Korean Peninsula Today, 11 August 2009

Today’s highlights:

1) A senior South Korean government official stated that there have not been concrete breakthroughs in the deadlocked Six-Party Talks

2) A US cyber security expert’s statement that the July cyber attacks against key South Korean government web sites may have started in South Korea by hacktivists rather than by North Korea

3) The CEO of Hyundai Group crossed into North Korea to discuss the release of a detained employee (At 6 AM (KST) today, Yonhap Television News reported there is a very high possibility North Korea may release Yu, the detained Hyundai employee, today)

and 4) The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff official’s statement that South Korea and the US will “soften the level” of their joint computerized military exercise which will be held next week

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No concrete signal for talks with N. Korea yet: Seoul official (Yonhap)

SEOUL – A much-awaited breakthrough in the deadlocked six-way talks on North Korea's nuclear program depends on the communist nation's stance but there have been no clear signals from Pyongyang yet, a senior South Korean government official said Monday.

The official, speaking at a background briefing for reporters, added former U.S. president Bill Clinton's trip to the North last week and the release of two American television reporters heralded "quiet process," unlike recent months which have been marked by the North's repeated provocations and the U.N.'s punishment.

"I think we need to look at North Korea for a change in the situation (not the United States)," he said on the customary condition of anonymity. "The future situation is up to North Korea's stance."

Citing close consultations between Seoul and Washington on the issue, he said the North appeared to be satisfied with the "format" and "procedures" in freeing the reporters but the Obama administration will maintain a stern attitude toward the nuclear-armed North Korea.

"I would not bet on North Korea's future stance as it is so hard to predict its actions," he said, adding there is no tangible sign from Pyongyang yet.

He was countering media speculation that the U.S. may soften its stance on the North after Pyongyang handed over the two American television reporters - Laura Ling and Euna Lee - to Clinton, who made a 20-hour trip to Pyongyang last week. They were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in prison camp after being arrested in March for illegally entering the North and being engaged in unspecified "hostile acts."

Meeting with Clinton, the North's leader Kim Jong Il agreed to grant an amnesty for them and reportedly passed a message for President Barack Obama on improving Pyongyang-Washington ties. Details of the message remain undisclosed.

North Korea watchers cautiously raised hopes of a breakthrough in the denuclearization process.

The U.S., however, made clear that North Korea should change its course first. The North has stayed away from the six-way talks with the U.S., South Korea, China, Russia, and Japan in favor of one-one-one negotiations with Washington.

Top-level U.S. officials said Washington was ready to talk bilaterally with Pyongyang if it decides to resume the six-way talks.

"If they come back to the talks, we will talk to them bilaterally within those talks," White House national security adviser James Jones said earlier in the day.

Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, also said in an interview with CNN, the North should first return to the six-way talks.

"They have made commitments, the North Koreans, that they have not fulfilled. So they need to uphold their international obligations, return to the six-party talks," he said.

"In that context, we have said that we would be prepared to have a direct dialogue, as was the case during the Bush administration. But North Korea can't continue to make commitments and then violate them and expect to start from where they left off."

Under the Bush administration, then top nuclear envoy Christopher Hill sometimes had bilateral meetings with his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye Gwan in Singapore or other countries before attending the six-way talks in Beijing.

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N. Korea should return to 6-way talks for improved ties: White House (Yonhap)

WASHINGTON – The United States will deal with North Korea through six-party talks despite Pyongyang's hope to improve ties with Washington through bilateral negotiations, National Security Adviser [NSA] James Jones said Sunday.

"The North Koreans have indicated they would like a new relationship, a better relationship with the United States," Jones said in an interview with "Fox News Sunday."

Jones was speaking on the basis of the information he got from former U.S. President Bill Clinton who met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il for three and half hours in Pyongyang last week before bringing home two American journalists held there for illegally entering North Korea in March.

"They've always advocated for bilateral engagement," he said. "We have put on the table in the context of the talks we would be happy to do that if, in fact, they would rejoin the talks."

North Korea has said it will boycott the six-party talks for good citing "U.S. hostility" after the U.N. Security Council slapped an arms embargo and financial sactions on North Korea for the North's nuclear and missile tests in recent months.

The North Korean provocations are seen as an attempt by the ailing North Korean leader to help one of his three sons consolidate power in an unprecedented third generation dynastic power transition in the reclusive communist sate.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, however, is still in control, Jones said.

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

Kim Jong Il is said to have begun the process to transfer power to his third and youngest son Jong-un since last summer when he apparently suffered a stroke.

Recent reports said North Korean authorities are promoting the line that the 26-year-old heir organized the visit to Pyongyang by Clinton so the former U.S. President could "apologize" to Kim Jong Il for the journalists' illegal border crossing.

Analysts say the success in the unprecedented third generation dynastic power transfer depends on whether Kim Jong Il can live long enough to help consolidate the heir's power over the powerful North Korean military elite.

Kim Jong Il himself spent two decades as the North's No. 2 man and an heir to his father Kim Il Sung, the founding father of communist North Korea, before Kim Il Sung died in 1994.

Jones, meanwhile, insisted that Clinton brought no message to Kim Jong Il from U.S. President Barack Obama.

"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.

Pyongyang said Clinton had conveyed a "verbal message" from Obama, although U.S. officials have categorized the trip as a "private mission" to win the release of the American journalists.

Jones remarks come amid growing optimism that the landmark trip by Clinton might lead to a breakthrough in the negotiations over North Korea's nuclear and missile programs.

Jones himself expressed optimism last week.

"We certainly hope it could lead to other good things, but we won't know that for a while," Jones told reporters Thursday. "Who knows where the future will lead."

Reports indicate that Kim Jong Il proposed a "grand deal" to Obama through the former U.S. president, whom Kim had reportedly chosen as the only emissary who could help release the journalists.

Clinton will likely meet with Obama in the coming days to brief about his trip.

South Korean and U.S. officials said they have been discussing a "comprehensive package," a possible breakaway from a six-party deal on the North's denuclearization that calls for action for action in the North's nuc lear dismantlement.

Critics have said North Korea has used the six-party deal as a way to buy time over the past six years for its eventual nuclear armament.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently repeated the principles of the six-party deal by promising that "full normalization of relations, a permanent peace regime, and significant energy and economic assistance are all possible in the context of full and verifiable denuclearization."

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Expert says hacking may have started in the South (JoongAng Ilbo)

The July cyber attacks that paralyzed key South Korean government Web sites were politically driven operations that may have started in South Korea rather than in North Korea, according to a U.S. security expert.

In a report obtained by the JoongAng Ilbo, Christopher Jordan, vice president of network intelligence at the computer security firm McAfee, argued that the July 7 cyber attacks are suspected ‘hacktivism’ actions.

The paper, titled Briefing on Korean DDoS Attacks, was presented at the recently-concluded Defcon Hacking Conference in Las Vegas.

Jordan concluded in his report that the recent DDoS, or distributed denial-of-service, attacks, which generated a huge volume of traffic to overwhelm and freeze Web sites, might have been politically motivated. Hacktivism is a blend of the words “hack” and “activism,” and refers to the use of digital means to achieve political and ideological goals.

According to Australian hacker Julian Assange, the earliest form of hacktivism attacks date back to October 1989, when systems at the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration were infiltrated by the anti-nuclear Worms Against Nuclear Killers (WANK) worm.

Jordan pointed to the fact that the first round of attacks took place on July 4, Independence Day in the United States and also the day North Korea launched a salvo of missiles. Jordan argued that the DDoS attacks caused only minor damage to the South Korean government or corporations, and that the July attacks were merely a test for a potentially much bigger onslaught.

Contradicting the South Korean claim that North Korea initiated the offensive, Jordan said the DDoS attacks likely originated in South Korea and that there’s no technical evidence to suggest the North was involved.

He said more than 90 percent of the zombie computers - those that were infected with malicious code without the users’ knowledge and became the source of the cyber offensive - were from South Korea.

Jordan also noted that it was mostly South Korea’s personal computer users and its government institutions that suffered loss of their data. In the aftermath of the cyber sabotage, intelligence authorities said they had evidence that North Korea was responsible. Other security experts at the conference warned against even more serious threats that cyber attacks could present. Kevin Mahaffey, founder and chief technical officer of the U.S. firm Flexilis, said the July offensive in South Korea demonstrated how much cyber terrorism has improved over the years.

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Korean Crew Claim Fails to Match Facts (The Pioneer)

New Delhi – A high-level team comprising officials of the Intelligence Bureau and Coast Guard left for Port Blair from here on Sunday [9 August] to investigate the mystery over the North Korean cargo ship. It had illegally entered the Indian waters in Andamans on Friday [7 August] last.

The investigating team from Delhi will probe all angles regarding the entry of the ship into the Indian waters, officials said here on Sunday, adding the claims made by the crew of MV Musen did not tally with the documents carried by them. Moreover, there were ambiguities in the statement of the crew about their last and next port of call before they were spotted by the Indian agencies, officials said.

The authorities, meanwhile, were conducting a detailed search of the ship in order to ascertain if the ship was carrying any nuclear material as the Indian maritime agencies in the past had seized a North Korean merchant vessel which was found to be ferrying nuclear material and components.

As regards a passenger ship spotting MV Musen and alerting the port authorities in Port Blair despite a strong presence of the Navy and Coast Guard in the region, they said all sea-bound vessels, including fishing boats, were sensitised by the maritime agencies to report about any unusual ship in the Indian waters.

They admitted that a passenger ship had first spotted the North Korean ship last week and the port authorities then alerted the Navy and Coast Guard. However, they ruled out any lapse on the part of the two agencies and said commercial liners and fishing boats were also part of the Indian maritime surveillance effort.

In fact, there was a lot better synergy among all the agencies in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks last year and this episode was a result of that effort, officials maintained.

Initial reports suggested that MV Musen was ferrying a consignment of sugar and Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta said on Saturday the ship was carrying "genuine merchandise".

He, however, said the ship had "no business to be there. That (it was carrying nuclear components) was also our apprehension. At the moment, it is carrying genuine merchandise," Mehta said.

MV Musen had entered the Indian waters about 65 nautical miles south of Port Blair due to a mechanical fault according its crew. However, their version could not be corroborated and the Indian authorities were trying to get hold a North Korean language interpreter as the crew was not fluent in English, officials said.

The ship set sail from Thailand on July 27 carrying 16,000 tonnes of sugar for an Iraqi port, officials said. While the crew claimed the ship was bound for Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh, the documents said the cargo was meant for Iraq and this inconsistency and some other issued forced the Indian authorities to conduct a detailed probe.

The Coast Guard had noticed the ship anchored off Little Andaman on Wednesday [5 August] last week and its joint effort with the Navy to get a response to radio signals had failed. Consequently, the Coast Guard flew one of its aircraft to check out the cargo vessel but the ship did not respond to its radio communication.

The Coast Guard sailed its patrol vessel CGS Kanagalatha Barua and the Navy INS Brinkat to visit the cargo vessel and carry out investigation. On seeing the two ships, the MV Musen tried to flee and the Coast Guard fired a warning shot to force it to comply with their order to sail to Port Blair.

In the last decade, the Indian maritime security authorities have seized at least two North Korean vessels unauthorisedly entering Indian waters off the western coast. In 1999, North Korean vessel MV Ku Wol San was seized and found to be carrying 177 tonnes of nuclear components and manuals though the ship"s manifest claimed it was carrying 13,000 tonnes of sugar and water purification equipment.

That ship was seized off Kandla and it was suspected to be transporting nuclear components to Karachi. However, the North Korean government claimed the material was bound for Malta and meant for Libya.

In 2006, Coasty Guard ships had intercepted North Korean vessel MV Omrani-II close to Maharashtra coast but found it empty, a fact that intrigued investigators but did not receive a convincing reply from the crew.

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US Focus on Pyongyang Risks Overlooking Burma (The Irrawaddy)

While there is no hard evidence to demonstrate that the Burmese regime in Naypyidaw has been seeking to acquire or develop nuclear weapons, the circumstantial evidence is worrying when North Korea's track record is taken into account.

Recently, the secretary-general of the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), Surin Pitsuwan, said that there is still no clear evidence that Burma has such a nuclear facility, but that if it does exist, Burma would be forced to leave the regional bloc because all member states, including Burma, have signed a treaty pledging to maintain Asean as a nuclear-weapon free zone.

However, Burma's alleged proliferation partner, Pyongyang, is providing its neighbors and the US with a much more immediate and pressing nuclear challenge, and one which could lessen the urgency of any international response to the Burma issue.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy recently, Prof Mely Caballero Anthony of the National University of Singapore said, “Between the two, DPRK and the Korean peninsula issues would be more pressing for the US than Burma.”

So far the US has given conflicting signals.

At two US State Department press briefings last week, spokespersons refused to be drawn on the issue, despite claims published in the international media that the Burmese junta was trading uranium extracts for North Korean military hardware and technical expertise.

This reticence came despite US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's warning at an Asean meeting in Phuket in late July about a possible North Korea-Burma nuclear collaboration.

“We worry about the transfer of nuclear technology” from North Korea to Burma, Clinton said.

Her words were part of a highly publicized spat with both the junta in Burma and the Communist regime in Pyongyang, with the latter calling the US foreign secretary “a schoolgirl.”

Her husband, former US President Bill Clinton, received somewhat better treatment when he arrived in Pyongyang last Wednesday, on what was described by the White House as a “private humanitarian mission.”

During the visit, the former president secured the release of two American journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who worked for former Vice President Al Gore at his Current TV media company. The women were arrested by North Korean police after entering the country illegally from China.

Former President Clinton met Kim Jong-il and Kim Kye-gwan, Pyongyang's chief nuclear negotiator, hinting that there was more to the mission than just bringing the two women home safely.

In any case, Kim Jong-il was reportedly delighted to have such a high-profile emissary, perhaps vindicating his hardball strategy over the years.

As Con Coughlin noted in the Daily Telegraph: “The [Bill] Clinton administration handed over millions of dollars in aid, food, oil and even a nuclear reactor in the hope of persuading the North Koreans to ditch their military program. They simply took the aid and carried on with nuclear development regardless, so that by 2006 they were able to detonate a device.”

Nevertheless, Pyongyang still finds itself under pressure to resume the stalled six-nation talks over the future of its nuclear program. It has declared the six-party talks dead, apparently wanting bilateral talks with the US and a priori acceptance of its status as a nuclear power as the next step in any nuclear diplomacy.

This might explain the cautious words used by the US State Department spokespersons last week. During a briefing, spokesman Philip Crowley said: “I think over time, we would like to clarify with Burma more precisely the nature of its military cooperation. The [US] secretary was encouraged that Burma said that it would abide by its responsibilities under the sanctions that were recently passed by the UN, and we will be looking to see them implement those sanctions.”

When pressed on the specifics of the revelations by two Burmese defectors, who claimed to have inside knowledge of the military junta’s nuclear sites, Crowley said, “I’m not commenting on any particular facility.”

This exchange came just before former President Clinton’s mission, which at that stage had not been publicized. No doubt the US administration did not want to jeopardize the trip by making further comments on the allegations against the two rogue states.

Pyongyang has rattled its sabers vigorously since Obama took the office. It conducted a long-range missile test in April, then pulled out of the six-party talks with the US, Russia, South Korea, Japan and China.

Then, on May 25, the Kim Jong-il government undertook an underground nuclear test, prompting Obama to order increased missile defenses to be placed on Hawaii in response.

If the US and Pyongyang resume dialogue or if the US seeks to revive six-party talks down the line, it remains to be seen whether the links between North Korea and Naypyidaw will be up for discussion.

The director of The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center, Walter Lohman, told The Irrawaddy that the Burma issue “should be on the agenda of any resumption of six-party talks,” given that “it was the [US] secretary herself who validated the charges [of North Korea-Burma collaboration] a couple weeks ago in Phuket.”

While there is no “smoking gun” in Burma yet, the facts on the ground require verification. Whether this can be achieved by packaging the Burma issue into any future six-party talks remains to be seen.

Scott Snyder, adjunct senior fellow for Korea Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, outlined to The Irrawaddy that any Burma inspections procedure "should first be addressed through the IAEA, with the board of the IAEA requesting that inspections of suspect sites in Burma be allowed. If a formal request is made and rejected, then the board of the IAEA may elect to refer the issue to the UN Security Council. This is the same path that the issue of NK special inspections took during the first North Korea nuclear crisis in 1992-93. "

A separate UN Security Council process would be difficult, and potentially futile, given that Chinese consent would be required for any resolution requesting the Burmese junta to allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections.

Even then, as Prof Caballero Anthony noted, the Burmese generals would not be obliged to consent.

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Hyundai Group Chief Visiting Pyongyang Over Detained Worker (Yonhap)

SEOUL – The chairwoman of Hyundai Group visited Pyongyang on Monday to seek the release of a detained employee, signaling a possible breakthrough in the case and in stalled inter-Korean relations.

The three-day trip by Hyun Jung-eun comes amid growing speculation that North Korea may extend a friendly gesture toward Seoul in line with its recent pardoning of two American journalists.

"I will make my efforts for that," Hyun said before driving across the inter-Korean land border. The North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) later reported Hyun's arrival in Pyongyang.

The worker with Hyundai Asan Corp., the North Korea business arm of Hyundai Group, was detained on March 30 at a joint industrial park in the North's border town of Kaesong where he had been employed for years.

North Korea accused the Hyundai employee, identified by his surname Yu, of "slandering" the North's political system and trying to persuade a local woman to defect to the South. In contrast to the American journalists who were allowed phone calls to family and consular contact, North Korea has not granted any outside access to Yu during his detention.

Hyundai said it was not yet decided whether Hyun will be granted a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, but it did not rule out the possibility. She met with the North Korean leader in 2005 and 2007 to reach accords on joint tourism ventures.

"We have to see. We were not notified of such a schedule by North Korea in advance," Kim Young-soo, a Hyundai Asan spokesman, said.

Hyun's trip comes days after former U.S. President Bill Clinton flew to Pyongyang and met with Kim Jong Il who then granted a pardon for the Americans. The female journalists were detained in mid-March for illegally entering the country and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in June.

Experts agree Hyun's trip will likely lead to Yu's release and to political progress in frozen inter-Korean relations, in which Hyundai Group is deeply involved through its industrial ventures jointly run with North Korea. Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea studies professor at Dongguk University in Seoul, said Pyongyang has its own pressing need to mend ties with South Korea as a precondition for improving relations with the U.S.

"For North Korea, its relationship with the South is not a central concern. But for its major interest in progress with the U.S., North Korea has to manage inter-Korean relations to some degree," Koh said.

In an apparent message to the U.S. on Monday, North Korea's foreign ministry said it was unfairly punished for its long-range rocket launch. Pyongyang will "closely watch" whether regional powers refer South Korea's upcoming launch of a space rocket to the U.N. Security Council as they did the North's April launch.

In Washington, National Security Adviser James Jones said North Korea wants to start anew with the U.S. "The North Koreans have indicated they would like a new relationship, a better relationship with the United States," Jones told "Fox News Sunday" on the results of Clinton's trip.

Hyun was accompanied by her daughter and Hyundai executive Chung Ji-yi, who also met Kim in 2007. The KCNA said Hyun was invited by the Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, a North Korean body handling inter-Korean relations, and was received by the committee's vice chairman, Ri Jong-hyok.

This week appeared to be an opportune time for a breakthrough as the Koreas have typically used the Aug. 15 Independence Day as an occasion to patch up damaged relations. On this date in 1945, Korea regained its sovereignty after 36 years of Japanese colonial rule, following Japan's defeat in World War II. Liberation, however, quickly led to national separation between the capitalist South and the communist North backed by the U.S. and the Soviet Union, respectively.

Watchers expect President Lee Myung-bak to reciprocate on the anniversary by announcing reconciliatory off ers, such as resuming massive government aid suspended last year.

North Korea is also holding four South Korean fishermen whose boat strayed across the maritime border in the East Sea on July 30.

The South Korean government, which approved Hyun's trip earlier in the day, remained reserved about its involvement. It was not known whether the Hyundai chief was carrying a letter from Lee.

"This visit is being made as business," Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said in a briefing.

Hyundai Asan chief Cho Kun-shik plans to visit the Kaesong park daily until Hyun's return on Wednesday.

Going beyond this week, inter-Korean progress is unlikely as South Korea begins its joint military exercise with the U.S., the Ulchi Freedom Guardian, on Aug. 17. North Korea routinely denounces such drills as war preparation.

Hyundai is the major developer of the Kaesong [Kaeso'ng] park, which was opened in late 2004 marrying South Korean technology and capital with North Korean labor. More than 100 South Korean firms operate there with about 40,000 North Korean workers, producing clothing, kitchenware, electronic equipment and other labor-intensive goods. Yu's detention has chilled business sentiment there.

Hyun took over as the group chief after her husband, Cho'ng Mong-ho'n, committed suicide in 2003 amid an investigation into a cash-for-summit scandal.

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Korea, US Tone Down Joint Drill Next Week (Korea Times)

South Korea and the United States will soften the level of their joint computerized military exercise to be held next week, according to officials of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Monday.

The move is construed as an apparent bid not to provoke North Korea at a time when the communist regime appears to want to discuss stalled denuclearization talks with the United States, following former U.S. President Bill Clinton's landmark visit to Pyongyang last week, analysts say.

The Lee Myung-bak administration is also wary of causing tensions with Pyongyang as five South Koreans have been held in the North, they say.

"In the upcoming war games, troops from the Combined Forces Command (CFC) will end their counterattacks in Gaeseong, before reaching Pyongyang,'' a JCS official said on condition of anonymity.

Previously, CFC troops often advanced into Pyongyang or the Amnokgang (Yalu River) in their simulated training exercises, the official said.

South Korea and the United States will hold the Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG), formerly known as Ulchi Focus Lens, from Aug. 17 till 27.

The exercise is aimed at improving interoperability between South Korean and U.S. forces.

About 56,000 South Korean troops and 10,000 American troops will take part in the command and control, war-fighting exercise, according to the CFC.

The exercise will be the second in which South Korea's JCS will serve in a leading role with the U.S. Forces Korea serving in a supporting role, in rehearsal training for the planned transition of wartime operational control from the U.S. military to Korean commanders.

Under a 2007 agreement on command rearrangements, the U.S.-led CFC will be deactivated in April 17, 2012. The militaries will then launch separate theater commands.

North Korea regularly denounces joint military drills by South Korea and the United States, calling them a rehearsal for invasion.