Category: Inter-Korean Issues

President Moon Calls for an End to the Korean War By Year’s End

| September 9, 2018

It is pretty clear that President Moon and Kim Jong-un are going to be putting a full court press on President Trump to declare an end to the Korean War this year:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said his goal is to make “irreversible progress by the end of the year” toward denuclearization and a permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula in an interview on Friday.

A tangible step in that direction would be a formal declaration to end the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with an armistice agreement, not a peace treaty, Moon told Indonesia’s Kompas newspaper in a written interview published two days after his special envoy returned from a trip to Pyongyang and met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

The interview came ahead of Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s three-day state visit to Seoul kicking off Monday.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but I expect a lot of flattery and pretend denuclearization concessions from the North Koreans to get him to agree to end the Korean War.  Kim is probably hoping that Trump will go along with the pretend denuclearization strategy as way to boost poll numbers prior to the mid-term elections in the US.  We should see over the next couple of months if pretend denuclearization will be what Trump decides to do.

So why are President Moon and Kim Jong-un so intent on end the Korean War?  That is because once the war is officially ended this then challenges the legitimacy of the US-ROK alliance.  If there is no longer hostilities between the two Koreas then why does the US military need to be there?

I believe that President Moon is too smart to advocate against keeping USFK in Korea post-peace treaty because that will mobilize the conservative opposition against him.  However, Moon can use his surrogates to make life difficult for USFK to where the Trump administration could decide to withdraw on its own.  This gets Moon and his left wing base in South Korea what they ultimately want, USFK withdrawal without getting blamed for it.

With the end of the US-ROK alliance Moon and Kim can move forward with their confederation idea which will essentially lead to unification on North Korean terms.

South Korean Delegation Meets with Kim Jong-un During Visit to Pyongyang

| September 6, 2018

The main objective of this delegation was to figure out a way to continue denuclearization talks between the US and North Korea.  Good luck with that:

Chung Eui-yong (3rd from R), a special envoy of South Korean President Moon Jae-in to North Korea, bows before heading for Pyongyang from Seoul’s Seongnam airport on Sept. 5, 2018, along with four other members of a high-profile delegation. They are Vice Unification Minister Chun Hae-sung (2nd from R); Chung; National Intelligence Service Director Suh Hoon (C); Kim Sang-gyun (3rd from L), a senior NIS official; and Yun Kun-young (2nd from L), presidential secretary for state affairs. (Yonhap)

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un met with a special delegation of South Korean President Moon Jae-in Wednesday, possibly reaffirming his commitment to establishing peace on the Korean Peninsula and denuclearizing his country.

“The special delegation met with Chairman Kim Jong-un to deliver the personal letter (from Moon) and exchange their opinions,” Seoul’s presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said in a brief statement.

The statement came hours after Chung Eui-yong, top security adviser to Moon and head of the presidential National Security Council, arrived in the North on what is still expected to be a one-day trip.

“The special delegation is scheduled to leave (Pyongyang) after attending a dinner,” Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom said, adding it was not clear who would host the dinner.

The Cheong Wa Dae spokesman said the outcome of the delegation’s trip to Pyongyang will be released Thursday, considering their late return.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Korea Institute of Finance Recommends Creating a Single Currency with North Korea

| September 4, 2018

Via a reader tip comes news that a South Korean think tank is recommending one of the worst Inter-Korean ideas yet, a single currency between North and South Korea:

South and North Korea should use a single currency to form an economic union in the mid to long term, the Korea Institute of Finance (KIF)noted in a report Sunday.

“When investment increases in North Korea along with inter-Korean trade of goods and services, the flow of capital will naturally follow. It will lead to problems such as settlements and which currencies should be used,” said Lee Yoon-sok, a senior research fellow at the KIF.

To deal with such problems, the two governments may allow residents to exchange their money with other currency when traveling North or South.

They may also allow the currencies of the two countries to be freely used in both countries. The researcher added that some North Koreans are known to be holding South Korean currency, expecting economic integration.  [Korea Herald]

You can read more at the link, but if we thought North Korean counterfeiting was bad now, just wait until there is a single currency the Kim regime can control and print at will and call it inflation.  I wonder who’s face would go on the bills?

Also of interest is that the KIF believes that sanctions will be eased on North Korea before the mid-term elections by President Trump to give him a foreign policy win.  As long as North Korea does not commit to real denuclearization I don’t see sanctions being dropped, but I guess we will see what happens.

NIS Informed Blue House Last October About Illegal Coal Shipments By North Korea

| August 29, 2018

Is anyone surprised that the Moon administration appears to have turned a blind eye to the illegal importing of North Korean coal into South Korea?:

A Belize-flagged ship, the Jin Long, is docked at a port in Pohang, on South Korea’s east coast, on Aug. 7, 2018. (Yonhap

South Korea’s spy chief told a parliamentary panel Tuesday his agency reported the import of North Korean coal to the presidential national security office last October, lawmakers said.

A monthslong probe by the customs office showed that three South Korean firms imported North Korean coal from Russia in apparent violation of U.N. sanctions resolutions. There is a controversy over whether the government turned a blind eye to the North Korean coal shipment amid a peace mood with Pyongyang.

Suh Hoon, the chief of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), told lawmakers at a closed-door meeting that the NIS reported the coal shipment to the Office of National Security under Cheong Wa Dae last October.

Suh was quoted as saying that he communicated the fact to the office though there was no direct report to President Moon Jae-in.

The customs office’s recent announcement has spurred controversy over whether South Korea is fully implementing U.N. sanctions on North Korea.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

President Moon Claims He Will Help Mediate A Nuclear Deal Between the US and North Korea

| August 28, 2018

The message President Moon should bring with him is very simple, get rid of the nukes if you want sanctions dropped:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in will likely seek to mediate a breakthrough in talks between the United States and North Korea when he visits Pyongyang for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, a Seoul official said Sunday.

The presidential aide highlighted the importance of Moon’s role in advancing apparently stalled talks on the North’s denuclearization following the cancellation of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to the North scheduled for this week.

“I believe President Moon’s role has only become greater,” the official from the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said when asked about any possible change to Moon’s scheduled trip after U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday abruptly called off Pompeo’s visit.

Trump cited a lack of “sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

South Korean Defense White Paper Looks to Remove North Korea as an “Enemy”

| August 23, 2018

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to call the North Koreans since South Korea doesn’t want to use the word “enemy”?:

South Korea is considering deleting its reference to North Korea’s military as “our enemy” in its defense white paper to be published later this year, multiple government sources in Seoul said Wednesday.

The move is in line with the April inter-Korean summit agreement to halt “all hostile acts” against each other, seek to alleviate tensions and “practically eliminate the danger of war.”

“It would be contradictory if we hold consultations (with the North) over measures to halt hostile acts, which are mentioned in the Panmunjom Declaration, while leaving the description of the North Korean military as an enemy in our government’s official paper,” a government source told Yonhap News Agency on condition of anonymity.

“We have been striving to come up with a way to use a phrase or word that would sufficiently reflect the North’s military threat instead of using the ‘enemy’ expression,” he added.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but here we go again with the pretend game.  We already have “pretend denuclearization” going on and now we have “pretend non-enemies”.