In and around North Korea: 14 - 20 November 2008

• A high-ranking South Korean government official said the six-party nuclear talks should resume before Christmas although China, the chair country of the six-party talks, has not yet proposed a date. The official also played down the North Korean Foreign Ministry's statement that Pyongyang will not allow the taking of samples from its main nuclear complex for nuclear verification. The official said that the next six-party talks should reschedule economic and energy aid to the North and set the speed of the disablement process. Seoul, as chair of the six-party energy working group, will consider raising the funds internationally to make up for Tokyo’s refusal to provide energy aid worth 200-thousand tons of heavy fuel oil.

• North Korea has agreed to allow international inspectors to take samples from its main nuclear complex, but only after it enters the next phase of the often-troubled denuclearization process, a news report said on 19 Nov. North Korea and the United States reached the verbal deal early last month when Washington's chief nuclear envoy Christopher Hill visited Pyongyang to discuss ways of verifying the reclusive nation's June declaration of its nuclear stockpile, according to the ROK Kyunghyang Shinmun.

• President Bush is to have bilateral meetings with both the president of South Korea as well as with the prime minister of Japan, a senior official said in a background briefing on Bush's attendance at the annual APEC forum in the capital of Peru. “The president will express appreciation for the highly constructive roles both nations continue to play in the six-party talks and will discuss the ways to move that process forward," the official said. President Bush is expected to also meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao, where he will express "appreciation for China's leadership on the North Korean denuclearization issue," the official said. "And they will discuss the importance of an early six-party talk’s heads of delegation meeting, to reach final agreement on North Korean verification."

• The Dec issue of the Monthly Chosun magazine reported that the ROK government intercepted and examined what appears to be the brain scan images of Kim Jong-il that were sent to France from North Korea in mid-August of this year. The consensus of the medical team that examined the images was that, “it would be difficult for him [Kim Jong-il] to last for more than 5 years." According to a government official who informed the magazine, the ROK intelligence agency was able to obtain the brain scan images of Kim, who had a stroke, which was emailed from North Korea to a French medical team for consultation.

• Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) announced on 15 Nov that Kim Jong-il (KJI) attended an art performance given by the soldiers of the Navy Unit 155, KPA Unit 833, and KPA Unit 1313 who participated in the 32nd art festival of servicepersons of the KPA. It stated that KJI “warmly waved back to the enthusiastically cheering performers and congratulated them on their successful presentation.” It also added there were several high ranking KPA leadership in attendance. KCNA, however, did not release any photographs of KJI at the event.

• North Korea appointed a new ambassador to Iran, the North Korean radio reported on 16 Nov. The new Ambassador is known to have served as the North Korean Consul at Karachi, but no other information was revealed.

• The volume of border trade between North Korea and China has plunged in the wake of the global financial crisis, the Hong Kong daily Ta Kung Pao said on 19 Nov. Trading in the markets approved by the Chinese government along the border has effectively stopped, the report said. Such trading is also not categorized as international trade.

• Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) on 19 Nov signed a loan agreement in Pyongyang with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, whereby KFAED is to provide KD 6.2 million (some USD 21.7 million) to assist in the financing of Pyongyang City Wastewater Project, KFAED reported. The agreement was signed by North Korean Vice Minister of Municipal Management Li Gang Hui and KFAED Deputy Director-General Hesham Al-Waqian.

• The U.S. relief agency Mercy Corps is preparing to send a sixth shipment of food aid to North Korea. A ship carrying 25-thousand tons of food will leave the U.S. in mid-Dec and is scheduled to arrive in the North in Jan. The official said that the fifth U.S. shipment, made up of some 25-thousand tons of corn and beans, will arrive in the North this week.

• A new group formed by North Korean defectors announced on 19 Nov that North Korea's prison camps hold about 300,000 people and authorities hold annual mass executions of inmates seen as defiant. Torture and sexual violence are also rampant at the camps, said An Myong-Chul, a 40-year-old former camp guard who defected to South Korea 10 years ago. "Every year at around this time North Korea executes up to 20 inmates at each camp," he said at a ceremony to launch a group called the Campaign for North Korean Freedom.

• According to the Moscow Russkiy Reporter, Russian missile designers suspect their colleagues who left Russia during the 1990s have helped North Korea develop its missile program. "Countries such as India, Pakistan, Iran, or the DPRK can scarcely expect success in this field without involving foreign specialists." Of the countries named, it is North Korea that has thus far achieved the greatest success in the missile construction field. For instance, Pakistan and Iran have purchased from it the manufacturing technology for the Nodong short-range (up to 1,500 km) strategic missile.

• The Washington Times reported that United Nations nuclear inspectors confirmed the Syrian facility bombed by Israeli planes last year bore multiple hallmarks of a nuclear reactor, and the ruined site was contaminated with uranium. The report stopped short of declaring the Syrian facility to be a nuclear reactor, noting that Damascus had taken extensive steps to sanitize the site before officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency were allowed to visit. But agency officials said Syria had failed to provide blueprints or other documents to support its claim that the destroyed building had a non-nuclear purpose. A senior U.N. official, describing the finding, said the soil samples contained "significant" amounts of uranium in a form that clearly suggested human manipulation. The uranium was not enriched but had been "chemically processed," official said. Some nuclear reactors, such as the Yongbyon reactor built by North Korea, use a form of processed uranium that has not been artificially enriched. U.S. intelligence officials say North Korea assisted Syria in constructing their facility, which closely resembled the Yongbyon reactor.

• Families of South Koreans abducted by North Korea sent thousands of balloons carrying anti-communist flyers near the inter-Korean border on 20 Nov, despite the government's warning a day earlier. South Korean authorities decided on 19 Nov to crackdown on local activists spreading anti-North Korean propaganda leaflets across the inter-Korean border in an apparent bid to appease an angered Pyongyang. "The government will make aggressive efforts to persuade civic groups to refrain from scattering leaflets. The related authorities will cope with such activity within legal boundaries," Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyoun said.

• South Korea expressed hopes on 17 Nov for the resumption of cross-border tours to Mount Geumgang on North Korea's eastern coast as the two sides mark a gloomy anniversary this week of the launch of the now-suspended business. A ferry carrying South Korean tourists set historic sail toward the scenic mountain on 18 Nov 1998 as a token of burgeoning inter-Korean reconciliation. But the tour program has been idle for months following the 14 Jul shooting death of a South Korean housewife visiting the area by a North Korean soldier.

• North Korea on 17 Nov labeled South Korea's recent proposal for inter-Korean dialogue as “hypocritical,” claiming the proposal is nothing but an attempt to evade responsibility for the worsening relationship between the two Koreas. In an apparent response to Seoul's call to resume inter-Korean dialogue, the North's Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper published by its ruling Workers' Party, on Monday claimed the proposal is nothing but an attempt to redirect public criticism over shattered inter-Korean ties toward Pyongyang.

• Hyundai Asan CEO Cho Kun-shik said on 18 Nov the South Korean company's Gaeseong tour program in North Korea was still intact. Cho said that North Korean officials did not mention anything negative or hostile about the Gaeseong tour program.

• Numerous recent open source reporting stated that the PRC may be in the process of quietly preparing itself to cope with a crisis situation on their border with NK. Reports include the PRC military build ups in the region, local authorities implementing contingency plans, stoppage of Chinese visitors into the DPRK, and rigorous ID checks of North Korean-Chinese or NK nationals in China traveling to NK by train. The PRC and the US governments have both denied any knowledge of these reports. In response to questions on these topics; the PRC Foreign Ministry spokesman replied “I have not heard of any unusual circumstances on the China-DPRK border…I haven't heard of any abnormal circumstances on the border between China and North Korea." Robert Wood, Deputy Spokesman of the US Department of State stated, “I hadn’t heard that…I need to take a look at the reports and follow up on them before I can give you any comment” during a daily press briefing when asked about the validity of the reports on Chinese troop movements. The governments of NK and the ROK have remained silent on these topics.

• A panel from the National Intelligence Council released their Global Trends 2025 report on Thursday (US Eastern Standard Time). The predictions include "We see a unified Korea as likely by 2025 and assess the peninsula will probably be denuclearized, either via ongoing diplomacy or as a necessary condition for international acceptance of and cooperation with a needy new Korea."

• According to an unnamed ROK military official, the ROK Navy will send the KDX-II Type Gang Gam Chan Class Destroyer to the Gulf of Aden to protect Korean ships from Somali pirate attacks. The Gang gam Chan is expected to carry members of the special Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT) and (Sea, Air, Land) SEAL teams, as well as two Lynx helicopters. The deployment date was not released.