Category: Inter-Korean Issues

The North Koreans have repeatedly violated the Inter-Korean military agreement signed in 2018. However, experts have cautioned Seoul from ending the agreement for the following reasons:

South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo, front row left and North Korean Minister of the People’s Armed Forces No Kwang-chol, front row right, shake hands after signing an inter-Korean military agreement during the inter-Korean summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in, back row left, and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang, Sept. 19, 2018. Joint Press Corps

“The agreement establishes guardrails that could prevent incidents from escalating into crises, however imperfect they may be. There is some utility in having buffer zones,” said Naoko Aoki, an associate political scientist at the RAND Corporation who specializes in East Asian security issues.

The CMA has instituted buffer zones between the two Koreas by prohibiting hostility on land, sea and air near the border. Specifically, the two sides are restricted from conducting live-fire artillery drills within five kilometers of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL). Plus, no-fly zones have been implemented along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), along with a ban on the operation of unmanned aerial vehicles, helicopters and other aircraft within 40 kilometers of the MDL.

“Given the current tensions (between the two Koreas), it is unlikely that another agreement like this can be drawn up in the foreseeable future, so that should be taken into consideration,” she added.

Terence Roehrig, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, echoed this sentiment, stating, “Though North Korea has violated the agreement on several occasions and is not adhering to the spirit of the CMA, South Korea is better off with the agreement in place than walking away from it.”

Roehrig added that security concerns regarding North Korea’s non-compliance with the CMA are relatively minor compared to the security and political costs of ending the agreement, which would undercut the broader goal of promoting long-term stability on the Korean Peninsula.

The absence of the military agreement would lead to increased belligerence from North Korea, analysts believe.

“Pyongyang would craft a narrative portraying Seoul as the aggressor, using South Korea’s suspension of the military agreement to justify its military provocations,” Roehrig said. 

In that sense, Aoki suggested that South Korea should further use the idea of suspending the CMA as political leverage against North Korea, instead of actually taking actions to scrap it, saying, “North Korea’s violation of the agreement makes it a problematic actor, so South Korea has the moral high ground.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This is a good thought experiment, would all these university students and other anti-Israeli activists come out in defense of North Korea if South Korea responded to a Hamas like attack from the Kim regime?:

Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, right, shakes hands with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at the presidential residence in Hannam-dong, central Seoul during a dinner meeting Sunday. 

“Even if North Korea miscalculates and commits any provocation, including a Hamas-style surprise attack, we will maintain a South Korea-U.S. combined defense posture that can immediately and resolutely punish it,” Yoon was quoted as saying, referring to the militant group’s attack on Israel last month.   
  
Austin conveyed U.S. President Joe Biden’s firm intent to further strengthen the robust South Korea-U.S. alliance more than ever, according to the presidential office.   
  
He reaffirmed his firm commitment to defend the South Korea by deploying the full spectrum of U.S. military capabilities.   

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes the North Koreans to rescue the people on this ship:

This file photo, taken Oct. 27, 2017, shows a South Korean patrol ship departing a port in Sokcho, 151 kilometers northeast of Seoul. (Yonhap)

A South Korean patrol ship on Sunday spotted a North Korean vessel stranded near the de-facto inter-Korean sea border in the East Sea and provided humanitarian assistance, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

The patrol ship was dispatched after a maritime patrol aircraft spotted the distressed vessel drifting in waters 200 kilometers east of the coastal town of Jejin and around 3 km north of the eastern Northern Limit Line (NLL) at 2:16 p.m., according to the JCS.

The South Korean ship initially deployed one inflatable boat to approach the vessel and confirmed it as a North Korean ship.

The North Korean vessel is suspected to be a small commercial ship some 10 meters long, according to an informed source. The military reportedly did not inspect the identities of those on board as the ship was in waters north of the NLL.

The people on board the North Korean ship said they have been adrift for 10 days and wished to return to their homeland, requesting assistance with food and water.

The South Korean military provided food and water “on humanitarian grounds,” and notified the North of the situation through the United Nations Command and international maritime communication channels for its assistance.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I also wonder what this so called commerical ship was transporting and where from?

It seems like we have been talking about North Korea conducting a possible nuclear test for the past two years and for whatever reason they haven’t done one yet. I am not convinced that a food crisis is what is going to cause them to conduct a new nuclear test:

Defense Minister Shin Won-sik speaks during a visit to the command center of the Army’s 1st Infantry Division in Paju, 37 kilometers north of Seoul, on Oct. 9, 2023, in this photo provided by his office. (Yonhap)

 North Korea may stage various provocations, including a nuclear test, to divert its public’s attention from the country’s ongoing food crisis, South Korea’s defense ministry said Tuesday.

The ministry made the assessment in a policy report for a parliamentary audit amid growing tensions after North Korea revised its constitution late last month to stipulate the policy of strengthening its nuclear force.

“In order to pass on internal complaints of food woes and failures in economic policy to the outside world, there is a possibility of (the North) conducting various strategic and tactical provocations, including a seventh nuclear test,” the ministry said in the report.

The isolated regime, which has faced chronic food shortages, last conducted a nuclear test in September 2017.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I forgot these people were still being held in North Korea because it has been so long. It seems unlikely the ROK will be able to get them back considering how much the Kim regime hates Christian missionaries:

This file photo, provided by Yonhap News TV, shows Kim Jung-wook, a South Korean pastor who has been detained in North Korea since 2013. (Yonhap)

The unification ministry on Sunday urged North Korea to immediately send a South Korean pastor and five other nationals back home, condemning their yearslong detention as “illegal and inhumane.” 

The ministry made the appeal in a statement marking 10 years after South Korean pastor Kim Jung-wook was arrested in Pyongyang in 2013 and then sentenced to hard labor for life on charges of spying for South Korea’s spy agency.

In 2014, two other South Korean missionaries, Kim Kuk-gi and Choe Chun-gil, were also detained in the North on charges of committing what the North’s regime called anti-North Korea crimes. Three former North Korean defectors, who had obtained South Korean citizenship, were detained in 2016.

“The government condemns North Korea’s illegal and inhumane measure and strongly calls on North Korea, a signatory to the International Covenants on Human Rights, to immediately send them back to their beloved family members,” Koo Byoung-sam, spokesperson at the ministry, said in the statement.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

President Yoon is speaking some truth here because for too long the Unification Ministry was basically a left wing North Korean advocacy group:

President Yoon Suk Yeol said Sunday the unification ministry should no longer act like a support agency for North Korea, days after he nominated a conservative scholar to head the ministry.

“So far, the unification ministry has operated as if it were a support department for North Korea, and that shouldn’t be the case anymore,” Yoon told his staff, according to senior presidential press secretary Kim Eun-hye. “Now, it’s time for the unification ministry to change.”

Kim said Yoon made his remarks in a meeting with his staff over the recent nomination of Kim Yung-ho, a professor known for a hard-line stance toward Pyongyang, as the new unification minister.

“From now on, the unification ministry must carry out its proper responsibilities, in accordance with the constitutional principles that unification must be based on liberal democratic order,” Yoon was also quoted as saying. “The unification that we pursue must be one in which all the people from the South and the North enjoy better lives and are treated better as human beings.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Good luck trying to get any reimbursement from North Korea with this lawsuit:

South Korea’s unification ministry said Wednesday it lodged a damages suit against North Korea over Pyongyang’s 2020 demolition of an inter-Korean liaison office in the North’s border city of Kaesong.

The government filed the lawsuit with the Seoul Central District Court against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea over 44.7 billion won (US$35 million) in damage incurred on the South’s state properties, according to the ministry.

On June 16, 2020, the North blew up the joint liaison office in Kaesong in anger over Seoul’s failure to stop North Korean defectors from sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.

It marked the first time that the South Korean government has sued North Korea.

The legal action came as the statute of limitations for damages to property related to the case is set to expire Friday. Under the civil law, the statute of limitations for the right to claim compensations for damages runs out three years after damage occurs.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is interesting because is the first time I have seen North Korea issue such a warning to a civilian ship in the East Sea. It makes me think they may have thought it was being used for intelligence collection purposes:

A North Korean boat warned a South Korean cargo ship sailing in the international waters of the East Sea to “move out to the open sea” earlier this month, a source said Tuesday, raising maritime safety concerns amid heightened cross-border tensions.

People aboard the North Korean boat gesticulated toward the 30,000-ton cargo ship and sent a message demanding it move farther out into the high seas through an international maritime communication network on May 8, according to the source.

The cargo ship was reportedly carrying 21 crewmembers, including two South Koreans.

It remains unclear whether the North Koreans are civilians or military personnel.

Following the message from the North, the South Korean ship informed its headquarters and the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries of what happened and took a detour to reach the waters south of the Northern Limit Line, a de facto inter-Korean sea border.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is why it is important to continue to undermine the Kim regime by providing access to outside information into North Korea:

North Korean brothers who brought their family members out of the country earlier this month are late millennials, part of the tech-savvy younger generation of North Korea who have increased access to external information.

Sources with knowledge of the latest defections told The Korea Herald on Sunday that it was the two brothers in their early 30s who had made the decision to leave North Korea with their family.

The sources said that the brothers told Seoul officials here in a screening interview that they had yearned for a life in South Korea after secretly watching South Korean TV. In particular, they cited the talk show “Now on My Way to Meet You,” featuring North Korean defectors, as having had a major influence.

Analyses say North Korean millennials are the main consumers of foreign media content, mostly from South Korea, in the totalitarian country where such acts are severely punished.

According to a South Korean government report on the human rights situation in North Korea released in March, North Korea has publicly executed citizens including teens for watching South Korean media.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.