Tag: NLL

Not the best apology, but I guess it is something:

 North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has offered an apology to the South Korean people for the killing of a fellow citizen by its military earlier this week, Cheong Wa Dae announced Friday.

In a formal notice sent to the South, the North conveyed Kim’s message that he feels “very sorry” for greatly “disappointing” President Moon Jae-in and other South Koreans with the occurrence of the “unsavory” case in its waters, instead of helping them amid their suffering from the new coronavirus, according to Suh Hoon, director of national security at Cheong Wa Dae.

Yonhap

Notice how he still takes a shot at South Korea as being some kind of coronavirus hotbed. What makes this apology even worse is that they are apparently lying about what happened if you believe what the South Korean military is saying:

South Korean authorities have said the 47-year-old official surnamed Lee went missing at 11:30 a.m., Monday, while on duty on a patrol ship off the west coast, and was found by North Korean military personnel in the sea off Yeonpyeong Island near the maritime border at around 3:30 p.m., Tuesday. 

According to the South Korean version of the story, Lee was on an unidentified floating item and expressed his willingness to defect to the North Koreans, who questioned him from a distance while leaving him in the water. About six hours later, the North Koreans shot him to death, then doused the body with oil and burned it. 

Pyongyang’s account, however, differed in many crucial parts of the story.

In a notice it sent to the South, Friday, the North said an “unidentified man” who illegally intruded into its territorial waters on a floating item failed to properly respond to their verbal security checks when he was about 80 meters away. Approaching the man, the North Koreans shot two blanks, and he was seen as attempting to flee. They then fired more than 10 gunshots at a distance of 40 to 50 meters as allowed under the related rules of maritime border security. 

When they approached for closer inspection, they were unable to find any trace of the body other than a large pool of blood, which led them to believe he had died from bullet wounds and sunk into the water. They subsequently set the floating item ― not the body ― on fire following the quarantine rules, according to the North’s account.

According to the notice, Lee did not express his willingness to defect.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I wonder if this guy had an accident and fell overboard?:

A South Korean fisheries control official went missing while on duty aboard an inspection boat off the western border island of Yeonpyeong earlier this week, and authorities are looking into intelligence that he could be alive in North Korea, officials said.

The 47-year-old official affiliated with the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries disappeared from the 500-ton boat before noon Monday when it was patrolling around 10 kilometers south of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto inter-Korean maritime border.

Colleagues only found his shoes on the vessel and reported his disappearance to the Coast Guard, prompting an intensive search operation involving about 20 vessels and aircraft.

“According to our military intelligence, he was found in North Korean waters late Tuesday, and we are looking into details,” the ministry said in a statement. “We will take necessary steps, including investigating how he went missing and checking related facts with North Korea.”

It was not immediately known if he was found alive or not, but military sources said there is a chance he is alive.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Another play straight out of the North Korean provocation playbook:

South Korea’s military on Thursday confirmed it had completed an operation to evict a North Korean merchant ship from its waters some 17 hours after the vessel crossed to the southern side of the Northern Limit Line (NLL) the previous day. 

However, it took South Korean military authorities nearly six hours to realize the vessel was a North Korean merchant ship sailing on the southern side of the NLL, the de facto maritime border between the two Koreas in the Yellow Sea.  

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said Wednesday that the 500-ton merchant ship crossed the NLL, northwest of Baengnyeong Island, at around 6:40 a.m. Wednesday. 

At one point, the South Korean Navy fired warning shots after the vessel did not respond to multiple warnings it had issued to immediately leave the NLL, in accordance with protocol.

On Thursday, the JCS confirmed that the South Korean Navy guided the merchant ship out of South Korean waters and completed the operation around 11:30 p.m. that night. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Does anyone believe this was a mistake by the North Korean military?:

 A fishing boat apparently operated by North Korea’s military has been towed into a South Korean port for investigation after “mistakenly” sailing across the inter-Korean sea border, the military authorities here said Sunday.

Three North Koreans, one wearing the communist nation’s military uniform, were aboard the 10-meter-long wooden boat, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

Asked initially if they have a desire to defect to the South, they said no, according to a source. 

But the military took them to the port to figure out the exact reason for the NLL crossing. An interagency probe team is looking into the personal backgrounds of the North Koreans and their intentions.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but this could have been a insertion mission of North Korean agents into South Korea or simply something to judge ROK maritime reaction times.

Why would a president, who's responsible for providing security & protect people/way of life, get rid of defenses & its surveillance (ability to monitor the adversary's threats & verify its adherence to military agreement)? Give up its border NLL? https://t.co/vIGMX8x1ga

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) December 7, 2018

The darker blue "peace zone"–no armed ships, no military exercise, no large weapons use. People /Marines on islands isolated, not allowed to defend. Han River estuary, historically an invasion route, to be joint use/patrol, wide open for #NorthKorea to enter Seoul. https://t.co/3pBZ3je8x7

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) October 31, 2018

Am I supposed to be excited because North Korea closed a couple of doors?

The entrances (circled) of artillery positions on North Korea’s Jangjae Island bordering South Korea in the West Sea is seen closed on Oct. 31, 2018, one day ahead of the implementation of the Sept. 19 inter-Korean military agreements, in which the two sides agreed to set a maritime buffer zone spanning around 80 km in the East and West Seas to prevent unintended naval clashes. (Yonhap)

This is just another example of an easily reversible so called concession by the North Koreans.  They can just open the door and use their artillery when ever they want.  Why doesn’t Seoul have them remove the artillery as well as their silkworm missiles and confirm it with an inspection?  That would create a real buffer zone instead of the pretend one the Moon administration is agreeing to.

By the way the below graphic provides a breakdown of North Korea’s artillery and missile positions in the Yellow Sea:

Here is another indication that the Moon administration is getting played by the Kim regime over the NLL issue:

Touching on the controversy over the North’s position on the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de-facto sea border with the South, Jeong said that working-level North Korean officials have yet to accept the NLL as the maritime border, despite leader Kim Jong-un’s apparent recognition of it.

In April, the leaders of the two sides agreed to turn the tense area into a “maritime peace zone.” They used the term “NLL” in their joint statement.

President Moon Jae-in said it indicates that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has virtually recognized the NLL.

The North’s navy, however, had continued to claim its own security line until recently, sending repeated warning messages to South Korean ships crossing it.

That appears to be because North Korea’s front-line troops have not received any new related instructions from Kim, Jeong said.

He added that the North’s working-level officials have not yet agreed to accept the NLL.

Gen. Park Han-ki, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the South urged the North not to take issue with the NLL during the bilateral general-grade talks last week.

“(We) clearly told (the North) to stop sending such inappropriate radio messages,” he said.  [Yonhap]

Kim Jong-un of courses recognizes the NLL, what he recognizes is his definition of the NLL.

If you have been reading the ROK Drop this news should come as no surprise:

Pyongyang’s version of a military pact signed by both Koreas last month mentions the northern limit line (NLL) in angle quotes, which may mean it doesn’t acknowledge the maritime border between the two Koreas in the Yellow Sea.

Seoul’s version doesn’t place any punctuation marks around the same words.

A lawmaker from the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) exclusively revealed the North’s version of the agreement to the JoongAng Ilbo on Thursday. Former South Korean National Defense Minister Song Young-moo signed the military pact with his North Korean counterpart, No Kwang-chol, on Sept. 19 during the third inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang.

If the North had indeed refused to acknowledge the NLL in September, it would contradict remarks made by South Korean President Moon Jae-in earlier this month.

The Blue House chief said on Oct. 11 that the North acknowledged the NLL in the latest summit. Both Koreas agreed to create a so-called peace zone around the area to prevent possible military clashes and establish a joint fishing zone, he said.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but Moon’s maritime peace zone that the Kim regime is so happy to sign an agreement on will 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:

The current NLL is depicted with the Blue line and North Korea’s claimed NLL is depicted with the Red line.

Moon’s peace zone would allow the North Korean boats to pass the current NLL to nearly the red line the North Koreans claim.  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.

South Korea has made all these concessions to weaken their defenses against a North Korean attack and the Kim regime has yet to move one artillery battery away from the DMZ in return.

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.