Category: Inter-Korean Issues

It appears a North Korean boy’s body has been found floating in the Han River estuary:

The corpse of a very thin boy washed up in South Korean waters near the sea border with North Korea and police are looking for clues as to whether it came from the North.    
   
A 110-centimeter-tall boy was found dead near Jeollyu port in the Han River Estuary on Wednesday. Police wonder whether he was washed over the border.  
   
According to the Ilsan Western Police, the body of the child was discovered by a fisherman around 12 p.m.   

The corpse didn’t seem to have injuries but was extremely thin.    
   
“The boy seems to be around the age of 10 and was only wearing a pair of worn-out, red shorts — no shirt,” a police officer said.    
   
The shorts had no brand and had a rubber band around the waistline, which would be unusual on a South Korean child.    
   
To identify the corpse, the police asked the National Institute of Forensic Sciences to determine the manufacturer of the shorts.   

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

An Inter-Korean agreement from 2009 stated that the North Koreans are supposed to notify the South when they release flood waters from their dam so they can warn residents along the Imjim River. Here is yet another agreement the Kim regime has decided to not abide by:

North Korea appears to have released water from a dam near the inter-Korean border, while remaining unresponsive to Seoul’s request for prior notice, a South Korean government official Thursday.

“It is presumed that North Korea has recently opened the floodgates of Hwanggang Dam,” the unification ministry official told reporters amid reports that the impoverished North is suffering torrential rains in many parts of the country.

It is regrettable that the North did not give any prior notice before releasing dam water near the inter-Korean border despite Seoul’s request for such notice, the official added.

Earlier in the day, an informed military source said the reclusive neighbor appears to have discharged dam water, while authorities here have been on high alert. The North has discharged dam water without notifying the South in advance in the past, endangering the safety of local residents. 

The source, however, added the water levels of the Imjin River are currently stable, staying below 3 meters. 

It usually takes four to five hours for water released from the dam located at the upper part of the Imjin River to reach the Gunnam Dam in the South’s border town of Yeoncheon, 62 kilometers north of Seoul. The distance between the two dams is around 56 kilometers.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

However, if you ask someone on the Korean left they will say that the ROK has not appeased the Kim regime enough. If you just appease them a bit more than peace in our time will break out:

President Yoon Suk-yeol said the time for appeasing North Korea is over in an interview with CNN, and that he expects any new inter-Korean talks to be initiated by leader Kim Jong-un.    
   
“I think the ball is in Chairman Kim’s court,” Yoon told CNN’s Paula Hancocks in an exclusive interview aired Monday. “It is his choice to start a dialogue with us.”  
   
The remarks followed Yoon’s first summit with U.S. President Joe Biden in Seoul Saturday, an opportunity for the allies to coordinate the policies on Pyongyang amid increased missile threats from the North. Some military analysts believe North Korea could be preparing for a possible seventh nuclear test or an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch.    
   
Yoon said that he is against bending over backwards to please North Korea. “Just to escape North Korean provocation or conflict temporarily is not something that we should do,” said Yoon. “Many call it servile diplomacy, but the policy of being over-concerned about the other side’s feelings does not work and has proven to be a failure in the past five years.”  
   
He was referring to the policy of his predecessor Moon Jae-in, whose emphasis on dialogue and peaceful reconciliation led to the first North-U.S. summit in 2018. Talks collapsed in February 2019 after a second North-U.S. summit in Hanoi. Yoon has taken a more hard-line stance, more in line with the Biden administration’s “calibrated and practical” approach to the North.    
   
But Yoon stressed, “I do not want North Korea to collapse. My hope is for North Korea to prosper alongside South Korea.”  
   
Yoon said he wants a “shared and common prosperity on the Korean Peninsula” but underscored that enhancing North Korea’s nuclear capability is neither helpful nor conducive to “maintaining international peace.”  

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but all the decades of North Korean appeasement has accomplished is provide funding for the Kim regime’s nuclear and missile programs. Besides providing regime security, the Kim regime is now using these same programs to try and extort money from the ROK and the international community.

Tying your legacy to North Korean denuclearization is losing proposition:

Outgoing President Moon Jae-in appealed for the resumption of inter-Korean dialogue Monday as he delivered a farewell address on his last day in office amid heightened tensions over North Korea’s repeated tests of weapons. 

“Peace is a condition of survival for us, a condition of prosperity,” Moon said. “I sincerely hope that efforts for denuclearization and institutionalization of peace will continue with the resumption of dialogue between the South and the North.” 

Taking a look back on his five years as president, Moon touted his role for converting the 2017 crisis, when North Korea conducted a nuclear test and fired ICBMs, into dialogue and diplomacy.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the North Koreans learned from Saddam, Gaddafi, and most recently Ukraine why you never give up your nuclear weapons program. Does anyone think Ukraine would be getting attacked right now by Russia if they possessed nuclear weapons? The Kim regime is using this same calculus for developing their own nuclear weapons program.

Considering the serious national security damage this captain could have done some very serious punishment needs to implemented like life in prison to deter others:

An Army captain and a virtual assets service CEO have been arrested and charged with leaking military secrets to a suspected North Korean hacker. 

According to the military, police and prosecution authorities, the cryptocurrency service owner identified by the surname of Lee received a total of 700 million won ($555,000) worth of cryptocurrency on two separate occasions from February to April of last year, in return for winning over personnel from the country’s military.

Lee and the captain were introduced to the North Korean spy through their acquaintances and communicated through Telegram, an instant messaging app. 

Lee then bought a digital watch with a hidden camera and sent it to the officer in January via the mail, which he smuggled into the military, the investigation team said. Lee also bought a Poison Tap ― a USB hacking tool that exploits data from locked computers ― and used it in an attempt to program military computers remotely with the lieutenant’s help.

The investigation revealed that the military officer provided the Korean Joint Command and Control System (KJCCS) login information to the North Korean spy but the hack was not successful.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Despite all the outreach President Moon did over the past five years to North Korea, the only that has changed is that North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs are more dangerous than ever:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said in a recent letter to President Moon Jae-in that inter-Korean relations can improve as much as one wants if both sides make sincere efforts, Cheong Wa Dae said Friday.

Kim sent the letter Thursday in response to a farewell letter that Moon sent the previous day as he prepared to leave office after a five-year term that included three summit meetings with Kim and two summits between Kim and then U.S. President Donald Trump.

In the letter, Moon called on Kim to swiftly resume talks with the United States and make efforts for dialogue with South Korea’s incoming government of President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol, presidential spokesperson Park Kyung-mee told reporters.

“Holding the hands of Chairman Kim, I took one clear step that would change the fate of the Korean Peninsula,” Moon said in the letter, according to Park. “The era of confrontation should be overcome with dialogue.”

In the response letter, Kim said the two sides made “indelible achievements.”

“Though much is left desired, my belief remains unchanged that if the South and the North pour sincerity in based on efforts made so far, inter-Korean relations can move forward as much as one wants,” Kim was quoted as saying in the letter.

Kim thanked Moon for his peace efforts, saying he will continue to respect Moon after his retirement.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is pretty clear the Kim regime has no shame when they are bashing the ROK Defense Minister for provocative comments, but they are the ones firing missiles everywhere and likely preparing for yet another nuclear test. If the North Koreans weren’t conducting all their provocations there would be no need for the ROK to develop a preemptive strike capability:

The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un lambasted South Korea’s defense chief for talk of “preemptive strike” capabilities and warned that the South may face a “serious threat” for such a “senseless” remark, according to Pyongyang’s state media Sunday.

In her rare press statement issued the previous day, Kim Yo-jong called South Korean Defense Minister Suh Wook a “senseless and scum-like guy” for mentioning a preemptive strike at a “nuclear weapons state.”

Last Friday, Suh publicly stressed that his troops have the capabilities to “accurately and swiftly” strike the origin of North Korea’s missile firing as well as command and support facilities in the case of clear signs of a launch toward the South.

Yonhap

You can read more about Kim Yo-jong’s screed at the link.

It looks like President Elect Yoon is setting the prelude to withdrawing from the Inter-Korean Military Agreement since North Korea is refusing to follow it:

President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol said Tuesday that North Korea’s recent artillery firing was a violation of an inter-Korean military tension reduction agreement.

Yoon made the remark during a meeting with members of his transition team, two days after South Korea’s military said North Korea fired four shots from multiple rocket launchers into the Yellow Sea.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

You don’t need to be an analyst to predict that the Kim regime is going to test and see what they can get away with from the incoming Yoon administration. This is the standard playbook from the Kim regime:

Amid signs of North Korea abandoning its self-restraint in regards to testing long-range missiles and nuclear weapons, President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s pledge to take a tougher stance and bolster South Korea’s deterrence against its northern neighbor ― in close cooperation with the United States ― is likely to prolong the period of non-engagement between the two Koreas under his new administration.

Furthermore, Yoon has filled the foreign policy subcommittee of his transition team with officials from the former Lee Myung-bak government, who pursued confrontational policies that almost pushed the two Koreas to the brink of war. 

With the new conservative administration to be inaugurated in May, Pyongyang is likely to test how much bandwidth the Yoon administration will allow in dealing with its provocative actions, and diplomatic observers say how the new government responds to this initial saber-rattling will set the tone for inter-Korean interactions for the next five years.

“Relations between the two Koreas once President-elect Yoon takes office will entirely depend on Pyongyang,” said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a professor of international relations at King’s College London.

“If North Korea goes down the test route, then I would expect the Yoon government to focus on deterrence, sanctions and denunciation of Pyongyang’s human rights abuses above all. This would strain relations,” he said.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.