In and Around North Korea: 26 November - 4 December 2008

• U.S. chief nuclear envoy Christopher Hill met with his NK counterpart Kim Kye-gwan in Singapore on 04 Dec, saying they had substantive talks focused on verification of the NK’s nuclear activities. “We have reviewed the major issues that we have all been working on. It is disablement, the fuel oil and the issue of verification of their declaration, "Hill told reporters after their meeting. Analysts said this meeting was expected to "set the tone for Beijing", Kyodo News said in an earlier report. Hill has been criticized by conservatives in Washington for being too flexible with North Korea and not obtaining detailed information from Pyongyang about its suspected program to enrich uranium for weapons, or for proliferating technology to countries such as Syria.

• South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said "I anticipate they (the United States and North Korea) would maximize efforts to reach an agreement". Asked whether failure to work out an agreement in Singapore would derail the six-party process, the minister was quoted as saying that "the United States, North Korea and other countries in the six-party framework have appreciated the usefulness of the six-party talks, and the next US administration led by President-elect Obama supports the talks".

• The U.S. State Department's top official on nuclear verification Paula DeSutter stressed on 26 Nov that sampling should be guaranteed in a six-party agreement on ways to assess Pyongyang's nuclear capability. "Sampling is a very normal part of many arms control agreements, especially on nuclear programs," she said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency. "And obviously, analysis happens not on site but back at laboratories specially designed to do the work."

• South Korea, the United States and Japan agreed to finalize the disablement of North Korean nuclear facilities by March 2009, Seoul's top nuclear envoy said. The chief nuclear negotiators from the three nations agreed at a meeting in Tokyo on 03 Dec to fine-tune their strategies ahead of the next round of six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions. The talks are likely to be held in Beijing on 08 Dec.

• Rodong Sinmun on 02 Dec stated “it is the firm and unwavering stand of our Republic to counter the "preemptive attack," which the US imperialists made its main mode of striking us, with a more powerful and advanced preemptive attack of our own style. The preemptive attack of our own style, a powerful and mighty military operation beyond imagination, will make the combined military operations plan of the United States and Japan powerless. Nobody can predict the method of strike of our own style and its might and it will be resolute and merciless to the aggressors. Availing ourselves of this opportunity, we would like to serve a strong warning to the Japanese reactionaries. The desperate efforts made by Japan to start a reckless war against our Republic, crying out for "closer alliance" with the United States in a bid to gain something, will be an act of self-destruction as foolish as jumping into the fire with fagots on its back. Japan would be well advised to bear this in mind.”

• Rodong Sinmun on 01 Dec stated “with no rhetoric can the Lee Myung-bak ring avoid the criminal responsibility for having pushed North-South relations into a crisis of complete shutdown or cover up the anti-reunification and bellicose true colors of those keen to harm fellow countrymen at any cost in league with outside forces. Our principled stand is firm and invariable. We are always faithful to our words and we do not make any empty talk. The fate of North-South relations entirely depends on what attitude the authorities of the South side adopt toward them [declarations]. If the Lee Myung-bak ring continues to maliciously cling to its confrontational racket against the Republic, swimming against the current of the 15 June reunification era, it will be made to take full responsibility for all the grave consequences to be entailed.”

• KCNA reported on 02 Dec “the south Korean puppets are contemplating revising the "national defense reform for 2020" as a dangerous plan for arms buildup, while spreading rumor of "threat from the north." This is prompted by their bellicose scenario to realize at any cost their wild ambition to invade the north in collusion with foreign forces by attaining their goal for beefing up the ultra-modern armed forces earlier than scheduled and pushing ahead with it under a more carefully worked out plan.” It went on to say “the catastrophic crisis of the inter-Korean relations bears a close resemblance to the situation on the eve of a war. The Lee group would be well advised to stop the reckless arms buildup at once, mindful that the provocative acts will only further bedevil the inter-Korean relations and entail disastrous consequences.”

• North Korea released more pictures of leader Kim Jong Il visiting a military unit. Photos including one showing him clapping, in an apparent attempt to dispel rumors that a stroke left him partially paralyzed.

• KCNA reported on 03 Dec that Kim Jong Il visited the recently renovated Central Zoo in Pyongyang and oversaw operations there for “a long time.” The report did not specify exactly when the visit took place, but said the renovations were completed on 09 Nov, indicating he may have been there in the past month. It was the first time the KCNA had reported that Kim visited the local landmark.

• The Mainichi Daily News reported on 01 Dec that a move to have the eldest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il succeed him as the reclusive country's next leader failed due to a power struggle within North Korea's ruling party late last year.

• Chang Song Taek, 62, a high-ranking official at the Worker's Party of Korea, asked fellow party official Lee Je Gang to agree to endorse Kim's eldest son, Kim Jong Nam, 37, as his successor around the end of last year.

• However, Lee rejected Chang in favor of Kim's second son, 28-year-old Kim Jong Chol instead, according to sources close to the North Korean government.

• The failed agreement between Chang -- Kim Jong Il's brother-in-law -- and Lee -- a senior aide to Kim -- has reportedly thrown the party into disarray over who will succeed Kim Jong Il, whose health is reportedly deteriorating.

• A 20 Nov article in the Tokyo Shimbun translated on 01 Dec stated that exports from North Korea's Musan mine (Musan County, North Hamgyo'ng Province), which boasts of the largest deposit of iron ore in Northeast Asia, and exports of rice from China to the DPRK had stopped since September. According to several related sources, the traffic of cargo trains between the two countries has also stopped since the beginning of November. The reason for this "strange occurrence" in PRC-DPRK trade is unknown, but certain pundits suspect that this is linked to rumors of General Secretary Kim Jong Il's illness.

• Kyodo News reported that Singapore and North Korea signed an investment guarantee agreement on 02 Dec as Pyongyang pitched for investment from the city-state. The agreement was signed by Singapore's Trade and Industry Minister Lim Hng Kiang and North Korea's Foreign Trade Minister Ri Ryong Nam on the last day of his three-day official visit to Singapore. It promotes bilateral investment flows by protecting investors and their investments through nondiscriminatory treatment, compensation in the event of expropriation or nationalization of their investments, and free transfer of capital and returns from investment, Lim's ministry said in a statement.

• Amidst the stumbling of South Korean enterprises in the Kaesong Industrial Complex as a result of the 01 Dec restrictions, the assertion is that a “Shinuiju Special Zone” is on the way.
  
• Forum for Inter-Korea Relations representative Kim Gyu Chul held a press conference in Seoul on 01 Dec and released a piece of North Korean special data, which was purchased in March from a foreign consulting company in China, about developing a special zone in Shinuiju. According to Kim, North Korea has a plan to build a special economic zone in the Shiuiju and Wihwado region, on around 83.772 hectares of land.

• "During the period of the current South Korean administration, North Korea will minimize reliance on the South's economy, increase reliance on China, and is planning to promote economic relations with the U.S., the E.U. and Russia," he stated.

• Mobile phone service will be launched this month in North Korea but it is unclear who will be allowed to use it in the secretive communist state, a news report said on 04 Dec. The service is due to begin in Pyongyang on 10 Dec, US broadcaster Radio Free Asia said in a Korean-language website report which quoted a Chinese trader operating in the country. The broadcaster said the service will gradually expand to other parts of the country, with mobile handsets costing 700 dollars. This would make them too expensive for all but a tiny minority. Radio Free Asia said it was not known whether the new service would be restricted to communist party officials. Egypt's Orascom Telecom announced in January it had won the right to offer the mobile service and said it would invest 400 million dollars in the project.

• Officials at South Korea’s Ministry of Strategy and Finance said that the government plans to establish a 9.9 billion won ($6.7 million) trust fund in the World Bank next year in the form of a "Fragile States Fund," through which South Korea plans to provide organizational development assistance. "Since North Korea is not a member of the World Bank, we cannot help North Korea directly," an official of the ministry said. He noted that the fund would not target the North only, but "If there is some progress in North Korea's opening up and it becomes a member of the World Bank, the fund could be directly used to help the North," he added.

• KCNA reported that the DPRK categorically rebuffs and condemns an anti-DPRK resolution on human rights which was “railroaded through the meeting of the 3rd Committee of the 63rd UN General Assembly.” This "resolution, fabricated by Japan and the EU with a political motive to tarnish the image of the DPRK in the international arena, is peppered with lies and fabrications.” The article went on to say “That was why the majority of the UN member nations said no or abstained from voting, questioning the resolution as it was a vivid manifestation of politicization and double-dealing standards in dealing with a human rights issue.”

• The director of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency said “U.S. intelligence agencies have numerous indications of close cooperation between Iran and North Korea on developing ballistic missiles.” Air Force Lt. Gen. Trey Obering told reporters that a recent Iranian missile test was one sign of Teheran-Pyongyang missile cooperation.

• South Korea will complete the withdrawal of hundreds of its nationals from North Korea on 04 Dec after the communist nation ordered them out. The North earlier demanded that, starting this week, the number of South Koreans working at the joint industrial and tourism zones in Kaesong and Mount Kumgang be halved to 880 and 100, respectively. The communist nation said the cutback is part of its initial retaliatory measures on Seoul's hard-line policy toward Pyongyang. The last group of about 50 staffers, including 23 Chinese, are scheduled to leave the two North Korean areas in the afternoon, according to Kim Ho-nyoun, spokesman for Seoul's Unification Ministry dealing with North Korea.

• Activists from groups who regularly send balloons carrying flyers to North Korea clashed on 02 Dec with tens of opponents from liberal groups protesting against the campaign as they attempted to launch a new batch of balloons at a port near the western sea border between the two Koreas. One activist was hospitalized after being hit on the head with a wrench wielded by a protester. The clash underscored South Korea's deepening ideological divide over sensitive political and social issues. Conservatives claim leafleting is an effective means of helping North Koreans see the truth in a country where the use of radio and television as well as the internet is limited. Liberals, to the contrary, believe it would only enrage North Korea and result in deteriorated ties.

• Conservative South Korean activists resumed sending propaganda leaflets into the North on 03 Dec and, in contrast to the previous day, there were no clashes with leftwing organizations trying to prevent them. Ten members of Family Assembly Abducted to North Korea and Fighters for Free North Korea floated 10 large balloons carrying 100,000 propaganda leaflets from the Bridge of Freedom at Imjingak Park in Paju, Gyeonggi Province. Attached to the leaflets were 1,000 US$1 bills.

• Radio Free Asia said on 03 Dec that North Korea has mobilized its troops to collect anti-communist leaflets distributed by South Korean civic groups off its western coast. The report said Pyongyang’s intelligence agents are monitoring residents in the area and punishing those who read or keep the leaflets.

• South Korean troops are on guard against any military provocation by North Korea after the communist state ordered a border clampdown amid worsening ties, the defense ministry said on 03 Dec. The North on 01 Dec imposed strict border controls and ordered the expulsion of hundreds of South Koreans working at the Kaesong joint industrial estate, in protest at what it calls the Seoul government's confrontational policy. It also halted a cross-border cargo rail service and a popular day tour. "In response to the North's 01 Dec measure, surveillance and control operations are being stepped up against (any) naval attacks and attempts to kidnap fishing boats," the ministry said.

• South Korea’s Democratic Party Chairman Chung Sye-kyun, Democratic Labor Party Chairman Kang Ki-kap, and Renewal of Korea Party Chairman Moon Kook-hyun held an “urgent meeting” on 30 Nov in the National Assembly member office building to discuss ways to deal with what they defined as a crisis in relations with North Korea. During the meeting the leaders of the three opposition parties decided to adopt a four-point joint resolution. “The leaders of North and South Korea agreed to the June 15 Joint Statement and the October 4 Summit Declaration and the United Nations supported them unanimously. The (South Korean government) must clearly state that it intends to carry out the agreements. It must scrap its unrealistic Vision 3000 plan and change its North Korea policy to be one of reconciliation and cooperation,” the statement said.

• ROK Minister of National Defense Lee Sang-hee said on 03 Dec that if an emergency situation or political instability takes place in North Korea, South Korea must use all means necessary to prevent any potential negative influence from China.

• South Korea on 03 Dec accused North Korea of breaching every existing military agreement between the two Koreas, blaming the communist nation for what is now a nearly defunct relationship between the two. The accusation comes two days after the communist North virtually shut down the passage through the inter-Korean border, reducing the number of South Koreans allowed to cross it from nearly 10,000 a day to only 1,500. "North Korea has breached or failed to honor most of agreements reached between the South and the North in military affairs," the defense ministry told the special committee of the National Assembly on inter-Korean relations.

• South Korea has delayed a costly plan to send naval ships to pirates-infested Somali waters, officials said on 28 Nov as the country continues to reel from the global financial crisis. The South Korean government had initially planned to seek parliamentary approval before the year's end for the motion, which calls for the dispatch of a stealth destroyer and Navy forces to patrol the dangerous coastal waters off the African country. Several South Korean commercial ships have fallen victim to piracy in Somali waters in recent years.

• The UN Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution allowing member states to continue fighting pirates off the coast of Somalia for another year. The resolution also offers support for a European Union anti-piracy mission that launches next week. From United Nations headquarters in New York, VOA's Margaret Besheer has more. The U.S.-drafted resolution authorized states to continue taking all necessary means to combat piracy - including the use of force.

• The U.S. Congress recommended on 02 Dec that the incoming Barack Obama administration give priority to stopping the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran, fearing their armament will jeopardize the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. "As a top priority, the next administration must stop the Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons programs," a congressional research report said. "In the case of North Korea, this requires the complete abandonment and dismantlement of all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs."