In and Around North Korea: 20 - 24 December 2008

• U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on 21 Dec that six-party talks are the only way to achieve North Korea's denuclearization, citing Pyongyang's common strategy of exploiting division in the international community, according to Yonhap News. "A lot has been achieved" in the multilateral talks over the past half year,'' the outgoing secretary said on NBC's Meet the Press, including the shutdown of the North's main nuclear reactor, presentation of its nuclear list and blowing up of the cooling tower of the North's main nuclear reactor. "I think more will be achieved, but it's really only going to be achieved in the context of the six parties, because if you don't have China and South Korea and Russia and Japan at the table, too, then the North can play the game that they used to play of getting benefits from other parts of the international community and refusing to carry forward on its obligations." Rice rebuffed criticism that North Korea had "played" the U.S. in refusing to agree to a verification protocol on its nuclear facilities in the waning weeks of the Bush administration, saying, "Of course we didn't trust them."

• New Zealand has joined Australia in putting on hold offers to provide North Korea with fuel oil following its failure to agree in writing to ways of verifying information it has provided about its nuclear programs, a New Zealand government spokesman told Kyodo News on 19 Dec. A press secretary for Foreign Minister Murray McCully said New Zealand dropped the offer in the wake of the failure of last week's six-party talks in Beijing to yield a protocol that would commit North Korea to allow such scientific verification measures as taking samples from its nuclear facilities. The move follows Australia's overnight announcement that it has suspended its offer to contribute fuel oil to North Korea.

• The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) should build a powerful deterrent to U.S. dominance of world affairs, the official Rodong Sinmun daily said on 22 Dec. The United States, while talking about "nuclear disarmament" on the Korean Peninsula, is still seeking modernization of its nuclear weapons, the newspaper said in a commentary. "The U.S. imperialists' moves for the modernization of nuclear weapons compel the Korean people to heighten their revolutionary vigilance and the DPRK to build a powerful deterrent to cope with them," it said. Without a strong military deterrent, no country can safeguard its national security and strategic interests, it added.

• North Korea renewed its claim on 23 Dec that it is already a nuclear power, snubbing South Korea's denial of the status as a useless attempt to change the reality. Rodong Sinmun said in a commentary that Seoul bears the blame for strained inter-Korean relations and declared North Korea to be a nuclear state that conducted a successful atomic bomb test in 2006. Seoul maintains that the North will never be recognized as a nuclear state, as the term only refers to nations who already possessed nuclear capabilities when the nuclear non-proliferation treaty was adopted in 1970.

• A national meeting was held at the April 25 House of Culture here Tuesday to mark the 17th anniversary of leader Kim Jong Il's assumption of supreme commandership of the Korean People's Army [KPA]. Vice Marshal of the KPA Kim Il Chol, minister of the People's Armed Forces who is member of the National Defense Commission of North Korea, in a report made at the meeting said that a grave situation is prevailing on the Korean Peninsula due to the hostile policy of the US imperialists and their followers toward North Korea and their frantic moves to ignite a war of aggression against it. He also stated, “North Korea’s revolutionary armed forces have already made a solemn declaration that they would counter the enemies' slightest moves for ‘preemptive attack’ with more rapid and powerful advanced preemptive strike of our style. The pro-American warmongers of south Korea hell-bent on igniting another war had better stop their rash acts, bearing in mind that Korean-style preemptive attack based on striking means unimaginably more powerful than nuclear weapons will prove to be the most decisive and merciless strike based on justice as it will not merely turn everything into a sea of fire but reduce everything treacherous and anti-reunification to debris and build an independent reunified country on it. Should the US hard-line conservative forces and the bellicose forces of south Korea dare ignite another war of aggression against North Korea, the revolutionary armed forces of North Korea will mobilize all the military potentials reinforced by dint of songun [military-first] and remove the main source of war from the peninsula and thus accomplish the historic cause of national reunification without fail.”

• South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities believe North Korean leader Kim Jong-il did make the semi-public appearances the North has been reporting in recent weeks, despite ill health apparently brought about by a stroke. A senior South Korean intelligence officer on 21 Dec said Kim's personal armored train did travel to the areas where Kim was said to have made the visits. "Based on the information we gathered, we think it is highly likely that he actually visited these cities," he said. Both South Korean and US. intelligence agencies reconnoitered the movement of Kim's personal train with the KH-12 satellite, the U-2 scout plane, and South Korea's Kumgang spotter plane, and confirmed that the train was moving.

• North Korean media claimed that Kim Jong-il made year-round inspections "without rest," not mentioning the months-long interval during which Kim went unseen amid rumors of his ill health. Kim made a total of 91 public appearances this year as of 24 Dec, slightly up from the 86 appearances he made in 2007 but continuing a downward trend in the reclusive leader's public activities in recent years. Seoul and Washington officials say Kim suffered a stroke in mid-August and is now recovering. Kim "is alive, and he remains in control of the North Korean government," Adm. Timothy Keating of the U.S. Pacific Command said last week. "Since he guided on the spot the workers in their work for constructing the Ryesonggang Power Station on a cold and windy day in the beginning of the year, he has covered without rest the road of field guidance," the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on 23 Dec. "He has continued on-the-spot guidance without interruption defying the intense cold of the midwinter and the blazing sunlight and rainy days of midsummer," it said. The number of Kim's inspections peaked with 123 visits in 2005, after which he has appeared less frequently in public. In 2006, his public activity was reported 99 times, followed by 86 in 2007. This year, six of the 91 visits were reported last week.

• After enjoying a minor boost in 2008, North Korea's troubled economy is forecast to be further weakened in the face of shrinking ties with its major business partner China, a South Korean research institute reported on 22 Dec. North Korea has set the year 2012 as the target year for the take-off of its economy so that it can celebrate the 70th birthday of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. The North Korean economy has been pulling itself up from economic shrinkage to maintain a steady gross domestic product (GDP) growth in 2008.

• According to the sources, North Korea is considering returning some South Korean war prisoners or civilian captives to the South through the border village of Panmunjeom or deporting them to a third country such as China. In return, North Korea suggests South Korea cooperate on a raft of inter-Korean economic projects such as the construction of a steel mill in Musan, a petrochemical industry park in the Najin-Sunbong area, food plants, a housing complex in Pyongyang and a road between Pyongyang and Shinuiju. In particular, the North has expressed hope for the South's participation in the Pyongyang housing project, which is spearheaded by Jang Song-taek, brother-in-law of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, sources said. Jang, who has reportedly emerged as the most powerful figure in the North, has pushed for building 100,000 houses in the North's capital city. Seoul sees the North's proposal as a step forward, sources said. It has begun work to identify details of the proposal, they said. However, Seoul's Unification Ministry, however, officially denied the North Korean proposal. "I've not heard of it," ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyoun told reporters.