Arguing that North Korea considers its relationship with the US more important than its relationship with SK is myopic. Why? It would be completely antithetical to its long-term ideological project. NK seeks the ejection of the US & integration with, and slow subjugation of, SK. https://t.co/64jmn6vyPD
— 🇰🇷Edward Oh🇺🇸 (@EdwardHBOh) April 16, 2019
Kim Jong-un promised that he would visit Seoul and Moon Jae-in doesn’t seem to eager to force his hand to make that visit:
President Moon Jae-in said Monday that he hopes to meet again with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as early as possible, welcoming Kim’s latest message on denuclearization talks.
Yonhap
Moon stressed that the venue and format of his fourth summit with Kim does not matter, as he seeks “concrete and substantive discussions” on ways to produce “fruits” to outdo those of two U.S.-North Korea summit talks.
“Now is the time to make preparations and push for South-North summit talks in earnest,” he said in a meeting with senior presidential aides here.
He added, “As soon as North Korea’s conditions are created, I hope the two Koreas will have another summit without being restrained by the venue and format.”
You can read more at the link, but Kim Jong-un I think will not visit Seoul unless he receive a huge payoff. His dad needed $500 million to host a summit in Pyongyang, so I am sure Kim Jong-un’s price to go to Seoul will be much higher.
It is truly amazing how eager the Korean left is to fund North Korea’s military and nuclear weapons program that can be used against them:
Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said Friday that conditions must be fostered to carry out inter-Korean economic projects and that Seoul will make internal preparations to do so.
KBS World Radio
Hong spoke to reporters at the International Monetary Fund headquarters in Washington during his visit to the U.S. capital to attend a meeting of the Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors.
He said he believes that sanctions on North Korea need to be eased or lifted in order for inter-Korean economic projects to begin in earnest.
You can read more at the link, but the last time the cross border projects were operating the money was not used to better the lives of ordinary citizens, instead the Kim regime made extensive advances in their nuclear and ICBM programs.
What evidence does anyone have that this time will be any different if sanctions are eased and the cross border projects are allowed to restart?
#KimJongUn to regional Party officials & military late-March: "The unification of the fatherland is the greatest task of our ethnic nation, which cannot be delayed any further. The unification of the fatherland shall be completed by 2020 no matter what." https://t.co/vQTlF8sArZ
— Sung-Yoon Lee (@SungYoonLee1) April 13, 2019
Moon Jae-in has chosen as his new Unification Minister someone that does not believe in sanctions on North Korea:
South Korea’s new point man on North Korea pledged Monday to try to use inter-Korean economic cooperation as a catalyst to move the hard-won peace process with the communist neighbor forward.
Kim Yeon-chul, newly sworn in as unification minister, made the remarks in his inauguration speech Monday. He replaced Cho Myoung-gyon, who had served as unification minister handling inter-Korea affairs under the Moon Jae-in government since July 2017.
“It is time for us to reap the fruits of peace that we have sown so far,” Kim said. “We need to seize the opportunity for co-prosperity of the South and the North. We never know when such a chance will come again if we miss it.“I will work hard to strengthen a virtuous circle in which we strengthen peace by using business as a link and strengthen economic cooperation (with North Korea) again based on the peace,” he added.
Yonhap
Kim did not mention any particular economic cooperation with North Korea, but he has supported the reopening of suspended cross-border projects, such as an industrial complex in the North’s border town of Kaesong and tours to Mount Kumgang on the North’s east coast
Here is Kim Yeon-chul’s background, as expected he is a North Korea appeaser:
Kim, an expert on North Korean affairs and former head of a Seoul-based think tank, is known for his strong support for more active inter-Korean economic cooperation and criticism of sanctions imposed on North Korea. He has said that such restrictions have not been effective in forcing North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program.
Neither has appeasement and cross border projects caused North Korea to denuclearize either. In fact if anything the past appeasement strategy by South Korea is what gave the Kim regime the funding to advanced their nuclear and ICBM capabilities.
This just makes me wonder how many other South Korean ships have been violating sanctions that have not been caught yet?:
A South Korean cargo vessel has been impounded in Busan Harbor since last October on suspicions of violating international sanctions on North Korea, a Foreign Ministry official said Tuesday.
Joong Ang Ilbo
This is the first time a ship flying the South Korean flag has been accused of breaking United Nations Security Council sanctions imposed on the North for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
According to the official, the ship, named Lunis, was one of four held in South Korean ports since October for having allegedly transferred banned petroleum products or coal to or from North Korean ships. The other three vessels are reportedly registered in Togo, Hong Kong and Panama.
The shipping company working with the South Korean vessel has admitted to a transfer of refined oil to a tanker from the North through a ship-to-ship operation, the official said.
All four ships, including the Lunis, were among dozens of foreign vessels named in a U.S. Treasury Department report released March 21 for allegedly having engaged in such illicit transfers of oil or coal to or from North Korean vessels.
You can read more at the link.
Here is what President Moon’s trial balloon specialist had to say prior to next’s week summit between President Trump and President Moon:
The United States should give South Korea more leverage that it can use in dealing with North Korea, such as leeway in inter-Korean exchanges, if it wants Seoul to play a greater role in facilitating the stalled nuclear talks, a special presidential adviser said Thursday.
Moon Chung-in, a special presidential adviser for unification, foreign and security affairs, made the remark during a conference in Seoul, a week before Moon holds talks with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington.
The adviser said it will be a “herculean task” for Moon to play such a facilitating role so long as the North sees South Korea and the U.S. as on the same side.
Yonhap
I am being facetious here, but shouldn’t the U.S. and the ROK be on the same side when it comes to the denuclearization talks so the North Koreans cannot play one off against the other?
Any reading this site for long knows that the Moon administration is not really on the same side as the US and Moon Chung-in is just publicly stating what President Moon can’t. The Moon administration has long advocated lifting sanctions on the Kaesong Industrial Park and the Kumgang Tourism Resort. Both projects were once huge cash cows for the Kim regime before they were shut down by prior conservative governments.
North Korea wants to reopen these sanction busing projects for little to nothing in return as part of their “pretend denuclearization” strategy that the Moon administration endorses.
(LEAD) Half of S. Koreans expect U.S., N. Korea won't reach agreement on denuclearization: poll https://t.co/fkHjyy88nT
— Yonhap News Agency (@YonhapNews) March 31, 2019
The Moon administration is further pushing the confederation idea with no hint of North Korea denuclearizing:
The South Korean government is planning to fund research projects into a range of potential models for unification with North Korea, documents seen by NK News showed this week, with case-studies including federation and EU-style confederation among several under consideration.
NK News
In plans for the two research projects, the South Korean Ministry of Unification (MOU) asked prospective participants in the project to examine cases of gradual unification.
Previous research on unification, it said, has concentrated on comparing Korea’s case to that of the “radical unification” of Germany in 1990, asking researchers to assume the North and South would likely take a more gradual approach.
Participants are also asked to look to the step-by-step process of unification suggested in the “Korean National Community Unification Formula” and pay attention to “implications that could be considered in the process of gradual change.”
The formula has long been the South Korean government’s formal plan for unification and is composed of three stages: reconciliation and cooperation, inter-Korean confederation, and unification.
You can read more at the link, but if these so called researchers try to copy the EU model, then their analysis is already a failure. There were no countries in the EU that were international pariahs threatening world peace by threatening their neighbors with conventional or nuclear attack. There was no countries in the EU launching terrorist attacks and a non-stop propaganda campaign into a neighboring country to undermine it either.
I can save the Moon administration all the money they are paying for this research by stating that any confederation that happens will occur on North Korean terms. That means a peace treaty that leads to the withdrawal of USFK, North Korea does not denuclearize, and South Korea carries the burden of rebuilding North Korea’s infrastructure, modernizing their military, and funding the Kim regime’s lavish lifestyle.
There will be no political or social openness in North Korea in return, instead the ideological indoctrination will be strengthened by the “victory” over the Americans by getting them to withdraw and the tribute the South Korean “puppets” are paying to Kim Jong-un in preparation for North Korea’s final victory.
It looks like President Trump’s decision to not implement new sanctions on North Korea has caused them to respond by sending back some of the Joint Liaison Office workers:
South Korea expressed hope that planned inter-Korean projects will proceed smoothly after some North Korean officials at the inter-Korean liaison office in the North’s Gaeseong went back to work Monday.
A meeting between the representatives of the liaison office from the two Koreas was held and the office will operate normally, according to the unification ministry.
North Korean officials were quoted by the ministry as saying they came to work “as usual.”
On March 22, North Korea withdrew its staff from the inter-Korean liaison office saying the measure reflected “instructions from a superior authority,” without giving further details.
While the North Korean side has yet to explain the withdrawal and partial return of officials at the liaison office, Seoul remained hopeful about keeping the momentum for talks.“We still have to watch the situation as the North’s officials have yet make a full return, but it could be that the North felt pressure after breaking the momentum of talks with the South,” said Oh Gyeong-seob, a researcher at the Sejong Institute.
Korea Times
You can read more at the link.
