Tag: Moon Jae-in

If Putin wants reciprocal measures how about he tell Kim Jong-un to start shipping out nuclear material from North Korea?  Whenever the apologists talk about reciprocal measures they always demand that the US drop sanctions for little to nothing in return from North Korea:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, talked about easing sanctions on North Korea in their talks Wednesday on the sidelines of a regional summit in Singapore, Moon’s office said.

Moon requested Moscow’s active role in efforts to persuade Pyongyang to take denuclearization steps in a “bolder manner,” according to Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom.

They had “comprehensive” discussions on the terms and conditions of easing sanctions on the North, he added.

In the 58-minute meeting, Putin was quoted as telling Moon that there should be reciprocal measures if there is progress in denuclearization.

The meeting, their fourth since Moon took office last year, came days after high-level denuclearization negotiations between the United States and the North were abruptly called off last week.

In Wednesday’s meeting, Moon and Putin were expected to discuss ways to get the denuclearization talks restarted at an early date, as well as measures to further strengthen relations between the two countries.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

This October 2018 file photo shows President Moon Jae-in patting a female dog named Gomi, one of the two Pungsan-breed dogs given to Moon by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un after their third summit in Pyongyang in September. Moon said in a Twitter message on Nov. 12, 2018, that Gomi gave birth to six white puppies — three male and three female — on Nov. 9 and all look healthy. (Yonhap)

#MoonJaein working hard for #KimJongun again. Said "I'd appreciate the National Assembly issuing a statement welcoming chairman Kim." Also want Kim to address the Natl Assembly. Meanwhile, he shirks his presidential duties, like meeting foreign leaders.https://t.co/VRrBKysJM0

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) November 6, 2018

South Korean President Moon Jae-in poses for a photo while wearing a “Modi jacket,” which he has received from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at his office in Seoul on Oct. 31, 2018, in this photo provided by the presidential office. (Yonhap)

How about he instead take Kim Jong-un to the memorial for the sailors killed in the Cheonan sinking:

President Moon Jae-in said Sunday that he could give North Korea’s Kim Jong-un a tour of Mount Halla, South Korea’s tallest mountain, on the southern island of Jeju, if the leader comes for a visit.

Moon made the remarks in response to a reporter’s question about what he would show Kim should the communist leader reciprocate his own visit to Pyongyang last month for the third inter-Korean summit aimed at fostering inter-Korean rapprochement and cooperation.

“As we have an expression like ‘from Mount Paekdu to Mount Halla,’ I could give him a tour of Mount Halla if (he) wants,” Moon said during talks with reporters after climbing up to a peak of Mount Bukak just behind the presidential office of Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

It looks like President Moon’s attempt to lobby European governments to drop North Korean sanctions is not working:

President Moon Jae-in has told French President Emmanuel Macron that North Korea’s denuclearization needs to be stimulated further by easing UN sanctions if the North’s measures to scrap its nuclear program are believed to have reached an irreversible level.

But North Korea has not remotely reached a point where denuclearization is irreversible. It has not even started. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un flatly refused to give the U.S. even a partial inventory of its nuclear facilities and stockpiles when visiting U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pleaded with him, and instead demanded that the U.S. officially declare an end to the Korean War to “build trust.”

The first step to denuclearization must be reporting all nuclear facilities and fissile materials, because how else will anyone know whether North Korea is scrapping anything? This is a no-brainer. Yet the North is vehemently protesting before taking even the first step, claiming that the demand is tantamount to “mafia-like tactics.”

Yet the South Korean president labors under the delusion that North Korea’s denuclearization has progressed significantly. During his summit last month with U.S. President Donald Trump, Moon even said the North’s denuclearization had almost reached an “irreversible” level already. U.S. nuclear experts, by contrast, say Pyongyang’s gestures so far — dismantling a moribund nuclear test site in Punggye-ri and a static missile launch pad it no longer needs — do not qualify as denuclearization at all.

Moon hopes that North Korea’s denuclearization can reach an irreversible level in a few months and is going around the world asking global leaders to stimulate the process by easing sanctions. Macron quite rightly brushed him off, saying sanctions must continue until “concrete denuclearization steps are taken.”  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

By declaring the NLL a maritime peace zone the Moon administration has given in to North Korean demands that dispute the ROK’s sovereignty of the NLL, of course the Kim regime is going to agree with this:

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said Friday that the leaders of the two Koreas have recognized the Northern Limit Line (NLL), a de facto sea border, as the term was included in this year’s key inter-Korean agreements.

The remarks came amid a dispute over whether the communist state now acknowledges the maritime boundary that it has long disputed on the grounds that it was drawn unilaterally by the U.S.-led U.N. Command after the 1950-53 Korean War.

In the April inter-Korean summit declaration, the two Koreas jointly used the NLL term, while pledging to transform areas surrounding the tense boundary in the West Sea into a “maritime peace zone.” That term also appears in last month’s military agreement aimed at reducing tensions and preventing accidental clashes.

Seoul has used the two agreements to argue that the North has recognized the NLL.

“The two leaders agreed to turn the areas around the NLL into a maritime peace zone and also reaffirmed that in the September military agreement,” the JCS said in a text message sent to reporters.

“This means that the two leaders have recognized the NLL,” it added.  [Yonhap]

So what is a maritime peace zone that the Kim regime is so happy to recognize?  President Moon’s plan has been to surrender sovereignty of the NLL to the North Koreans by allowing joint fishing along the maritime border.  This plan actually dates back an entire decade to the Roh Moo-hyun administration when Moon Jae-in was President Roh’s Chief of Staff.  This map shows why the North Koreans are happy with the is arrangement:

Compare the two maps and the proposed joint fishing zones nearly mirror North Korea’s NLL claims.  The giving up of sovereignty of this maritime territory will make it harder to defend the South Korean islands along the NLL.  Such an agreement would also set a precedent that the Kim regime’s claim against the legitimacy of the NLL is valid.  The last time a South Korean leftist government tried to give away the NLL the ROK Defense Ministry was furious.  That is likely why the Moon administration cleaned house at the Ministry of Defense before moving forward with this plan.

So will the ROK media interview the families of the ROK sailors killed defending the NLL to get their perspective on this?  I doubt it since the Moon administration has consolidated control over most of the South Korean media as well.

The Moon admin's typical MO. 1 Say we're considering X. 2 If opposition too strong, say not considering. 3 Find other ways to implement/wait til it quiets & do it quietly. 4 Don't tell/explain details to public. 5 Just say "peace" or "equality" or "justice" 6. Next! 7. Repeat. https://t.co/pIJiMPpz5t

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) October 11, 2018

President Moon Jae-in introduces his Pungsan dogs to BBC Seoul correspondent Laura Bicker during an interview at the presidential office in Seoul on Oct. 12, 2018, in this photo released by the office. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un gifted the dogs to Moon to mark their talks in Pyongyang from Sept. 18-20. The dogs were both born in 2017 in the North Korean county of Pungsan. (Yonhap)

Notice the caveat that President Moon is using in the below quote:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Friday North Korea understands the need to give up its existing nuclear weapons to achieve complete denuclearization and says it will do so. The only remaining questions are when and how, he added.

“North Korea promised complete denuclearization. It said it will give up nukes for economic development. (It) promised that it has no reason whatsoever to possess nukes while facing difficulties, such as sanctions, as long as the safety of their regime is guaranteed,” Moon said in an interview with Britain’s BBC news.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the North Koreans even if US troops withdraw from South Korea can say that the US or even the Japanese are still a threat to the regime and thus need their nukes.  That is a convenient caveat the Kim regime can always claim to justify keeping nuclear weapons.

This is just more of President Moon going around trying to convince western leaders that Kim Jong-un is a really a nice guy ready to reform in order to get international sanctions dropped.  I guess we will see if world leaders fall for it again.