The United States on Friday welcomed the U.N. Security Council’s united support for the fully verified denuclearization of North Korea and pressed China and Russia to strictly enforce U.N. sanctions to get Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused North Korea of violating an array of tough sanctions imposed by the council. He warned that ”when sanctions are not enforced, the prospects for the successful denuclearization of North Korea are diminished.”
Nonetheless, Pompeo told reporters after meeting behind closed doors with the 15 council members that President Donald Trump ”remains upbeat about the prospects for denuclearization” following his historic summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. ”So do I, as progress is happening,” he added without elaborating.
The Trump administration hopes that one day North Korea will be at the United Nations ”not as a pariah but as a friend,” Pompeo said. But ”it will take full enforcement of sanctions for us to get there” as well as Kim following through ”on his personal commitments” to Trump. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but I have to hand it to Secretary Pompeo, he is doing everything possible to not be seen as the belligerent whenever the breaking point with North Korea’s foot dragging on denuclearization happens.
The wreckage of the ship. / Courtesy of Shinil Group
The Shinil Group’s announcement on July 17 that it had located the Dmitrii Donskoi, a Russian cruiser that went down 113 years ago, just two days before created a sensation, with the stock price of Jeil Steel (in which the Shinil Group holds a majority share) soaring and setting a new record.But the next day it turned out that the Dmitrii Donskoi was not a new discovery by the Shinil Group but had actually been found fifteen years before by the government-funded Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST), which had also attempted to raise the wreck.
KIOST furthermore argued that the Shinil Group had located the Donskoi through the unauthorized use of location information that belonged to the institute, which raises questions about the credibility of the Shinil Group’s assertion that it is “the first to discover the Dmitrii Donskoi and the only proven right holder.
”For now, therefore, extreme caution and care are probably required for the various projects and deals organized by the Shinil Group and promoted with rumors that the Donskoi is loaded with 150 trillion won (US$132.41 billion) worth of gold coins and gold bars. Jumping into these projects could have unforeseen consequences.“We had already discovered the Donskoi in 2003 and even released photos. It’s preposterous for the Shinil Group to claim ownership as if they’d been the first to find it,” a key official at KIOST said during a phone call with the HuffPost on July 18. [Hankyoreh]
You can read more at the link, but if another group found the ship 15 years ago it seems to me they would have removed any gold that was there by now, assuming there was any gold to begin with.
A ship that sunk off of Ulleungdo in 1905 that had previously fought in the Russo-Japanese has been discovered by Korean treasure hunters:
The wreckage of the ship. / Courtesy of Shinil Group
A Russian battleship that sank 113 years ago in waters off South Korea’s Ulleung Island ― allegedly carrying tons of gold coins and bars ― has been located.
The rusty hull of the Dmitri Donskoii was found on the seabed a kilometer from the island’s Jeodong-ri and 434 meters underwater, said Shinil Group, a South Korean company which has endeavored to find the ship for years.
“We found the body of the Dmitrii Donskoi 434 meters deep in seas 1.3 kilometers off Ulleung Island at around 9:50 a.m., Sunday,” Shinil Group said.
The vessel’s shape and details were “confirmed to be identical with the Dmitri Donskoii,” the company said. It inspected the wreckage with two manned submarines on Saturday. [Korea Times]
You can read the rest at the link, but the ship was rumored to be filled with gold worth $133 billion today. The treasure hunters are in the process of trying to lift the ship to look for the gold. If a billions in gold is discovered, I think it may pose an interesting legal challenge from the Russians because it is technically their property.
Two Russian military planes on Friday violated South Korea’s air defense identification zone (KADIZ) four times and flew away following warnings, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.
The JCS said that the aircraft first entered the KADIZ north of the eastern island of Ulleungdo at 2:08 p.m. and flew out of it 74 kilometers southeast of Pohang at 2:35 p.m. They re-entered the KADIZ at 3:21 p.m. from the east and then left from the northwest of Jeju Island at 3:45 p.m.
At 4:08 p.m., the planes entered the KADIZ northwest of Jeju and flew out of it at 4:32 p.m. At 5:36, they re-entered the KADIZ from the east of the Dokdo islets and left at 5:53 p.m.
South Korea deployed its aircraft to send warnings to the planes, the JCS explained. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but the Russians do these flights through US and Japanese ADIZ’s as well likely to assess the response times of ground alert aircraft.
This photo provided by the Korea National University of Cultural Heritage on July 6, 2018, shows ancient Korean earthenware of the Balhae Kingdom (698-926) that was excavated in the Russian Far Eastern Amur region recently by a research team from the university. (Yonhap)
Moon returns from Russia where he pitched his own Northern Strategy (the "Northern Silk Road") to Putin, Medvedev and the Russian lower house. SK railroad officials accompanied him to confer with Russian ones re connecting to the Trans-Siberian Railwayhttps://t.co/sio2gDj7ra
It looks like President Moon is in Russia setting conditions for any future summit between Putin and Kim Jong-un:
South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his wife Kim Jung-sook arrive in Moscow on June 21, 2018 for a three-day state visit that will include a bilateral summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Yonhap)
South Korean President Moon Jae-in began his three-day state visit to Russia on Thursday for a bilateral summit with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that will likely focus on ways to boost the countries’ economic cooperation, as well as joint efforts to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons.
Moon’s trip marked the first state visit to Russia by a South Korean leader since 1999, according to his office Cheong Wa Dae.
He was set to deliver a special speech at the State Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia, becoming the first South Korean president to do so in history.
He will also meet Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev later in the day for bilateral talks on ways to expand their countries’ bilateral cooperation, Cheong Wa Dae said.
The Moon-Putin summit will be held on Friday, marking the third of its kind since Moon took office in May 2017. The two first met on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit held in Germany in July. They last met in September, when Moon attended the annual Eastern Economic Forum held in the Russian city of Vladivostok. [Yonhap]
Like clockwork here comes surrogates for the Kim regime asking the Trump administration to remove sanctions for little to nothing in return:
Russia called on the United States and its allies on Friday to remove individual economic sanctions they imposed on North Korea besides the ones put forward in the name of the United Nations in line with easing tensions in the region.
“Russia supports the lifting of secondary boycotts that amount to unilateral sanctions, as we maintain a negative stance on those measures against North Korea taken by a slew of countries that circumvented the U.N. Security Council,” ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a briefing. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but if anything the Trump administration should be preparing for more sanctions to implement to further pressure the regime to take real measures towards denuclearization, not removing sanctions.
With Russian President Vladimir Putin inviting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to his country, expectations are that leaders from the two Koreas may meet in Russia this fall for the first time in a third country.
The Kremlin said Monday Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov delivered Putin’s letter of invitation to Kim for an upcoming economic forum set to take place in Vladivostok in September. This came during the minister’s visit to Pyongyang last month when he met with the regime’s leader to discuss the ongoing denuclearization drive on the Korean Peninsula and Russia’s role to realize the goal.
“Details and time will be further coordinated through diplomatic channels (for Kim’s possible visit to Russia),” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. He said the forum is one of the options that will allow Kim’s possible trip to the country. [Korea Times]
It appears Vladimir Putin does not want to be left out of the current negotiations that are occurring before the ROK-DPRK and US-DPRK summits:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has received an invitation to visit Russia, according to U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Dan Coats.
Coats’ claim adds to speculation that Kim may meet Russian President Vladimir Putin to bolster diplomatic leverage on North Korea’s nuclear program before a planned inter-Korean summit on April 27.
Kim, who visited Chinese President Xi Jinping in late March, is scheduled to send his Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho to Russia next week.
Russian news agency TASS reported that on Wednesday Coats mentioned Kim’s invitation to Moscow when asked about the possibility of resuming the six-party talks on North Korea’s denuclearization in the wake of the Kim-Xi meeting.
TASS said the DNI chief told reporters in Washington, D.C., he is trying to discover what the North Korean leader intends to discuss in Russia. [Korea Times]
