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]
That is what the Korea Times is speculating about:
Vladimir Putin
With North Korean leader Kim Jong-un making a surprise visit to China, chances are that the dictator will also hold dialogue with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
The possibility has risen after Kim ended his four-day state visit to Beijing on Wednesday. Kim, accompanied by his wife, Ri Sol-ju, met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
The meeting between the two leaders came at a time when the North Korean leader plans to hold dialogue with President Moon Jae-in and United States President Donald Trump in April and May, respectively.
Kim’s unprecedented active determination for dialogue also raises hopes for a possible meeting with the Russian leader.
The Kremlin dismissed the possibility for a potential summit between Kim and Vladimir Putin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday that no schedule for the summit has been arranged and is not under review at the moment.
But chances are that Pyongyang and Moscow could join hands, as Russia also apparently hopes to play a part in the ongoing North Korea nuclear issues. [Korea Times]
I guess we will see over the next month if Putin wants to insert himself into the current negotiations going on over the future of the Korean peninsula.
The Russian port of Kholmsk sounds like an excellent candidate for secondary customs inspections under section 314 of the KIMS Act. https://t.co/9Zuc42wFFR
This tactic by the Russians is really nothing new since misinformation on the Internet is something long used in South Korea for political purposes:
Demonstrators at two opposing protests in Houston, Texas, in May 2016. Both protests were orchestrated by Russian trolls.
Posing as American activists, Russian government-linked trolls created 129 Facebook events between 2015 and 2017.
On multiple occasions, the events prompted real Americans to take to the streets.
In a written statement Facebook gave to the Senate Intelligence Committee released on Thursday, the social media network said that the events created by one Kremlin-linked troll group were seen by more than 300,000 Facebook users. About 62,500 users marked that they would attend the event, and an additional 25,800 expressed an interest in attending.
Facebook told Congress it does “not have data about the realization of these events,” but CNN has previously found evidence that the Russian group successfully convinced Americans to attend the demonstrations.
The events were organized on a range of divisive issues and were designed to pit Americans against each other.
In one case, the troll group organized and promoted two opposing events on the same day at the same location in Houston, Texas.
“Heart of Texas,” a page that posed as a pro-Texas secession organization, promoted a “Stop Islamization of Texas” protest at the opening of a library at an Islamic Center on May 21, 2016. The same troll group used another page, “United Muslims of America,” to promote a “Save Islamic Knowledge” event at the same time.
The Russian group spent $200 promoting the events on Facebook, the company told Congress last fall.
Executive director of the American-Islamic Relations in Texas, Mustafaa Carroll, told CNN that his organization had contacted the FBI about comments posted on the “Heart of Texas” page before the protest. One of them read: “Need to blow this place up. We don’t need this shit in Texas.” [CNN]
You can read more at the link, but using trolls to create fake news and events is why the prior ROK government under President Lee Myung-bak implemented a real-name verification system for commenters to avoid false information influencing elections. President Lee had first hand experience with this when the 2008 US Mad Cow Crisis nearly toppled his Presidency shortly after being inaugurated. Afterwards the whole thing was proven to be fake news spread over the Internet and promoted by major media outlets to topple the President.
In the least surprising news of the day the Russians are busy helping the North Koreans avoid sanctions:
President Donald Trump speaks during an interview with Reuters at the White House in Washington, D.C. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)
U.S. President Donald Trump complained on Wednesday that Russia was helping North Korea to evade international sanctions, signaling frustration with a country he had hoped to forge friendly relations with after his 2016 election win.
“Russia is not helping us at all with North Korea,” Trump said during an Oval Office interview with Reuters. “What China is helping us with, Russia is denting. In other words, Russia is making up for some of what China is doing.”
China and Russia both signed onto the latest rounds of United Nations Security Council sanctions against North Korea imposed last year. There was no immediate comment from the Russian embassy in Washington on Trump’s remarks. [Reuters]
I would not be surprised at all if this is all coordinated between the Chinese and the Russians. The Chinese can increase their sanctions efforts to relieve pressure the Trump administration is putting on them while fully knowing the Russians will pick up the slack of aiding the Kim regime.
