these exercises and practice scenarios including the removal of North Korea’s leadership, occupation of Pyeongyang, and reunification of the peninsula under U.S. and South Korean control. [Joint US military] [Takeover]

• Frienemies: The North’s Nuclear Test Was Bad Enough, The South Shouldn’t Make It Worse
  By Jeffrey Lewis With its most recent nuclear test, North Korea claims to have detonated a warhead small enough to arm its arsenal of ballistic missiles, including the Nodong. Some of my colleagues doubt the North Koreans, but I am inclined to take them at their word. The prospect that Pyongyang may deploy a small arsenal of nuclear-armed missiles naturally raises the question of whether this changes anything. My sense is that yes, an operational North Korean nuclear arsenal may undermine stability by emboldening Pyongyang to conduct new conventional provocations. Provocations, such as the sinking of the Cheonan and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island are bad enough in and of themselves; but what may be worse is how South Korea reacts. Washington may find crisis stability rather challenging on the Korean peninsula. [Client] [MISCOM]
• Park coordinates with US on NK
  President Park Geun-hye shakes hands with Thomas Donilon, U.S. President Barack Obama’s national security advisor, at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul, Tuesday. / Yonhap By Kim Tae-gyu President Park Geun-hye said Monday that South Korea will closely cooperate with the United States to sternly respond to any provocations by North Korea, including nuclear tests. In a meeting with U.S. envoys, Park stressed that the close collaboration between the two long-time allies is crucial in coping with the threat posed by Pyongyang after it carried out a third nuclear test on Feb. 12. The strong remarks came just one day after Park issued a stern warning against the North’s continued pursuit of its atomic weapons program during her inaugural speech. “North Korea’s nuclear armament can never be accepted and the international community should respond sternly to provocations by North Korea, led by the alliance of Seoul and Washington,” a Cheong Wa Dae official quoted Park as telling the American entourage headed by U.S. President Barack Obama’s national security advisor, Thomas Donilon.
• US conducted war games during third North Korean nuclear test
  American online magazine reports US was practicing for the possibility of NK regime collapse By Lee Hyung-sub, staff reporter On Feb. 12, the day that North Korea conducted its third nuclear test, the US military conducted a war game in preparation for activities including dealing with nuclear weapons in the hypothetical event that the North Korean government collapses, reports say. According to the AOL Defense webzine, an online magazine dedicated to US security, a hypothetical wartime simulation involving a scenario of this sort was carried out as part of the 2013 Unified Quest war game, held at the US Army War College located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. This war game, which is held each year and brings together people from the military, academia, and think tanks, is designed to devise contingency plans for crisis situations that can break out in various parts of the world. This year, changes in the strategic objectives of the US Army led to the focus being placed on Asia instead of the Middle East, including a scenario related to the collapse of the North Korean regime. The participants discussed wartime strategies related to how the US military would land on the coast of North Korea in the event of a crisis on the Korean peninsula and how they would dispose of weapons of mass destruction, including chemical, biological, and radioactive weapons. They also discussed how China might get involved. [Takeover]
• North Korean Nuclear Threat Drives Army Wargame; Service Shifts To Rebuild WMD Skills
  By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. Published: February 14, 2013 Text Size 6 Comments North Korean Nuclear Threat Drives Army Wargame; Service Shifts To Rebuild WMD Skills ARMY WAR COLLEGE: Hours before Pyongyang conducted its latest nuclear test, military officers here at the Army War College began waging a wargame whose classified scenario is transparently concerned with North Korea. That is not happenstance. [Takeover] http://defense.aol.com/2013/02/15/the-armys-navy-fast-boats-and-long-range-rockets-play-in-north/ The Army's Navy: Fast Boats, Long-Range Rockets Play In Classified Wargame By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. Published: February 15, 2013 The Army's Navy: Fast Boats, Long-Range Rockets Play In Classified Wargame ARMY WAR COLLEGE: For the last decade, the Army has emphasized "boots on the ground." Large numbers of foot troops slogged through valley and village, field and town, to safeguard civilians and hunt insurgents. Now, as the largest service looks beyond Afghanistan, a classified wargame about a hypothetical Korean conflict shined a spotlight on high-speed, long-range assets such as air defense missiles, guided artillery, and the Army's own fleet of boats. "When you think about landing craft, like Saving Private Ryan, most of those reside in the Army, actually," Maj. Gen. Bill Hix, director of concept development at the Army Capabilities Integration Center, said in a conversation with reporters here. "It's not terribly sexy," Hix said, "but there're some new Army watercraft [that] we've used to maneuver forces around in this operation very agilely." In a hypothetical scenario involving weapons of mass destruction, Hix said, the Army's mini-Navy "allowed us to get after a series of key places where WMD was suspected to be, very rapidly... while at the same time splitting the focus of the enemy" with simultaneous strikes at multiple points along the coast. What's more, when coupled with a kind of movable harbor called the Joint Logistics Over The Shore (JLOTS) system, the Army's small, fast watercraft allowed US forces to reduce their dependence on large and easily targeted seaports. [Amphibious] [Takeover]
• Last July, N. Korea warned of coming missile launch and nuclear test
  Posted on : Feb.22,2013 17:05 KST Joel Wit attributes North Korea’s provocations to MB and Obama’s policy failures By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent It has come to light that there was evidence arose that last July North Korea was preparing its long-range missile launch and nuclear tests, and that the US government had been informed of the preparations. Joel Wit, an expert on North Korean issues, said during an interview with the Hankyoreh on Feb. 16, “In July, it was very clear from talking to the North Korean foreign ministers that they were moving toward further development of their nuclear deterrent and missile forces. It was already clear at the time that we were headed for a difficult time after the elections in the US and South Korea”. Wit and another US civilian expert met at a ‘Track-II’ meeting in Singapore with Choi Sun-hee, deputy director of North Korea’s foreign ministry and Han Sung-ryul, North Korean deputy ambassador to the UN. [US NK Negotiations]
• North Korea brandishes nukes but seeks peace talks with U.S.
  AP Feb 14, 2013 SEOUL/UNITED NATIONS – The way North Korea sees it, only bigger weapons and more threatening provocations will force the U.S. to come to the table to discuss what Pyongyang says it really wants: peace. It’s no coincidence that the North’s third underground nuclear test — and by all indications so far its most powerful to date — took place Tuesday, on the eve of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address.
  The intent in Pyongyang is to get Washington to treat North Korea like an equal, a fellow nuclear power. The aim of the nuclear and missile tests is not to go to war with the United States — notwithstanding the Kim regime’s often belligerent statements — but to force Washington to respect its sovereignty and military clout. During his 17-year rule, late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il poured scarce resources into Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs to use as bargaining chips in negotiations with Washington, Seoul and Tokyo. At the same time, he sought to build unity at home by pitching North Korea’s defiance as a matter of national pride as well as military defense. Pyongyang has long cited the U.S. military presence on the Korean Peninsula, and what it considers a nuclear umbrella in the region, as the main reason behind its need for nuclear weapons. North Korea and the U.S. fought on opposite sides of the bitter three-year Korean War. That conflict ended in a truce in 1953, and left the peninsula divided by heavily fortified buffer zone manned by the U.S.-led U.N. Command. [NK US policy]
• Lurching Towards War: A Post-Mortem on Strategic Patience
  By Christine Hong and Hyun Lee, February 15, 2013 north-korea-nuclear-test-strategic-patience-war-gamesWith all eyes on North Korea since its third nuclear test, remarkably little has been said about how we arrived at this crisis point. Inadequately contextualized as North Korea’s response to fortified UN sanctions, the latest nuclear test bespeaks the failure of U.S. diplomacy toward its historic enemy. The commonplace U.S. media framing of North Korea as the region’s foremost security threat obscures the disingenuous nature of U.S. President Barack Obama’s policy in the region, specifically the identity between what his advisers dub “strategic patience,” on the one hand, and his forward-deployed military posture and alliance with regional hawks on the other. Examining Obama’s aggressive North Korea policy and its consequences is crucial to understanding why demonstrations of military might—of politics by other means, to borrow from Carl von Clausewitz—are the only avenues of communication North Korea appears to have with the United States at this juncture. [US NK policy] [Strategic patience]
• Alliance with U.S. Low on Koreans' List of Priorities
  Koreans place the least priority on the alliance with the U.S. when it comes to ensuring lasting peace on the peninsula, a survey shows. The survey was conducted by the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs to mark the 60th anniversary of the armistice that ended the Korean War. Bolstering awareness of national security was top of the list with 47.7 percent, followed by cooperation with North Korea with 46.8 percent, and strengthening self-defense with 44.6 percent. Next came achieving diplomatic balance with the U.S., China, Russia and Japan with 27.1 percent. Only 20.4 percent said the most important thing is strengthening the alliance with Washington. "Anti-American sentiment has worsened" since the deaths of two schoolgirls under a U.S. military vehicle in 2002, said Yoon Duk-min at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy. "It seems that the rise of China and the need to strengthen self-defense impacted public consensus." [Anti-Americanism]
• Lurching Towards War: A Post-Mortem on Strategic Patience
  By Christine Hong and Hyun Lee, February 15, 2013 sWith all eyes on North Korea since its third nuclear test, remarkably little has been said about how we arrived at this crisis point. Inadequately contextualized as North Korea’s response to fortified UN sanctions, the latest nuclear test bespeaks the failure of U.S. diplomacy toward its historic enemy. The commonplace U.S. media framing of North Korea as the region’s foremost security threat obscures the disingenuous nature of U.S. President Barack Obama’s policy in the region, specifically the identity between what his advisers dub “strategic patience,” on the one hand, and his forward-deployed military posture and alliance with regional hawks on the other. Examining Obama’s aggressive North Korea policy and its consequences is crucial to understanding why demonstrations of military might—of politics by other means, to borrow from Carl von Clausewitz—are the only avenues of communication North Korea appears to have with the United States at this juncture
  Sixty years after the armistice, North Korea has pushed for a peace treaty with the U.S. But when talks fail, as they have for nearly two decades, the North Koreans turn to speaking with their weapons. [US NK policy] [Strategic patience]
• Ministerial Nominee Under Fire for CIA Ties
  Kim Jeong-hoon, the Korean-American entrepreneur named as minister for science, has come under fire for his close ties to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Critics were quick to question whether he is fit to handle confidential technology information given his links to the CIA. As head of Bell Labs, the research and development subsidiary of French-owned Alcatel-Lucent, Kim served as a non-standing director of the External Advisory Board at the CIA from 2007 to 2011. He also served as a director at In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm set up in 1999 with CIA funding. In-Q-Tel invests in Silicon Valley technology that can be used for national security purposes. Kim in a statement on Tuesday claimed these roles would not affect his job as Korea's science minister since they were merely "advisory" roles. But critics said his track record raises the question where his loyalties would lie in any conflict of interests between Korea and the U.S.
• Expert says diplomatic engagement may be best way to reach North Korea
  Posted on : Feb.20,2013 16:06 KST At a forum in Seoul, Robert Gallucci says the Koreas, China and the US should cooperate to find a solution to tensions By Kang Tae-ho, senior staff writer A former US State Department aide who played a critical role in the Agreed Framework between the US and North Korea in 1994 said on Feb. 19 that diplomatic engagement on the North Korean issue may be the best way of reaching a resolution. Robert Gallucci, current president of the MacArthur Foundation, discussed the limitations of Washington’s North Korea policy over the past two decades in a keynote speech at the 2013 Asan Nuclear Forum. The event was held in Seoul at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, organized by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, an organization headed by chairman Ham Jae-bong. [US NK policy] [MISCOM] [Engagement]
• Asan Nuclear Forum
  Day 1: Tuesday, February 19, 2013 Time Panel Title Panelist Affiliation 09:00-09:30 Registration 09:30-10:10 Regency Room Welcoming Remarks Hahm Chaibong The Asan Institute for Policy Studies Opening Remarks Chung Mong Joon The Asan Institute for Policy Studies Keynote Speech Robert Gallucci John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation 10:10-10:15 Break Plenary Session I 10:15-11:30 Dealing with a Nuclear North Korea Regency Room (English/Korean) Hahm Chaibong The Asan Institute for Policy Studies Choi Kang Korea National Diplomatic Academy Endo Tetsuya Japan Institute of International Affairs Robert Gallucci John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Vasily Mikheev Institute for World Economy and International Relations Yang Yi National Defense University 11:30-12:30 Lunch Session 1 12:30-13:45 Reassessing North Korea's Nuclear Threat after the 3rd Nuclear Test Regency Room (English/Korean) Joshua Pollack Science Applications International Corporation Kim Yongho Yonsei University Markus Schiller SchmuckerTechnologie Joel Wit U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS ROK, China and Japan as Responsible Nuclear Suppliers Grand Ballroom? Hussein Khalil Argonne National Laboratory Lee Hee-Yong Korean Electric Power Corporation Jane Nakano Center for Strategic and International Studies Jasper Pandza King's College London Building Public Confidence in Nuclear Safety Grand Ballroom? Dae Chung US Department of Energy Ahn Joonhong University of California, Berkeley Kim Myungja Korea Federation of Women's Science and Technology Association Lee Un Chul Seoul National University Suzuki Tatsujiro Japan Atomic Energy Commission 13:45-14:00 Break Session 2 14:00-15:15 A Nuclear North Korea: Nonproliferation Issues and Beyond Regency Room (English/Korean) Lee Jung-Hoon Yonsei University Bruce Bennett RAND Corporation Michishita Narushige National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies Alexander Vorontsov Russia Academy of Sciences Nuclear Spent Fuel and Waste Management Grand Ballroom? Thomas Isaacs Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Jacob Dalnoki Veress James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies Philippe Gillet AREVA Song Myung Jae Korea Radioactive Management Corporation Jack Spencer The Heritage Foundation Nuclear Safety and Terrorism Grand Ballroom? William Charlton Nuclear Security Science & Policy Institute Jonathan Herbach Utrecht University Hwang Il Soon Seoul National University Naoi Yosuke Japan Atomic Energy Agency 15:15-15:30 Break Session 3 15:30-16:45 US-China: North Korean Nuclear Dance Card Regency Room(English/Korean) Simon Long The Economist Kim Sung-han Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Gary Samore Harvard University Shi Yinhong Renmin University of China Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Debates on Multilateral Approaches Grand Ballroom Corey Hinderstein Nuclear Threat Initiative Tom Coppen Utrecht University Caroline Jorant SDRI Consulting Kang Jungmin Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology William Tobey Harvard University Will Iran Go Nuclear? Grand Ballroom? Jang Ji-Hyang The Asan Institute for Policy Studies Ahmet Kasim Ha Kadir Has University in Istanbul Steven Mille Harvard University Uzi Rubin Rubicon Ltd. Nasser Saghafi-Ameri Center for Strategic Research 16:45-17:00 Break Plenary Session II 17:00-18:15 Nuclear Security Summit: Before & After Seoul Regency Room (English/Korean) John Bernhard Former Danish Ambassador to the IAEA and CTBTO Piet de Klerk Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands Kim Bonghyun Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Gary Samore Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University 18:15-18:30 Launch of Asan Report; “2012 Seoul Nuclear Security Summit: A Review” 18:30-19:00 Reception 19:00-21:00 Gala Dinner (Grand Ballroom II, Grand Hyatt Seoul Hotel*) Dinner Speech by Dr. Lee Hong Koo Chairman of Seoul Forum for International Affairs and former Prime Minister of ROK Day 2: Wednesday, February20, 2013 Time Panel Title Panelist Affiliation Session 4 09:00-10:15 Future of the ROK-US Nuclear Cooperation Agreement Regency Room(English/Korean) Park Jiyoung The Asan Institute for Policy Studies Mark Hibbs Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Sheen Seongho Seoul National University Scott Snyder Council on Foreign Relations Sharon Squassoni Center for Strategic and International Studies Yim Man-Sung Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology Nuclear Dominos in North East Asia Grand Ballroom John Park Massachusetts Institute of Technology Jor-Shan Choi Berkeley Nuclear Research Center Kim Young Ho Korea National Defense University Li Hong China Arms Control and Disarmament Association Miles Pomper James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies Building Global Nuclear Security Architecture Grand Ballroom? Shin Chang-Hoon The Asan Institute for Policy Studies John Bernhard Former Danish Ambassador to the IAEA and CTBTO Kenneth Brill Independent Consultant, Former U.S. Ambassador to the IAEA Mona Dreicer Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Jun Bong-geun Korea National Diplomatic Academy 10:15-10:30 Break Plenary Session III 10:30-11:45 Energy Security Or National Security Regency Room (English/Korean) Scott Sagan Stanford University Gareth Evans The Australian National University Alfredo Labbé Mission of Chile to the UN, Vienna Park Goon Cherl KEPCO International Nuclear Graduate School 11:45-14:00 Networking Lunch Session 5 14:00-15:15 De Facto Nuclear Weapon States and the Non-proliferation Treaty Regime Regency Room (English/Korean) Aruni Wijewardane James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies Ariel Levite Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Mushahid Hussain Sayed Senate of Pakistan Manpreet Sethi Center for Air Power Studies, New Delhi How Viable Are Nuclear Weapons Free Zones? Grand Ballroom? William Potter James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies Emiliano Buis Non-proliferation for Global Security Foundation Chun Chaesung Seoul National University Peter Hayes Nautilus Institute, RMIT University Ta Minh Tuan Office of the Government, Vietnam How Safe Are Nuclear Power Plants in South Korea? Grand Ballroom? Ahn Joonhong University of California, Berkeley Kim Jiyoon The Asan Institute for Policy Studies Lee Jong-In Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety Suh Kune Yull Seoul National University 15:15-15:30 Break Session 6 15:30-16:45 Bolstering Counter-proliferation Regime Regency Room (English/Korean) Bong Youngshik The Asan Institute for Policy Studies Choi Kang Korea National Diplomatic Academy Pierce Corden American Association for the Advancement of Science Matthew Kroenig Georgetown University Jim Walsh Massachusetts Institute of Technology Non-State Stakeholders in Preventing WMD Proliferations Grand Ballroom? Gabriele Kraatz-Wadsack United Nations Togzhan Kassenova Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Lv Xiaodong United Nations Shin Chang-Hoon The Asan Institute for Policy Studies Regional Cooperation in Nuclear Safety Grand Ballroom? Kelsey Davenport Arms Control Association Gun-Aajav Manlaijav Nuclear and Radiation Regulatory Authority Kim Sang Yun Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety Sato Heigo Takushoku University 16:45-17:00 Break Plenary Session IV 17:00-18:15 Challenges and Opportunities after the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Regency Room (English/Korean) Martin Fackler The New York Times Chang Soon-heung Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology Luis Echávarri OECD Nuclear Energy Agency Anton Khlopkov Center for Energy and Security Studies Suzuki Tatsujiro Japan Atomic Energy Commission 18:15-18:30 Closing Remarks 18:30-20:30 Closing Reception and Dinner (Grand Ballroom II) Dinner Speech by Mr. Luis Echávarri Director-General of OECD Nuclear Energy Agency
• Stephen Bosworth say NK nuclear issue requires a comprehensive approach
  Posted on : Feb.18,2013 15:07 KST Modified on : Feb.18,2013 15:08 KST Stephen Bosworth, a former United States Special Representative for North Korea policy Instead of narrow focus on denuclearization, former US diplomat says broader cooperation is needed among Washington, Beijing and Seoul By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent Stephen Bosworth, a former United States Special Representative for North Korea policy, said on Feb. 15 that the North Korean nuclear program should be addressed through a comprehensive approach instead of being treated as an isolated issue. Bosworth’s comments came during a closed-door conference on North Korea policy held by Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, headed by director Gi-wook Shin. Bosworth also said he believed North Korea’s recent activities suggested that it was time for the US government to take the threat more seriously. According to Bosworth, a comprehensive approach may include establishing a peace treaty on the Korean Peninsula to replace the armistice agreement, and conducting negotiations on energy and economic aid to North Korea. Bosworth expressed skepticism about the effectiveness so-called “CVID” - complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization - approach favored by Washington and Seoul. In particular, he said the use of enriched uranium made it difficult to realistically verify whether North Korea had given up its program. He added that Washington, Beijing, and Seoul should work together on coordinating a response to the nuclear issue, but said that their conflicting interests would put a drag on efficiency. In particular, the US is focused on preventing the North Korean nuclear program from expanding, while China is more concerned about preventing the Pyongyang regime’s collapse. Bosworth went on to say that despite calls for China to use its position as North Korea’s only major ally as leverage, recent developments have shown the limits of its influence and suggest that hopes for a regime change in Pyongyang may be unrealistic. [US NK policy] [Engagement]
• Learn to live with a nuclear North Korea
  By Ted Galen Carpenter, Published: February 15 Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, is a co-author of “The Korean Conundrum: America’s Troubled Relations With North and South Korea.” After North Korea’s nuclear test Tuesday, the West’s reaction has been as predictable as it will be ineffective: lots of hand-wringing, calls for more sanctions, warnings of vague consequences if North Korea continues to violate U.N. resolutions. As President Obama said in his State of the Union address, the North Koreans’ provocations “will only further isolate them, as we stand by our allies, strengthen our own missile defense and lead the world in taking firm action in response to these threats.” Unfortunately, none of these actions will curb Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions. [US NK policy] [Libetarian]
• The Path Not Taken
  Geoffrey K. See | Friday, February 15th, 2013 | No Comments » All eyes are now focused on the present, on North Korea’s recent nuclear test and the sanctions that might follow. While most commentators readily condemn North Korea’s “provocation”, it might be helpful to ask whether things could have turned out differently if a different sequence of events had taken place. To do so, we need to take a step back to late 2012 and ask a belated what-if… Just prior to North Korea’s rocket launch last year, North Korea attempted to invite a high-level delegation from the US to visit Pyongyang. The visit (apparently) did not appear to take place. It is an interesting but futile exercise to wonder what the message would have been. [Overture] [Satellite]
• US passes resolution condemning DPRK
  Xinhua, February 16, 2013 The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed a bipartisan resolution condemning the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) for its recent underground nuclear test. The resolution, passed by a vote of 412 to 2, recognized "the grave threat that North Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs could pose to the security of the American people, given their increasing ability to reach the United States," said the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on its website. U.S. Republican Representative Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said: "North Korea's latest nuclear test is a stark reminder that Kim Jong Un is determined to develop his nuclear arsenal while depriving North Koreans of their most basic human rights." [Test] [US Nk policy] [Chinese IR]
• N.Korea Tells China of Preparations for More Nuclear Tests
  North Korea has told its key ally, China, that it is prepared to stage one or even two more nuclear tests this year in an effort to force the United States into diplomatic talks with Pyongyang, said a source with direct knowledge of the message. Further tests could also be accompanied this year by another rocket launch, said the source who has direct access to the top levels of government in both Beijing and Pyongyang. [Test] [NK US policy] [US NK Negotiations] [Bilateral]
• U.S. Mulls Branding N.Korea a Money-Laundering State
  The U.S. government is considering labeling North Korea as a money-laundering state to pave the way for sanctions after Pyongyang's latest nuclear test. A diplomatic source in Seoul said Washington is weighing the measure under the Patriot Act. Article 311 of the Patriot Act was created following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and authorizes the U.S. Commerce Department to identify an individual, financial institution or state as a "primary money-laundering concern." This would ban the target from transacting business with any system that handles U.S. dollars. This measure is much tougher than the freezing by the Bush administration in 2005 of around US$25 million held in some 50 North Korean bank accounts at Banco Delta Asia in Macao. [Sanctions] [Pretext]
• Congress to unveil new North Korea legislation
  Posted By Josh Rogin Wednesday, February 13, 2013 - 6:45 PM Not content to wait for the Obama administration or the United Nations to act, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is working on a new bill to punish North Korea for conducting yet another nuclear bomb test. The Cable has obtained the latest draft of the "North Korea Nonproliferation and Accountability Act of 2013," a bill that was brought up in today's Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting but not approved. One member of the committee, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), held up the bill Wednesday over fears it could "authorize force" so a new committee meeting is being scheduled for Thursday so the bill can be considered again, perhaps with minor language changes meant to mollify Paul. "There has been extensive military cooperation between the Governments of North Korea and Iran that dates back to the 1980s," the draft reads. "The latest provocative and defiant action by the Government of North Korea represents a direct threat to the United States and to our regional allies and partners." [Test] [US NK policy]
• U.S. House Moves to Re-List N.Korea as Terrorist State
  The U.S. House of Representatives is to vote on a motion that would re-list North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida on Wednesday proposed the bill to add the renegade country to the list again, and eight representatives from both side of the house joined her. In press release, Ros-Lehtinen condemned North Korea's nuclear test on Monday as a "deliberate and provocative action by the… regime," which is "yet another display of the regime's hostile intentions and is a reminder that Pyongyang is one step closer toward its goal of nuclear armament." [Terrorism List]
• Washington, Beijing Told of Nuke Test in Advance
  North Korea on Monday notified the U.S., China and Russia of its plan to conduct a nuclear test. It did not inform South Korea. Chun Young-woo, the senior presidential secretary for foreign affairs and security, said the North told the U.S., China and Russia on Monday evening, and Beijng and Washington in turn informed Seoul. The Chinese government until the last minute attempted to dissuade the North, a South Korean government official said Tuesday. "Immediately after it was informed of the nuclear test by the North, the Chinese Foreign Ministry called in South Korean Ambassador Lee Kyu-hyung in Beijing around midnight Monday to tell him of the North's plan," the official added. The North informed the U.S. on Monday through its permanent representation at the UN in New York. The U.S. also immediately informed Seoul through a diplomatic channel. [Test]
• What is Kim Jong-un’s goal and what will his next step be?
  Posted on : Feb.13,2013 15:09 KST After attempting to use provocations to draw the US into negotiations, Pyongyang now appears set on strengthening its nuclear capability By Park Byong-su, staff reporter North Korea’s third nuclear test is a symbolic indication of a change in direction in the country’s strategic approach to the US. To this point, North Korea has largely used its rocket launches and nuclear tests as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the US. At the time of the first nuclear test in Oct. 2006, the relevant issue for the North was relief from US financial sanctions in connection with the Banco Delta Asia incident. The second test in May 2009 was largely viewed as an attempt to push the new Obama administration to enter direct, bilateral talks after the six-party talks were shut down. However, under leader Kim Jong-un, North Korea has used this nuclear test to show that it is placing more stress on deterrence and the possession of nuclear weapons than on negotiations. Since Jan. 23, the North has issued a series of statements by the foreign ministry, the National Defense Commission, and the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland (CPRF) to make it quite clear that it considers the six-party talks to be over, that it believes the declaration for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula to be null and void, and that it will expand and strengthen nuclear deterrence, both in terms of quantity and capability. [NK US policy]
• Spokesman for DPRK Foreign Ministry Urges U.S. to Choose between Two Options
  Pyongyang, February 12 (KCNA) -- The DPRK Foreign Ministry released the following statement on Tuesday: The DPRK's third nuclear test is a resolute step for self-defence taken by it to cope with the U.S. hostile act against it. Its successful launch of satellite Kwangmyongsong 3-2 in December last year was a peaceful one from A to Z which was conducted according to its plan for scientific and technological development for economic construction and the improvement of the standard of people's living. The world including hostile countries recognized its application satellite's entry into orbit and greatly admired its development of space technology. The U.S., however, again prodded the UN Security Council into cooking up a new "resolution on sanctions" against the DPRK, terming its satellite launch a violation of the UNSC's "resolution". Encroaching upon the right to satellite launch is an unpardonable grave hostile act as it is an infringement on the DPRK's sovereignty. By origin, the DPRK had neither need nor plan to conduct a nuclear test. [Satellite] [Test] [US NK policy]
• Obama vows nuclear deterrence for S. Korea
  U.S. President Barack Obama and his South Korean counterpart, President Lee Myung-bak, on Tuesday pledged unswerving unity in coping with North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile threats. In a phone conversation with Lee, Obama also agreed to work together on several measures to punish Pyongyang for its continued provocative acts and to curb its drive for weapons of mass destruction, according to the White House.
• Experts: U.S. must prepare for day North Korea can put a nuclear warhead on a rocket
  By Matthew Schofield and Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — Scientists and security experts studying North Korea’s nuclear test on Tuesday believe the rogue nation is closing in on being able to place a nuclear weapon atop a missile and loft it at another country. That, all believe, immediately raised the stakes of the dangerous game the North Koreans have been playing for the past decade. The problem for the United States is that with each North Korean advance, the possible U.S. responses decrease and get more aggressive. In fact, some experts believe the options now are just two: a pre-emptive strike on North Korea’s nuclear facilities or targeting any rocket or missile not long after it leaves the launch pad. [Test] [US NK policy]
• U.S., Asian allies look for leverage against North Korea after nuclear test
  By Anne Gearan and Colum Lynch, Wednesday, February 13, 8:56 AM The North Korean underground nuclear test confirmed by U.S. intelligence agencies on Tuesday served as a stark reminder that the unpredictable and largely inscrutable government in Pyongyang remains a wild card for President Obama’s second term — a nuclear threat to U.S. allies in Asia and a potential arms merchant to the highest bidder. The timing of the test was interpreted in Washington as an attempt by North Korea’s young new leader to upstage Obama before his State of the Union address. And the claim that it involved a smaller, lighter device — an important element of any deliverable weapon — suggested that the demonstration could be the most dangerous yet by North Korea. [test] [Unpredictable] [Media] [US NK policy]
• North Korea’s nuclear test demands an aggressive U.S. response
  By Editorial Board, NORTH KOREA’S latest nuclear test may mark a new and more risky strategy by a regime headed by a 29-year-old novice. Previous detonations by Pyongyang appeared intended mostly as crude provocations, designed to win credibility at home and concessions from South Korea and the United States. Now North Korea may be aiming to become a full-fledged nuclear power, with warheads and missiles that could threaten its neighbors and eventually the U.S. homeland. [Test] [US NK policy] [US NK Negotiations]
• Putting the Squeeze on North Korea
  Gregory Elich* | February 6, 2013 [Originally published in Global Research, February 4, 2013] Tensions are escalating since North Korea's launch of a satellite into orbit on December 12, 2012. Overwrought news reports termed the launch a "threat" and a "provocation," while U.S. National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor called it "irresponsible behavior." Punishment for North Korea was swift in coming. North Korea's Kwangmyongsong-3 was just one of 75 satellites that a variety of nations sent into space last year, but Pyongyang's launch, and a failed launch earlier in the year on April 12, were the only ones singled out for condemnation.1 In Western eyes, there was something uniquely threatening about the Kwangmyongsong-3 earth observation satellite, unlike the apparently more benign five military and three spy satellites the United States launched last year. [Satellite] [Double standard][US NK policy]
• US, DPRK verbal volleys continue
  Agencies/China Daily, February 7, 2013 Washington and Pyongyang kept trading verbal volleys on Wednesday as the United States warned of "further consequences" if the Democratic People's Republic of Korea goes ahead with a third nuclear test, and the DPRK threatened "stronger measures than a nuclear test." Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and his US counterpart John Kerry had earlier exchanged views on the nuclear issue in a phone call on Tuesday night, following Kerry's conversations this week with his counterparts from Japan and the Republic of Korea.
• Expert says Seoul and Washington’s emphasis on NK denuclearization has failed
  Posted on : Feb.6,2013 16:43 KST Siegfried Hecker, former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory Siegfried Hecker argues for a broadening of NK policy that considers culture and the economy By Kang Tae-ho, senior staff writer One of the US’s best known experts on North Korea’s nuclear program says Washington and Seoul’s policies on containing the threat need to focus on a broader range of issues. Siegfried Hecker said on Feb. 5 that the policies to combat the nuclear threat need to focus on the economy, education, resources, culture, and exchange in order to be effective. He advocated a broader approach in response to North Korea’s imminent third nuclear test, rather than the hard line currently coming from the United Nations Security Council, with its emphasis on military actions such as preemptive strikes and a stronger naval blockade. Hecker, who first glimpsed North Korea’s large-scale, modernized uranium enrichment facilities during a visit in November 2010, made the remarks at an international symposium in Seoul on the future of Northeast Asia. Describing North Korea’s nuclear capabilities as still at a beginning level, he also warned of a possible worst-case scenario if the administrations of Barack Obama and Park Geun-hye did not develop policies geared to contain the threat the country’s nuclear program poses. Hecker is a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, one of the four major state-run atomic research institutes in the US. He was critical of Seoul and Washington’s emphasis on North Korea’s denuclearization since the second nuclear crisis of 2002, which he said had failed at preventing the country from strengthening its nuclear program. [US NK policy]
• Joint drill ends on quiet note
  By Kang Seung-woo South Korea and the United States wrapped up a three-day joint naval drill without much media hype Wednesday. The government didn’t hesitate to promote the drill as a show of force to warn Pyongyang over its possible nuclear test. But there was little publicity for the exercise with just three photos being released Monday, the first day of the drill. The joint naval exercise was participated in by the USS San Francisco, a nuclear submarine armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, and the USS Shiloh, an Aegis equipped guided missile cruiser [Joint US military]
• U.S., S.Korea Begin Naval Exercises
  South Korea and the United States have launched a joint naval exercise off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula to test the combat readiness of the two allies. The three-day drill that began Monday comes at a time North Korea is ramping up daily threats of a nuclear test in response to expand UN sanctions imposed after its long-range rocket launch in December. The joint U.S.-South Korean drills are taking place in the East Sea near the city of Pohang. The exercise includes naval maneuvers, submarine detection, live-fire drills and antiballistic missile drills. The South Korean navy deployed 10 vessels, while the U.S. Navy has the nuclear submarine USS San Francisco and the guided missile cruiser USS Shiloh in the maneuvers. In talks by telephone Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-nwan agreed that a third nuclear test by North Korea should be met by a "firm response." [Joint US military]
• Donald Gregg says it’s time to enter dialogue with North Korea
  Posted on : Feb.5,2013 16:01 KST Modified on : Feb.5,2013 16:04 KST Donald Gregg, former US ambassador to South Korea Former US ambassador to Seoul says Kim Jong-un is someone the South should be able to talk with By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent A former US ambassador to South Korea suggested Seoul and Washington should not overreact to signs of a possible third nuclear test from North Korea. Speaking in a telephone interview on Feb. 3, Donald Gregg, 85, said, “The top priority for the two countries was to remain cool-headed and begin dialogue with Pyongyang.” In particular, Gregg said that current North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is someone they would be able to have dialogue with.[Engagement] [Kim Jong Un] [Sanctions]
• With conflict brewing, more sanctions not likely to keep Korea calm
  Posted on : Feb.4,2013 15:36 KST Modified on : Feb.4,2013 15:41 KST Kim Jong-un presides over an extended session of North Korea’s Central Military Commission. KNCA reported on Feb. 3 that the meeting took place, but didn’t specify the time or location. (KCNA/Yonhap News) With North Korea possibly preparing its third nuclear test, strategic intervention by the US and China may be needed By Kang Tae-ho, senior staff writer After North Korean leader Kim Jong-un reached an “important conclusion” in an extended session of the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the Workers’ Party, Pyongyang appears poised to go ahead with a nuclear test. The North has often made its final decision on matters related to the armed forces or national defense in the CMC.
• U.S. Soldiers Held for Harassing Woman on Subway
  Two Korean men try to stop U.S. soldiers after they harassed a woman on a subway train on Saturday. /Courtesy of subway police Two Korean men try to stop U.S. soldiers after they harassed a woman on a subway train on Saturday. /Courtesy of subway police Three U.S. soldiers have been handed over to U.S. military police for sexually harassing a Korean woman in her 20s on the subway after she asked them to quiet down. Three other U.S. soldiers who were part of the same group ran away, subway police said on Sunday. The incident occurred around 9:15 p.m. Saturday on the subway bound for Incheon from Dongducheon, Gyeonggi Province, when six U.S. soldiers played a boombox loudly, dancing and hollering. There were around 20 to 30 other passengers on the same train at the time. One of them, a 21-year-old woman identified only by her surname Jeon, approached the G.I.s and asked them to keep the noise down, but the men instead started taking photos of her. When Jeon protested, the soldiers responded she was "cute" and "beautiful," according to witness accounts. Then the soldiers repeatedly touched Jeon's breasts, arm and wrist. Jeon called the police, and when they realized, the soldiers tried to get off at the next stop and practically dragged Jeon out of the subway train when she attempted to block them. Two bystanders tussled with the soldiers for about 10 minutes, following them to the gate, and were able to hold on to three of them until police arrived. Subway police said the three were handed over to U.S. military police in exchange for a written guarantee to investigate them. The other three are still being sought. They added that they plan to interview Jeon and the three U.S. soldiers on Tuesday. U.S. Forces Korea personnel enjoy a degree of impunity since the U.S. side has jurisdiction over them, though a recent revision of the Status of Forces Agreement gives Korean law enforcement greater powers in case of major crimes. [US offences]
• N.Korean Nuclear Threat 'Worse Than Iran's'
  Chuck Hagel, the controversial nominee for U.S. defense secretary, told a Senate confirmation hearing that North Korea is a "real nuclear power and quite unpredictable." Hagel's comments have upset some people who are sensitive to any wording that would officially acknowledge North Korea's status as a "nuclear power" in the sense of being entitled to sit at the big table with countries like the U.S., U.K. and France. [Unpredictable]
• SKorea, US begin drills amid NKorea nuclear threat
  AP foreign, Monday February 4 2013 HYUNG-JIN KIM Associated Press= SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean and U.S. troops began naval drills Monday in a show of force partly directed at North Korea amid signs that Pyongyang will soon carry out a threat to conduct its third atomic test. The region is also seeing a boost in diplomatic activity focused on North Korea's announcement last month that it will conduct a nuclear test to protest international sanctions toughened over Pyongyang's long-range rocket launch in December. Pyongyang's two previous nuclear tests, in 2006 and 2009, both occurred after it was slapped with increased sanctions for similar rocket launches. The U.S., South Korea and other countries have urged North Korea to scrap its nuclear test plans or face grave consequences. North Korea's state media said Sunday that at a high-level Workers' Party meeting, leader Kim Jong Un issued "important" guidelines meant to bolster the army and protect national sovereignty. North Korea didn't elaborate, but Kim's guidelines likely refer to a nuclear test and suggest that Pyongyang appears to have completed formal procedural steps and is preparing to conduct a nuclear test soon, according to South Korean analyst Hong Hyun-ik. [Joint US military] [Inversion]
• `Seoul should stick to Washington'
  2013-01-30 21:02 By Jane Han NEW YORK — With China growing in strength, some say that it is time for Korea to shift away from the United States, and get closer to the Middle Kingdom. Their argument is gaining traction with Park Geun-hye taking over as president. Park may more than ever before come under pressure to pick one over the other in foreign policy challenges. Not so fast, says a renowned expert of Korea-U.S. relations. Korea should be cautious in making a distinction between being independent and autonomous in its relationship with the United States, according to Ha Yong-chool, a professor of political science at the University of Washington. “Independent refers to a lack of dependence in both structural (security alliance) and policy terms. Autonomous refers to increasing leverage and room for active policy-making,” he said in an interview with The Korea Times. [Sovereignty] [Pro-Americanism] [Realignment]
• Experts urge aid for N. Korea to promote peace
  Participants of the two-day forum, “The Future of the Korea Peninsula: Unification or Perpetual Division,” exchange views on how to deal with North Korea at the Plaza Hotel in Seoul, Wednesday. The forum was hosted by the Hansun Foundation in Seoul and The Heritage Foundation based in Washington D.C. / Courtesy of Hansun Foundation By Kang Hyun-kyung The international community should assist North Korea in transforming from an impoverished nation into a normal state because this will help achieve a unified Korea, experts said Wednesday. During a forum hosted by the Hansun Foundation in collaboration with the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, think tank experts and government officials called on governments to use a policy mix to resolve the North Korea nuclear program. In opening remarks, Park Se-il, president of the Hansun Foundation, said nations should draw up a plan to counter any negative fallout from a sudden change in the North. “We are standing at the crossroads. The normalization of North Korea is one of the crucial elements that need to be done to prepare for unification of the two Koreas,” he stressed. [US NK policy]

• U.S. Poses Constant Nuclear Threats to DPRK
  Pyongyang, January 29 (KCNA) -- The U.S. has stepped up its moves to stifle the DPRK since the mid 20th century to seize upper-hand in the Asia-Pacific region. After igniting a war against the DPRK on June 25, 1950, the U.S. introduced nuclear weapons to the Korean front in August the same year and held several drills for dropping them in the northern part of Korea. It reduced south Korea into the biggest nuclear depot and advanced nuclear base in the Far East and staged nuclear war exercises against the DPRK in south Korea and its vicinity every year with huge nuclear weapons involved, openly posing nuclear threats.
• Google releases detailed map of North Korea, gulags and all
  Posted by Chico Harlan on January 28, 2013 at 9:25 pm Until Tuesday, North Korea appeared on Google Maps as a near-total white space — no roads, no train lines, no parks and no restaurants. The only thing labeled was the capital city, Pyongyang. This all changed when Google, on Tuesday, rolled out a detailed map of one of the world’s most secretive states. The new map labels everything from Pyongyang’s subway stops to the country’s several city-sized gulags, as well as its golf courses, hotels, hospitals and department stores. According to a Google blog post, the maps were created by a group of volunteer “citizen cartographers,” through an interface known as Google Map Maker. That program — much like Wikipedia — allows users to submit their own data, which is then fact-checked by other users, and sometimes altered many times over. Similar processes were used in other once-unmapped countries like Afghanistan and Burma. In the case of North Korea, those volunteers worked from outside of the country. They used information that was already public, coming from existing analog maps, satellite images, or other Web-based materials. North Korea was the last country almost virtually unmapped by Google. The new maps are unlikely to have an immediate influence in the North, where Internet use is restricted to all but a handful of elites. But they could prove beneficial for outsider analysts and scholars, providing an easy-to-access record about North Korea’s provinces, roads, landmarks, as well as hints about its many unseen horrors. In the country’s northeast, for instance, Google has labeled what it calls the “Hwasong Gulag.” One street, called Gulag 16 Road, cuts through it. And at the end of Gulag 16 Road is a train station. Beyond that, little else around the gulag is marked.
• Ferocious, Weak and Crazy: The North Korean Strategy
  January 29, 2013 | 1005 GMT By George Friedman Founder and Chairman North Korea's state-run media reported Sunday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ordered the country's top security officials to take "substantial and high-profile important state measures," which has been widely interpreted to mean that North Korea is planning its third nuclear test. Kim said the orders were retaliation for the U.S.-led push to tighten U.N. sanctions on Pyongyang following North Korea's missile test in October. A few days before Kim's statement emerged, the North Koreans said future tests would target the United States, which North Korea regards as its key adversary along with Washington's tool, South Korea. North Korea has been using the threat of tests and the tests themselves as weapons against its neighbors and the United States for years. On the surface, threatening to test weapons does not appear particularly sensible. If the test fails, you look weak. If it succeeds, you look dangerous without actually having a deliverable weapon. And the closer you come to having a weapon, the more likely someone is to attack you so you don't succeed in actually getting one. Developing a weapon in absolute secret would seem to make more sense. When the weapon is ready, you display it, and you have something solid to threaten enemies with. [US NK policy] [Paradigm] [Context] [MISCOM]
• U.S. Arms Buildup Targets DPRK
  Pyongyang, January 27 (KCNA) -- The U.S. imperialists are planning to deploy two B-2 strategic bombers in their air force base on Guam, an island situated around the Korean Peninsula, according to a report. The bombers capable of loading nuclear bombs have been known as a means of aggression for mounting a surprise nuclear attack on the depths of the DPRK in case of contingency on the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. imperialists plan to finish the deployment of the bombers with Stealth capabilities by early next month, describing them as typical reinforcement that would carry out the duty of precision strike at the major objects of the DPRK.
• China, US reach consensus on DPRK
  China Daily, January 26, 2013 Consensus on DPRK reached, says US envoy.
  US Special Representative for DPRK Policy Glyn Davies speaks to the media in Beijing, Jan 25, 2013. [Photo/Agencies] The United States and China exchanged views over the latest developments in the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue on Friday, as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea threatened to attack Seoul if the Republic of Korea participates in UN sanctions. China called for calm from all parties at this sensitive moment. The US and China have "achieved a very strong degree of consensus", Glyn Davies, the US special representative for DPRK policy, told reporters in Beijing after having discussions with Chinese officials on "all aspects of the issue". [Chinese IR] [Spin] [Sanctions]
• Envoy says US is still open to negotiating with North Korea
  Jan.25,2013 15:40 KST After his meeting with South Korean Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs Lim Sung-nam at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, US envoy on North Korea Glyn Davies takes questions from reporters, Jan. 24. (by Lee Jeong-ah, staff photographer) After meeting in Seoul, Glyn Davies expresses hope that North Korea won’t go ahead with a nuclear test By Kang Tae-ho, senior staff writer On Jan. 24, US envoy on North Korea Glyn Davies said, “That message is that we, the United States of America, are still open to authentic and credible negotiations to implement the September 19, 2005 Joint Statement.” After meeting South Korean Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs Lim Sung-nam at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Davies told reporters that the United Nations Security Council resolution was a unified message from the international community calling on the North to follow through with its responsibility to dismantle its nuclear program as laid out in the September 19th joint statement and elsewhere. He explained that his visits to South Korea, China, and Japan were intended, “to explore ideas for how we might move forward, how might we achieve authentic and credible negotiations.” [US NK policy] [Satellite] [Inversion] [Spin]
• 'Obama to follow Park on NK'
  By Kim Young-jin 2013-01-22 17:51 Victor Cha U.S. President Barack Obama will follow the lead of incoming President Park Geun-hye in handling North Korea, a U.S. expert said, amid concerns over possible provocations by the Kim Jong-un regime. Victor Cha, Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Pyongyang put Washington in a “deep hole” with few diplomatic options with its Dec. 12 long-range rocket launch. The U.N. Security Council (UNSC) is poised to announce a new resolution condemning the act this week. The UNSC measure “will be the first thing the Obama administration will be focused on,” Cha said on the sidelines of an Asan Institute for Policy Studies forum in Seoul. “We’ll see how the North Koreans respond to that. “And then the U.S. also has to wait to respond to what the Park government is going to do. The U.S., I think, will try to be supportive. [US NK policy] [Park Geun-hye]
• North Korea - a risk worth taking
  Foreign countries can help Kim make changes by encouraging dialogue and easing restrictions. North Korea's Kim Jong Un appears to be hinting at reform. Photo / AP Expand North Korea's Kim Jong Un appears to be hinting at reform. Photo / AP If North Korea's new leader, Kim Jong Un, wanted to end the brutal and destructive tyranny his father and grandfather imposed on the country, he would need support from abroad. The military and Communist Party elites who control and benefit from that system would have to be brought round or bought off, and that would require lots of foreign aid and a global amnesty for their crimes. So how would he get the foreigners to help? Well, he'd have to show them that he was willing to reform - but he couldn't be too obvious about it at first, or those elites would just get rid of him. He'd drop a hint here, make a gesture there, and hope that the foreigners would trust him and help him to change the country. Rather like the Burmese generals began to dismantle their own half-century-old dictatorship two years ago. [Media] [Engagement]
• A New Concentration Camp in N.Korea?
  North Korea has built a new compound believed to be a prison camp next to an existing one in Kaechon, South Pyongan Province, according to a U.S. satellite imagery expert. "I noticed the addition of a new area that bears striking similarity to other known 'kwan-li-so' or prison camps," Curtis Melvin wrote on his blog North Korean Economy Watch on Friday. Going by Google Earth images, the compound was built sometime between Dec. 17, 2006 and Sept. 21, 2011.
• Korea-American detainee in NK may face death penalty
  By Chung Min-uck A Korean-American detained in North Korea may face the death penalty or be sentenced to reeducation through labor for an indefinite term, the Japanese Kyodo News Agency reported Sunday. Quoting an anonymous source from North Korea familiar with the case, it reported the North’s public security authorities are to indict Bae Jun-ho, a Korean-American tour operator who is also known as Kenneth Bae in English, on a criminal charge.
• Ignoring North Korea’s gulags
  By Jared Genser, Monday, January 21, 1:16 PM Jared Genser is an attorney and serves as pro bono counsel to the International Coalition to Stop Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea. As Americans celebrate President Obama’s second inaugural and Martin Luther King Jr. Day — events that symbolize the power of human freedom and perseverance against oppression — for many others such freedom is a distant dream. Among the most repressive countries in the world, North Korea holds as many as 200,000 people in the vast gulag system known as the kwan-li-so. Under the guilt-by-association system established during the dictatorship of Kim Il Sung more than 50 years ago, real and imagined dissenters and as many as three generations of their relatives are punished to eliminate “the seeds” of bad families. Those imprisoned have almost no hope for release, and it is nearly impossible to escape the camps, meaning these people are almost guaranteed to die as prisoners. Over the past few decades, hundreds of thousands have perished, the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea estimates. But for the first time in recent memory, there is reason to hope that the world might finally take notice. In a clarion call for action, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Navanethem Pillay, last week urged the establishment of an independent international inquiry into the mass-atrocity crimes taking place in North Korea.
• Complex Legacies Follow Northeast Asia's New Leaders
  January 10th, 2013 by John Delury It was a momentous year of political transitions for Northeast Asia. In fact, every member of the Six Party Talks had an election, selection, or succession in 2012. In March, Vladimir Putin returned to the Kremlin as president after his hiatus as mere prime minister. In April, Kim Jong Un officially became head of North Korea’s highest organ of state (the National Defense Commission). In November, Barack Obama was re-elected President of the United States. A week later, Xi Jinping was appointed General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. In December, Shinzo Abe led Japan's Liberal Democratic Party to victory and assumed the prime ministership. Days later, Park Geun-hye was elected South Korea’s first woman president. What can we say about this new batch of leaders? What kind of chemistry might they develop during the summitry of bilateral state visits and sideline discussions at multilateral fora? What are they looking for from one another, and how much are they prepared to give? What are their foreign policy priorities and strategic visions for Northeast Asia? Would they dare reconvene the Six Party Talks? If not, might they launch a new regional security initiative? Or will they stick to the status quo, a patchwork of alliance, partnership, and adversarial relationships? Answers to these pressing questions will only emerge in the months to come. But now is an opportune moment to reflect on where these men and women come from, on the personal — and family — histories that will shape how they chart the region’s future. [Agency][US Global strategy]
• DPRK Foreign Ministry Issues Memorandum
  Pyongyang, January 14 (KCNA) -- The Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea released the following memorandum on Monday: This year marks the 60th year since the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed. It is now 60 years since the gunfire of war stopped roaring, but the war has not terminated legally. There remains a fragile state of ceasefire of neither peace nor war on the Korean Peninsula which has yet to build up a mechanism to ensure peace. The U.S. has gone defiant against the DPRK Government in its consistent stand and effort to replace the Armistice Agreement with a peace treaty and tries to maintain the state of ceasefire. Lurking behind this is the ghost of the Cold War- i.e. "UN Command". This ghost, keeping pace with the recent U.S. defense strategy, is coming back to life as a tool for an aggressive war that would bring a fierce flame to the Asia-Pacific region, the biggest hotspot of the world. [Peace Treaty] [Pivot] [US NK policy] [China confrontation]
• North Korea is a state — why not say so?
  January 12th, 2013 Author: Jeong Lee, Pusan In her Foreign Policy article last year, outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserted that America is and must be ‘prepared to lead’ in the Asia Pacific. In hindsight, her essay articulated the essence of President Barack Obama’s ‘pivot strategy’. So how will the pivot affect the extant US–ROK alliance that has been in place for more than six decades? Most likely, the alliance will be fraught with uncertainties in the years to come. One crucial determinant in the future of US–ROK alliance is the US budget. Another is the evolution of the parties’ interests. However, most important problem is the question of what to do about the DPRK. [US NK policy] [Context] [Naiveté]
• Richardson and Schmidt says North Korea wants improved relations with US and South Korea
  Posted on : Jan.11,2013 14:35 KST By Park Min-hee, Beijing correspondent Returning from his visit to North Korea, former governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson said that North Korea wants improved relations with South Korea and the US. Richardson landed at Beijing Capital International Airport on the morning of Jan. 10 after a four day visit to North Korea with Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt and other members of the delegation. “[The North Korean officials] sincerely want to improve the country’s relationship with the US, and they were encouraged by the recent statements of the new South Korean president,” he said in reference to president-elect of South Korea Park Geun-hye, who will be inaugurated on Feb. 25. [NK US policy] [NK SK policy] [Park Geun-hye]
• 'Be with US on China'
  This is the fourth in a series of letters by experts to President-elect Park Geun-hye. — ED. By David C. Kang David C. Kang Dear Madam President-elect, Your dramatic election as the first female head of state in Northeast Asia is epochal, but it also is emblematic of a larger process of Korea’s globalization, evolution, and increasing confidence about Korea’s place in the world. Although you are linked inextricably to your father Park Chung-hee, you are a different person, taking power at a different time; and your policies will no doubt reflect a Korea vastly different from the one your father ruled forty years ago. [China confrontation] [US SK]
• Alliance with U.S. Low on Koreans' List of Priorities
  Koreans place the least priority on the alliance with the U.S. when it comes to ensuring lasting peace on the peninsula, a survey shows. The survey was conducted by the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs to mark the 60th anniversary of the armistice that ended the Korean War. Bolstering awareness of national security was top of the list with 47.7 percent, followed by cooperation with North Korea with 46.8 percent, and strengthening self-defense with 44.6 percent. Next came achieving diplomatic balance with the U.S., China, Russia and Japan with 27.1 percent. Only 20.4 percent said the most important thing is strengthening the alliance with Washington. "Anti-American sentiment has worsened" since the deaths of two schoolgirls under a U.S. military vehicle in 2002, said Yoon Duk-min at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy. "It seems that the rise of China and the need to strengthen self-defense impacted public consensus."
• The effects of John Kerry as Secretary of State on the Korean peninsula
  Posted on : Jan.8,2013 15:14 KSTModified on : Jan.8,2013 16:30 KST Former democratic presidential candidate is known for advocating dialogue with North Korea By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was nominated as the next Secretary of State on Dec. 1 and there is cautious speculation about what changes he might bring to the US’s North Korea policy. Not only has Kerry been a long-time advocate of direct dialogue between the U.S. and the North, but he has also shown a fairly critical attitude toward the stance the Obama administration has taken toward North Korea over the past few years. [US NK Policy] [Kerry]
• Obama’s Historic Visit to Myanmar and the Shadow of North Korea
  By Melissa Hanham As Air Force One touched down for the US’s first state visit to Myanmar, newly re-elected President Obama already had one victory in hand. Hours before his arrival, Burmese President Thein Sein announced that he had approved the adoption of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Additional Protocol, a measure which will likely also be approved in parliament. The move appeared extraordinary for two reasons. Just two years ago, Myanmar was alleged to be building a nuclear weapons program with the aid of North Korea, and Thein Sein was a member of the ruling military junta which brutally crushed opposition and thumbed its nose at the West. [Functionary]

• DPRK-US relations 2012
• DPRK-US relations 2011
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• DPRK-US relations 2005
• DPRK-US relations 2004
• DPRK-US relations 2003
• DPRK-US relations 2002
• DPRK-US relations 2001
• DPRK-US relations 2000
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