Korean Peninsula Today, 08 - 10 August 2009

Today’s highlights:
1) The US President Obama’s stated that there will be no talks with North Korea unless it gives up its nuclear program
2) The National Security Adviser Jim Jones stated Kim Jong-il appears to be in “full control” of his country, citing first-hand observations gleaned from former President Clinton
3) Anonymous sources well informed about North Korea told the South Korean Yonhap News Agency that North Korea is praising Kim Jong-il's youngest son, Jong-un, for the former US President Clinton’s visit to Pyongyang last week to fetch two American journalists, apparently to build up the achievements of the heir-apparent
4) The Indian Coast Guard authorities detained a North Korean ship after it dropped anchor in Indian waters without permission
and 5) a report that the two US television reporters that were detained by North Korea may have blundered into a trap and their arrests led to a crack-down on refugees.

llllllllllllllllllll

Obama Tells NK `No Nuke Dismantlement, No Dialogue`(Dong-A Ilbo)

U.S. President Barack Obama yesterday ruled out talks with North Korea if Pyongyang does not give up its nuclear program despite North Korea’s release of two American journalists.

“We were very clear that this was a humanitarian mission,” he told NBC in an interview. “We have said to the North Koreans there is a path for improved relations, and it involves them no longer developing nuclear weapons and not engaging in the provocative behavior that they’ve been engaging in.”

The Obama administration has apparently put particular emphasis on this principle to prevent sending the wrong message to North Korea or disrupting international efforts for sanctions against the communist country.

On if former President Bill Clinton’s visit to North Korea might lead to a breakthrough in engagement with North Korea, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also told NBC, “It’s not something we’re counting on.”

She said she hopes Pyongyang will “make the right choice.”

The White House and the State Department also gave news briefings in the same tone, saying there is no change in the dire situation.

One informed source said, “Sending a special envoy for the journalists’ release had been discussed since before the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Regional Forum in mid-July. The Obama administration’s position has been consistent since that time.”

Experts, however, say strained Pyongyang-Washington relations could soon see a thaw. Signs have appeared that the North Korean leadership has sought bilateral dialogue for several weeks. Washington also believes that Pyongyang’s typical cycle is to commit provocation after provocation, followed by dialogue and then by further provocations.

What Bill Clinton will bring to Obama is fueling speculation. Administration officials told the Wall Street Journal that Bill Clinton and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il discussed many issues, including incentives to get Pyongyang to resolve the fates of South Koreans and Japanese being held in North Korea.

The possibility that Kim suggested a summit with Obama also cannot be ruled out.

Obama also told a news conference that Bill Clinton would have made interesting observations while in Pyongyang.

Administration sources told the Wall Street Journal that while Obama will reject giving compensation to North Korea for belatedly keeping its promises, he can allow high-level direct contact to deal with the nuclear issue.

llllllllll

Coming to Terms With Containing North Korea (New York Times – by David E. Sanger)

Bill Clinton’s rescue mission to Pyongyang last week may have done more than win the freedom of two young American journalists. To many in Washington, it seemed to reconfirm hints of just how shrunken North Korea’s ambitions (not to mention its leader) have become after years of confrontation with the world.

Desperate for some affirmation of his legacy, this interpretation goes, the ailing Kim Jong Il used the drama to draw a former American president onto his own turf. To North Korea’s hungry populace, it doubtless looked as if the Americans had finally come to pay homage.

But the truth is that North Korea no longer instills fear the way it did even during the Clinton presidency, when it once threatened to turn Seoul into a “sea of fire” if it did not get its way. For all the nuclear and missile tests the North has recently staged, such a threat today rings hollow. The North still has well-hidden artillery that could do great harm, but South Korean officials say they know that North Korea’s air force does not have enough fuel to send fighters aloft to practice for long, much less to initiate a war. And South Koreans are so unafraid of a 1950s-style invasion that they have built housing developments to the edge of the demilitarized zone dividing the Koreas.

All of which seems to lend weight to the Obama administration’s instinct that this is a moment, in the words of a senior adviser to President Obama, to “break the cycle” set under Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush: the North’s serial nuclear provocations lead to a payoff and an agreement that then falls apart, leading to another crisis and another payoff.

So Mr. Obama’s aides say they are accelerating a gradual refocusing of policy away from the receding prospects of all-out war, and onto classic “containment” of the North’s one last big asset: its ability to teach other nations how to put together the building blocks of the bomb.

What seems to be new is the single-minded focus on choking off Pyongyang’s efforts to sell its know-how, rather than pressing for “regime change” as Mr. Bush did in his first term, or trying too hard to lure North Korea with the prospect of full integration with the West, which Mr. Clinton dangled years ago.

“We just want to make sure the government of North Korea is operating within the basic rules of the international community,” Mr. Obama told MSNBC last week.

No one in Washington will admit — at least on the record — that “containment” has become the primary objective; indeed, the government’s official goal is still “complete, verifiable nuclear disarmament,” wording drawn from the Bush era. But few of Mr. Obama’s aides, some of whom have wrestled with North Korea for two decades, believe that the North will ever give up everything in its nuclear panoply — or that the outside world could ever be sure that it had.

The more immediate, and practical, goal, then, is to neutralize Mr. Kim’s ability to reap cash and power from exporting its know-how for building a crude nuclear device.

Mr. Obama won a little-publicized victory in that effort a few weeks ago when the White House used newly granted authority from the United Nations to put a destroyer on the tail of the Kang Nam I, a rusting cargo ship believed to be taking weapons to Myanmar, formerly Burma. No one is sure what the cargo was, and the Navy avoided a direct confrontation. But the Kang Nam finally turned around and went home, its cargo undelivered.

Still, there are reasons to wonder whether containment of North Korea can work. The core idea is that wariness and time are the best instruments with which to let a corrupt, inept government rot from within, as when the Soviet Union collapsed. “I wish they’d conduct a nuclear test every week,” a member of Mr. Obama’s team joked recently, referring to estimates that North Korea has only enough fuel for 8 to 12 weapons.

The problem is that every American president since Harry Truman has underestimated how much rot the North Korean regime could withstand. Each thought the North could fall on his watch. After all, it has been the most sanctioned nation on earth since the early 1950’s, and it has recently cut the few deep economic ties that it made in the past decade with the South.

Some former officials, who have dealt with the North as it veered between wary interaction with its foes and overstated threats, interpreted North Korea’s demand for Mr. Clinton’s appearance in exchange for the journalists’ release as a sign that Mr. Kim might be eager to change course one more time. “They are clearly sending signals that they are ready to engage,” said Wendy Sherman, who guided Korea strategy for Mr. Clinton from the State Department.

Mr. Obama has said that when North Korea is ready to return to six-nation talks, so is he. But several top officials acknowledge being surprised by North Korea’s move early this year to throw out the agreements reached at the end of the Bush era, restart its nuclear plant and test another nuclear weapon. And that has led them to toughen some of the pressure on Pyongyang.

There is new attention, for example, on shutting down North Korean bank accounts and suppliers. There are new sanctions against several firms that have been financing North Korea’s missile trade, including an Iranian company. Under the United Nations resolution, member nations are being pressed to deny North Korean ships fuel and food unless their cargoes are inspected.

Still, intelligence about North Korean activities is notoriously poor, and there are unconfirmed reports that the North is helping the Burmese build a reactor in their country.

But perhaps the greatest risk in a containment strategy is one of inconsistency. Two Bushes, two Clintons and President Obama himself have vowed that the world will never tolerate a nuclear North Korea. If America does end up tolerating it, the Iranians will take notice. Which is why Israeli officials bring up North Korea whenever American officials talk to them about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. You Americans can try containment with North Korea, they say; it’s your problem. But don’t try to extend the concept to Iran.

llllllllll

Kim Jong Il in 'Full Control' of North Korea, National Security Chief Says (Fox News)

North Korea's Kim Jong Il appears to be in "full control" of his country, National Security Adviser Jim Jones said Sunday, citing first-hand observations gleaned from former President Bill Clinton's rare mission to the communist nation.

Jones said the administration is still debriefing the party that accompanied Clinton to North Korea to bring home two jailed American journalists. But despite reports that Kim is ailing and indications that he is setting up his own succession, Jones told "FOX News Sunday" that he has not lost his grip on power.

"Preliminary reports appear that Kim Jong Il is in full control of his organization, his government," Jones said. "He certainly appears to still be the one who is in charge."

Kim, who may have had a stroke last year, appeared thinner in photos of the visit last week. The photos showed him standing or sitting next to Clinton at several stages of the visit.

Jones said Clinton and Kim talked for three and a half hours, and described the conversations as "respectful and cordial in tone."

He insisted that North Korea got nothing more out of the visit than the photo op, saying with "absolutely a straight face" that the United States granted no secret concessions in exchange for the journalists.

"There was no official message sent via the former president and there were no promises, other than to make sure that the two young girls were reunited with their families," he said.

Jones said the North Koreans have indicated they would like a "better relation" with the United States.

llllllllll

N. Korea credits heir-apparent for Clinton's trip to Pyongyang (Yonhap)

SEOUL – North Korea is praising North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's youngest son for having former U.S. President Bill Clinton's come to Pyongyang last week to fetch two American journalists, sources well informed about the North said Sunday, apparently to build up the achievements of the heir-apparent.

Clinton traveled to the communist state last week to bring back two female journalists detained for some 140 days after being apprehended near the North Korea-China border. They were charged with illegal entry and unspecified "hostile acts" and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor.

After hours of talks with Clinton, Kim Jong Il granted them pardon. The journalists returned to the U.S. with the former president on Wednesday.

The North's National Security Agency, a spy agency and powerful organ of the North Korean leadership, claimed in a recent lecture that Clinton had to come and apologize before the North Korean leader because of the "outstanding tactics" of Kim Jong-un, the sources said.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, they noted a similar kind of "resume building" took place when Kim Jong Il was picked as the successor to his father, North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung.

Kim Jong Il, 26 years old at the time with very little known about his personal achievements, was given credit for the 1968 seizure of a U.S. military ship, Pueblo.

Jong-un, now 26, is said to have been named the successor to his 67-year-old father who reportedly suffered a stroke last year.

The sources said the North Korean spy agency has also begun referring to Jong-un as a "general."

llllllllll

North Korea ship crew uncooperative: India investigators (Reuters)

PORT BLAIR – The crew of a North Korean ship carrying a cargo of sugar that was detained off the Andaman and Nicobar islands, was not cooperating with Indian investigators, an official said on Sunday.

The MV Musan dropped anchor off Hut Bay island on Wednesday without permission. When a coastguard vessel approached, the ship tried to escape, and was detained after a more than six-hour chase.

"We are not getting any cooperation from their side," said an official of the Joint Investigating Team, who asked not to be identified as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

U.N. member states are authorised to inspect North Korean sea, air and land cargo, and seize and destroy any goods transported in violation of a Security Council resolution in June following the North's nuclear tests.

Indian investigators were awaiting permission from the foreign ministry to berth the ship at a port so that the 39 crew members could be brought ashore for interrogation and the ship completely inspected, the Indian official said.

Investigators were also awaiting the arrival of a Korean interpreter on Sunday, said Superintendent of Police Ashok Chand.

"They are a little hesitant to share information," he said.

"No arrests have been made till now, that would be decided later," he said. It wasn't clear yet where the ship was headed.

Officials from the Indian army, navy and the Intelligence are conducting the investigation.

North Korean sales of missiles and other weapons materials to tense or unstable parts of the world have long been a major concern of the United States and its allies.

The isolated Communist country, which has walked out of six-party talks aimed at reining in its nuclear weapons programme, fired a barrage of short-range missiles in launch tests in May and exploded a nuclear device on May 25, resulting in tougher U.N. sanctions that it has ignored.

llllllllll

N Korean ship's China trips under lens (Times of India )

08/09/2009

CHENNAI -- North Korean ship MV Mu San, now detained at Port Blair for unauthorized anchoring off the Andaman and Nicobar Islands on Wednesday, had made several voyages between North Korea and China without maintaining proper records, investigators have found.

Also under investigation is the reason why the ship berthed in Singapore on June 30, though it was not a port of call in the log book. Mu San, which left Laem Chabang port in Thailand on July 27, reached Singapore on July 30 and left for Hut Bay on July 31. But the passports of the crew were not stamped in Singapore.

Meanwhile, the interrogation of the ship's captain, Yon Jung Sun, and 38 crew members is proving to be a daunting task as there is only one member who speaks a little English.

Arrangements are being made to bring in an interpreter. A special team of officials from the Research & Analysis Wing and Army intelligence, which will visit Port Blair in a couple of days to interrogate the crew.

North Korea, now facing sanctions for building nuclear arms, has been a beneficiary of Chinese materials and research.

Given the history of North Korean vessels ferrying fissile material, RAW will take an active part in the investigation. While chief of naval staff Sureesh Mehta on Saturday said the vessel was carrying genuine merchandise, investigators in Port Blair said a complete search of the vessel was yet to be taken up.

Coast Guard, Navy and Intelligence Bureau officials found several inconsistencies in their statements.

"Initially, they said the vessel had developed a mechanical snag. This turned out to be false. Later, they said their destination (Iraq) was changed midway and they were asked to drop anchor somewhere till the new destination was decided. But they had no convincing answers to why they took a diversion towards Hut Bay. Asked why they tried to escape on seeing the Indian Coast Guard vessel, they said they mistook the ship for a pirate vessel. We cannot buy these versions," said K R Nautiyal, DIG, Coast Guard, Andaman and Nicobar region.

llllllllll

Myanmar's ties to N. Korea escape scrutiny (Washington Times – by Simon Roughneen)

BANGKOK – Governments and international bodies have been slow to act over the possibility that two of the world's most repressive regimes - North Korea and Myanmar - are collaborating on nuclear technology.

A report earlier this month by an Australian newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, said that Myanmar, also known as Burma, is building a secret nuclear reactor and plutonium facility in caves tunneled into a mountain at Naung Laing in the northern part of the country.

The facilities are close to a civilian reactor under construction by Russia that is inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the newspaper said. It cited two Burmese defectors as the source of the information about the secret program.

While the reports have not yet been verified, a Burmese internal military report leaked to Irrawaddy newsmagazine, a Burmese exile publication, said North Korea has been helping the Myanmar junta build a network of tunnels to serve as air-raid shelters in the event of civil unrest or foreign invasion.

Burmese military officials have visited North Korea since the two countries re-established diplomatic relations in 2007. In June, the U.S. Navy trailed the North Korean freighter Kang Nam I, which appeared to be en route to Myanmar. It turned back before reaching its destination, generating speculation that its cargo included sensitive military technology.

"It's frightening to contemplate nuclear cooperation between two military dictatorships, especially when the intentions and capabilities of the recipient ... in this case are so murky," said Sharon Squassoni, senior associate in the nonproliferation program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

Asked about Myanmar, the IAEA - the U.N. nuclear watchdog - stated that "Myanmar is a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and thus has concluded a safeguards agreement with the IAEA with a small-quantities protocol, which is designed for states that have little or no nuclear material and no nuclear material in facilities. Based on this agreement, it would be expected to inform the IAEA no later than six months prior to operating a nuclear facility."

Ms. Squassoni said that if Myanmar "truly has peaceful nuclear intentions, it should invite observers in for a full tour, join the Proliferation Security Initiative and sign an Additional Protocol with the IAEA, which would enhance inspections."

The security initiative groups about 100 nations that have agreed to stop and search ships and planes suspected of carrying nuclear materials or missile parts. The Additional Protocol allows the IAEA to conduct short-notice inspections of nuclear facilities.

Myanmar is unlikely to take such steps, however, which means that the issue may be headed to the U.N. Security Council.

Given that China wields a veto on the council - and that China is a major investor in Myanmar - the chances for U.N. action appear slim.

U.S. officials have been circumspect.

At a recent Asian security meeting in Thailand, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, "We worry about the transfer of nuclear technology from North Korea to Myanmar."

However, U.S. authorities have not confirmed or denied the reports in the Australian press, which speculated that the junta was trading yellowcake, a type of uranium used in the enrichment process, for North Korean military hardware and technical expertise.

State Department spokesman Robert Wood on Thursday repeated the concerns raised by Mrs. Clinton, but declined to say whether Washington was seriously looking into the Australian report.

Avner Cohen, a nonproliferation specialist and senior research scholar at the University of Maryland, said it makes sense for North Korea to be aiding efforts by other countries, including Myanmar, to develop a nuclear program, because that helps to maintain and improve Pyongyang's own expertise.

"Beyond the financial reasons, what happens to your manpower if you dismantle your own nuclear program?" he said in reference to a process the North Koreans began a couple of years ago as part of an agreement reached in six-nation talks. "You can keep your expertise alive and your people employed in projects abroad. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case with Burma."

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, agreed that it "would not be at all surprising if North Korea was in fact involved in a secret nuclear effort," but he said it makes little sense for the Burmese to be developing such a program.

"No one is threatening Burma's security for them to need a deterrent," Mr. Kimball said. "In fact, they would be inviting a threat if they were trying to acquire a nuclear-weapons capability."

Burmese exiles and political dissidents have been remarking on the junta's nuclear ambitions for some time. The Irrawaddy newsmagazine has reported that the civilian government that preceded the junta designated a site for a nuclear-research reactor in the capital, Yangon, but these plans were discarded after the 1962 military coup. Since 2000, Russia has been collaborating with Myanmar on a low-grade, civilian-use reactor, under IAEA auspices.

North Korea, meanwhile, has a track record of illicit nuclear proliferation. In 2007, Israel destroyed what appeared to be the beginnings of a North Korean-built reactor in Syria.

"We do know that North Korea is willing to sell nuclear technology under the table to countries like Syria that skirt the rules on making full declarations to the IAEA," Ms. Squassoni said. "This alone warrants a lot more attention to what the junta might be purchasing or negotiating for, and what they are saying about any future nuclear capabilities."

Andrew Selth, an Australian specialist and author of "Burma and Nuclear Proliferation: Policies and Perceptions," wrote recently on the Lowy Institute for International Policy blog that "there are many unanswered questions about Burma's nuclear aspirations and its ties with North Korea."

"The most pressing question for many analysts, however, is why no government or international organization has made any official statement on this issue," he wrote.

Tim Huxley, executive director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies-Asia, speculated that the U.S. was loath to publicize the dispute until the release of two American reporters jailed in North Korea. The two were freed after former President Bill Clinton visited Pyongyang last week.

Myanmar's neighbors also have been slow to react to the reports of illicit nuclear activity. Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah told The Washington Times that "the case against Myanmar must be proven, and the IAEA can assess this."

Burmese dissidents are impatient.

Aung Din, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma, said: "The world should not wait until they see the solid proof of the relations between North Korea and the Burmese regime and their nuclear conspiracy."

llllllllll

Pyongyang lured US reporters into trap (Times Online – by Michael Sheridan)

Christian activists who work on the North Korean border believe two American television reporters may have blundered into a trap when they were detained in March and say their arrests led to a crack-down on refugees.

The pair, Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36, were freed last week after Bill Clinton, the former president, flew to Pyongyang to secure a pardon from Kim Jong-il, the North Korean dictator.

There is still confusion about the exact events on March 17, when soldiers stopped the two women on the frozen Tumen River, which divides North Korea and China.

The reporters, who were sentenced to 12 years’ hard labor, were on assignment for Current TV, a venture set up by Al Gore, Clinton’s former vice-president, which aims to specialize in “cutting edge” news.

Mitchell Koss, 56, a television producer, and Kim Seong-chol, a Chinese-Korean guide, both escaped and were reportedly detained by Chinese police.

“There is a strong suspicion that he [the guide] was heavily involved and it was a trap,” said an experienced activist who has led dozens of refugees to safety. There has been no word of Kim.

Such suspicions are bolstered by a first-hand account given to The Sunday Times by an American missionary who was warned by Chinese police a month earlier that the North Koreans were trying to capture a foreign journalist.

In February a detachment of plainclothes Chinese officers detained the missionary as he took photographs not far from a tourist spot at a bridge across the river at the city of Tumen.

He was held for interrogation for several hours and later released without charge. During his questioning the officers warned him that the North Koreans were known to be hunting for a “foreign prize” along the twisting, narrow course of the river, where the border is erratic as it meanders along sandbanks and shallows. “They were after a journalist,” said the missionary.

Neither the name of the missionary nor that of the activist can be disclosed for their own safety, but both are known to government officials and church organizations in South Korea and in the West.

There appears to be little doubt that the arrest of Ling, a Chinese-American, and the Seoul-born Lee, who moved to the US in 1995, has had severe consequences for North Korean refugees in hiding in China.

“The Chinese police have started pursuing missionaries and NGO [nongovernmental organization] activists helping refugees in China,” reported Lee Song-jin, a writer for the exile website Daily NK, in May.

“Korean-Chinese helpers . . . are going underground. As the network between helpers and refugees has started shaking, the number of refugees isolated from security has increased.”

The activists say there is grave concern about the North Korean claim to have obtained six videotapes and a camera from the women, who had been interviewing refugees in China before their arrest.

North Korean and Chinese security agents are known to have cooperated in a search for refugees and their helpers in the cities of Tumen and Yanji. This led to dozens being sent back across the Tumen.

The North Korean penal code prescribes harsh penalties for citizens found guilty of collaborating with foreigners.

There is also bemusement among other activists who helped the television reporters as to why they risked crossing the border. Chun Ki-won, a South Korean Christian clergyman, said he had warned them not to go.

Ling told a friend the crew’s original plan was to find a “bride market” in China where North Korean women were sold to Chinese men as wives. On finding that no such market exists, the crew may have looked for another way to cover the human trafficking story.

The North Koreans claimed that a videotape from the reporters’ camera showed that they were recording a commentary as they went across the frozen river and entered a farmhouse courtyard. Neither Current TV nor its team has commented.

Last Thursday Lisa Ling told CNN that her sister Laura had crossed into North Korea for a short time and that she would write an article explaining the events. “It’s a very powerful story and she does want to share it,” she said.

llllllllll

Activists Voice Concern Following N. Korea's Release of US Journalists (Voice of America – by Jason Strother )

American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee are safely back home after more than four months imprisonment in North Korea. But human rights activists in South Korea are worried about what they may have left behind.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee were apprehended by North Korean border guards along the Chinese border in March. They were reporting on the trafficking of North Korean women who leave their impoverished homeland behind.

Human rights activists who operate in that region are concerned that when the two American journalists were picked up, they had with them the names, contact information and video footage of defectors and aid workers they met along the way.

Tim Pieters is a missionary in Seoul who oversees aid work in northeast China. He says that some journalists put North Korean refugees at risk by interviewing them.

"To tell their story, means that they're documenting that they have knowingly and at great risk to themselves left North Korea," Pieters said. "They are putting on the record that they are against the North Korean regime and let's not forget the fact to leave North Korea without any permission, without a visa, is tantamount to a capital crime."

Most refugees change their names after leaving North Korea and many refuse to have their picture taken. That is to protect family members, who could be punished by the Pyongyang government if it discovers their relative has defected.

China forcibly repatriates North Korea it finds on its territory. According to the testimony of other refugees, they are sent to labor camps as punishment.

Pieters says for now, its unclear if any of the information that Lee and Ling may have had in their possession has been put to use by the North Korean authorities.

Pieters says in the past, both the Chinese and North Korean governments have sought out and arrested aid workers who help defectors travel along the so-called underground railroad to Southeast Asia.

And the detention of Ling and Lee has forced human rights groups to change the way they operate.

"It has raised so many flags in that region, without getting into specifics, it just simply means that security measures have to be redoubled," Pieters said. "This has become such a sensitive issue, that it complicates matters immensely for protecting the refugees. It's even more necessary to take things more underground and more precautions have to be taken."

Lee, Ling and Current TV, the network they report for, have not said whether the North Korean government confiscated any of their notes or video.