In and Around North Korea: 14 - 20 March 2009

• North Korea asked Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei to provide light water reactors to the country as a condition for accepting a comprehensive verification procedure over its nuclear activities, sources close to the six-party denuclearization talks said Thursday (19 Mar). The request was made when Wu, the chairman of the six-way talks, visited the country in February to seek a breakthrough in the multilateral negotiations, which have remained stalled since December, when they ended without progress due to sharp differences over how to verify Pyongyang's nuclear activities.

• North Korea will reject the six-party denuclearization talks [6PT] should the Barack Obama administration sanction it over its rocket launch, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper hinted Thursday (19 Mar). However, North Korea is ready to respond if the U.S. proposes dialogue, said the Choson Sinbo, a Tokyo-based paper that conveys North Korea's position. "It is too early to predict which action the Obama administration that has said its North Korea policy is 'under review' will take," the paper said. "One thing that is certain is that should it choose to go with sanctions and pressure, its dialogue process with North Korea that has been held through the diplomatic frame of six-party talks will face the risk of suspension."

• Chinese President Hu Jintao urged North Korea's visiting premier Thursday (19 Mar) to cooperate with efforts to resume stalled international talks on dismantling the North's nuclear programs, state media said. Hu told Kim Yong Il that China is willing to work with other parties to restart the six-nation talks and overcome difficulties, the official Xinhua News Agency said. "We hope that relevant parties can consider the whole situation, appropriately resolve their differences and promote the progress of the six-party talks," Xinhua quoted Hu as saying.

• North Korea has removed more than 75 percent of the used fuel rods at its atomic facilities, a U.S. report showed Sunday (15 Mar), a sign that progress has been made towards denuclearization despite hang-ups in multilateral talks. According to the report by the Congressional Research Service, the North has removed 6,100 out of 8,000 used fuel rods as of the end of February with efforts underway to fully disable nuclear facilities at its Yongbyon complex. The report comes as the six-party talks on the North's atomic programs have been stalled since December, when North Korea refused to agree to a verification protocol for its nuclear facilities.

• North Korea has slowed disablement work at its key nuclear reactor from what had already been a snail-like pace, complaining it has not been given energy aid promised in compensation, diplomatic sources said Tuesday (17 Mar).

• The slowdown comes at a time when the delivery of about 75 percent of assistance promised in a six-party deal has been completed, but the other 25 percent remains up in air. According to the sources, North Korea recently dropped the pace of disablement work by reducing the number of nuclear fuel rods it removes from the reactor from 15 a day to 15 a week.

• According to North Korean military sources, the aggressive Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises aimed at ground, maritime, and air surprise strikes against our Republic are being conducted recently at a peak stage. Vast armed forces of such proportions as to be seen only on the eve of war entered the stage of attack operations across the entire region of South Korea under orders from the South Korea-US Combined Forces Command and the puppet Joint Chiefs of Staff already put into mobile deployments.

• North Korean Premier Kim Yong-il began on Tuesday (17 Mar) his five-day trip to China, where he will attend an opening ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of bilateral relations and meet with Chinese leaders. Kim, accompanied by industry-related Cabinet ministers, arrived in Beijing amid tensions surrounding his country's planned rocket launch. After the ceremony for the opening of the "year of Sino-DPRK friendship," the premier is scheduled to hold talks with his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao, on Wednesday (18 Mar) and meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao the following day.

• Russia plans to step up political and economic cooperation with North Korea, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in a congratulatory message to his North Korean counterpart Kim Yong-Il upon the 60th anniversary of the bilateral agreement on economic and cultural cooperation. "This is the first interstate document in our bilateral relations that set the legal groundwork for boosting mutually advantageous and equal cooperation not only on economy and culture, but also in other areas," he said.

• An online media reported rumors that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was helped to ascend stairs during recent onsite inspections in Hoiryeong, North Hamkyung Province, on Feb. 24, raising speculations about his health conditions. Citing a source from the province, Daily N.K. said some people who accompanied Kim at the time of the tour are under investigation by the authorities for spreading rumors of Kim’s health difficulties to their acquaintances.

• It has been reported that Kim Jong Il, chairman of the North Korean National Defense Commission [NDC], will begin successor's lessons for his third son, Chong-un, 26, with the first session of the 12th Supreme People's Assembly [SPA] -- which is to be held at the beginning of next month -- as a starting point. North Korean sources in Beijing said so on the 9th [of March], while also saying that Chairman Kim will carry out a large-scale reshuffle of the party and the army in general, within this month as the election of deputies to the SPA has been successfully completed. This source, who demanded anonymity, said that "Chong-un will begin to take successor's lessons in earnest, from next month on," while also saying that "through the reshuffle, Chairman Kim will confer a major position on Chong-un, whom he unofficially designated as successor." He also said that "Chairman Kim will officially designate his third son Chong-un as the successor who will inherit the revolutionary tradition of North Korea, this coming 2012, which is both his 70th birthday and the 100th birthday of Kim Il Sung, and in which [North Korea] will open the gate of a powerful state."

• North Korea has ordered international food aid workers to leave the country this month over a dispute with the US that comes amid rising tensions as Pyongyang prepares to launch a long-range missile. Pyongyang has told Washington that United Nations World Food Programme [WFP] staff will be barred from distributing food aid after March. The Stalinist regime has also told US non-governmental organisations to leave this month, and rescinded permission for other humanitarian groups to visit, the Financial Times has learned.

• North Korea has refused to accept humanitarian food aid from the U.S., the State Department said Tuesday (17 Mar), amid escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula over North Korea's planned rocket launch and ongoing joint military drills between South Korea and the U.S. "North Korea has informed the United States that it does not wish to receive additional U.S. food assistance at this time," spokesman Robert Wood said. "We will work with U.S. NGOs and the North Korean counterparts to ensure that food that's already been delivered -- or food that's already in North Korea -- is distributed to the intended recipients." North Korea's harvest this year will fall short of the demand by its 24 million people by about 1.17 million tons, according to the Seoul government. Even if the North's own imports and Chinese aid are considered, the net shortage will likely surpass 500,000 tons, it said. The U.S. spokesman said he had no idea what caused the North Koreans to reject further food assistance, hinting that the North's reluctance to issue visas for Korean-speaking monitors at the World Food Program might have played a role.

• North Korea, facing chronic food deficiencies, is again looking at fertilizer shortages as the spring farming season approaches. North Korean authorities and farmers are particularly troubled by the fact that, just as last year, the likelihood of receiving chemical fertilizer aid from the South is practically non-existent. “If South Korean fertilizer aid to the North is not forthcoming this year, it will have a severe impact on the North’s grain production. This is already reflected in grain prices within North Korean markets, and could serve to drive them up even further.”

• A U.N. human rights investigator accused North Korean authorities Monday (16 Mar) of committing widespread torture in prisons that he called "death traps." Life in the reclusive communist-ruled country is "dire and desperate," said Vitit Muntarbhorn, adding that people are denied enough food to survive. Muntarbhorn told the 47-nation Human Rights Council that whole families are routinely sent away for the crimes of one member. Once imprisoned, they suffer greatly. "Many prisons are a death trap for the inmates," he said.

• Following North Korea's announcement that it had informed international agencies of its impending launch of a satellite, officials in South Korea, Japan and the United States on 13 Mar condemned the plan and warned of serious consequences. South Korea's Foreign Ministry said that early yesterday morning it had received official confirmation of the planned launch from the International Civil Aviation Organization [IMO] and the International Maritime Organization [ICAO], the two agencies informed of the North's moves. In the official document provided to the ICAO, the North stated that it would "proceed with the launch of a communications satellite" between April 4 and 8, and between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m., Greenwich Mean Time, or 11 a.m. and 4 p.m., Korean time. On the map issued by the ICAO, North Korea provided two specific dangerous areas, with detailed coordinates on a map. One area is off Japan's northeastern coast, while the other is in the Pacific Ocean.

• Japan and South Korea on Monday warned North Korea of a harsh international response if Pyongyang goes ahead with a rocket launch, including raising the issue at the U.N. Security Council, with Tokyo's top nuclear envoy hinting at further unilateral sanctions by Japan. Akitaka Saiki, director general of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, also said after meeting his South Korean counterpart Wi Sung Lac in Tokyo that the two countries believe a missile launch by Pyongyang would "unavoidably" affect any hope of resuming the stalled six-party talks aimed at denuclearizing North Korea. "Japan and South Korea are in absolute agreement that such a provocative act by North Korea, be it for the firing of a missile or a satellite, would violate U.N. Security Council resolutions," Saiki told reporters. "If the launch goes ahead despite our calls against it, of course the international community will respond harshly."

• The government plans to approve at a Cabinet meeting as early as by the end of March preparatory measures to destroy the ''satellite'' rocket North Korea is preparing to launch, in the event that it would fall onto Japanese territory, government sources said Tuesday (17 Mar). Following the decision, Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada will order the Self-Defense Forces to take measures to prepare for the possible intercept of what is seen as a Taepodong-2 long-range ballistic missile in line with the Self-Defense Forces Law, including the deployment of ground-based Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptors in regions where a part or all of the projectile might fall.

• North Korea, if it goes through with a rocket launch, may open the door for Seoul to consider full-fledged membership in a Washington-led campaign to combat weapons proliferation, Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said. "That is a possibility because the Proliferation Security Initiative is aimed at containing weapons of mass destruction, and if North Korea develops and attains such capabilities, there will be a need to prevent proliferation. So from this point of view, the launch may raise the need to review full membership," Yu said on Friday (20 Mar). Seoul is currently on observer status, and the previous government had put off full membership, citing such circumstances. Recently, however, an increasing number of scholars and officials have voiced the need to fully participate, calling membership one of the few significant leverages left for Seoul in dealing with Pyongyang and its brinkmanship.

• The South Korean government is considering drafting a list of targets for sanctions in North Korea in case the North launches a long-range missile. The projected list is aimed at stepping up pressure on the North under UN Security Council 1718. The list would specify people and organizations in North Korea as targets of major sanctions. When Resolution 1718 was adopted after North Korea conducted a nuclear test in 2006, no list was made out of political consideration. A government official said, "Considering the positions of China and Russia, it's not easy to reach a new resolution at the UN Security Council if the North keeps insisting that the projectile it plans to launch is a satellite. But there is some consensus that the North's launch of such a projectile would itself constitute a violation of Resolution 1718, even if it is a satellite." He said a "realistic alternative" would be to step up sanctions according to the resolution, which have so far been nominal.

• North Korea and the United States are in secret talks over the two American journalists being detained by the communist nation, a diplomatic source here said Thursday (19 Mar), with the negotiations delicate given the countries lack of formal diplomatic relations. "Two reporters working for a U.S.-based Internet news media outlet, including a Korean-American, were detained by North Korean authorities earlier this week, and they remain in custody there," the source said. The journalists, both women, were videotaping a scene near the North's border with China despite repeated warnings by North Korean border guards, according to the source. They were arrested after accidentally crossing into North Korea, the source said, adding it was hard to predict how the North will handle the situation.

• North Korea will likely carry out a surprise attack on South Korea, simultaneously with the communist state's launch of what it calls a communications satellite in early April, South Korea's defense ministry warned Wednesday (18 Mar). The latest warning followed Pyongyang's threat last week to push ahead with planned satellite launch in the sea off the Korean Peninsula between April 4-8. "There is a good possibility North Korea may make a surprise but limited attack on some areas along the inter-Korean border, with global attention mounting on its planned missile launch," the ministry said in a report presented to a special parliamentary committee on inter-Korean relations.

• A [ROK] intelligence official who deals with North Korea issues said on 16 March, "It has been confirmed that Kim Jong Il's thinking was reflected in Kim Kyo'k-sik's appointment as 4th Army Corps commander." More specifically, Chairman Kim personally gave Kim Kyo'k-sik assurances as follows: "This is not a demotion. I am sending you there because the west coast is important." The official said that intelligence authorities also obtained intelligence indicating that even gave him a word of encouragement by saying, "Keep up the good work and come back."

• While the top special operations units are still well cared for, more and more reports come out of the north about many less skilled special operations troops complaining about less, or at least lower quality, food and other benefits (like access to electricity year round, and heat during the winter.) The government uses these troops to insure the loyalty of the other 85 percent of the military, and more and more elite troops are being used to assist the secret police in going after dissidents and corrupt officials. This is probably hurting the North Korean special operations forces more than anything else. The troops are getting a close look at the corruption and contradictions in North Korea. The troops generally lived in closed bases and don't get out much. But now that they do, they see a North Korea that is unpleasant, and not as well as their commanders told them it was.

• North Korea lifted a days-long ban on border crossings Tuesday (17 Mar), normalizing visits by South Korean workers and cargo trucks to a joint industrial complex, but uncertainty lingered over Pyongyang's intentions and border stability. The Unification Ministry said the North's military overseeing cross-border passage hand-delivered a letter to the South Korean management office in Kaesong that it will approve visits both ways. The letter did not explain the reason for the North's reversal. "Traffic is now moving smoothly both ways across the border," ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyoun said. Hundreds of South Korean managers and workers resumed trips to the Kaesong complex, just an hour's drive from Seoul, delivering raw materials to their factories and bringing back end products. The cargo traffic had been banned since Friday, forcing a number of factories to considerably cut down their production.

• South Korea warned Wednesday (18 Mar) that it would respond with decisive action if Pyongyang again blocked access to a joint factory park in North Korea, but said it was too early to consider shutting the project down. In the past week, the North has blocked movement across the heavily defended border to an industrial park run by South Korean companies in the city of Kaesong out of anger over joint military drills by South Korean and U.S. troops. "We are at this point not considering shutting down the Kaesong industrial zone," Unification Minister Hyun In-taek told a forum of journalists. "But if the North repeats the border traffic suspension after the end of the drills, the government will consider it a very grave situation and will take appropriate measures," Hyun said, without elaborating on possible steps.

• A group of North Korean defectors flew leaflets critical of the country's leader Kim Jong Il into the North on Tuesday, defying Seoul's calls for restraint amid heightened political tensions. About 20 defectors flew some 100,000 propaganda leaflets from the Imjingak pavilion just south of the inter-Korean border despite calls from the government to halt the campaign. The leaflets, which describe Kim as "the most vicious dictator and murderer," were sent with North Korean banknotes to encourage people to pick them up. "We want to tell the truth to North Korean citizens," Park Sang-hak, head of the Freedom Fighters for North Korea, a defectors' group in Seoul, said. The leaflets will likely land in North Korea with favorable winds that blew them northward, said Lim Jang-ho, spokesman for the Korea Meteorological Administration.

• North Korea maintains a "shoot on sight" policy for people caught trying to flee the impoverished communist country, a United Nations human rights envoy said in his latest report on conditions in the North, citing unidentified sources. Vitit Muntarbhorn, a U.N. Special Rapporteur on North Korean human rights, was to report the results of his findings later Monday to the 10th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council underway in Geneva. "Some sources report a 'shoot on sight' policy with regard to those who seek to leave the country clandestinely, and violence used against pregnant women forcibly returned to the country," he said in the report made public on the agency's Web site before his presentation. "Over the past year, the situation facing asylum-seekers has become more stringent. More restrictions have been imposed on departures from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and entry into neighboring countries," he said, using the North's official name.

• North Korea poses serious problems to the Asia-Pacific region, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said in a draft report Tuesday (17 Mar). Problems involving North Korea, including its nuclear ambitions and past abductions, need to be resolved through such channels as six-way talks, said the draft of an annual diplomatic bluebook for 2009. The draft acknowledged that progress has been made toward resolving the nuclear issue, citing North Korea's declaration submitted in June last year. But the draft said that Pyongyang is not forthcoming on how to verify its nuclear program.

• It was one of the most bizarre episodes of the Cold War. Men, women and children snatched by communist spies and bundled aboard creaking fishing boats in the most mundane circumstances: on the way home from school, on shopping trips, during a romantic stroll along a windswept beach. Decades later, Japan is still some way off establishing the truth about North Korea’s abductions of at least 17 of its citizens, spirited away between 1977 and 1983 to the world’s most reclusive state. There, they were employed as mentors to communist agents hoping to pass themselves off as Japanese; some were allegedly murdered so their identities could be used by spies taking part in missions on the other side of the Japan Sea. While the rest of the world grapples for an appropriate response to modern-day North Korean security threats – a rumoured ballistic missile test in early April and the development and proliferation of nuclear weapons – Japan simply refuses to let the abduction issue die.

• Japanese officials and media welcomed an emotional 11 March meeting between family members of Japanese abductee Yaeko Taguchi and former North Korean spy Kim Hyon-hui and praised the administration of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak for its cooperation in realizing the meeting. Officials and media called for increased cooperation between Japan and South Korea in solving the abduction issue, but expressed little optimism in achieving an early resolution in the face of a likely hardening of North Korea's position. Meanwhile, some media took the occasion to call for broader cooperation among Japan, South Korea, and the United States in addressing the abduction and other issues.