Korean Peninsula Today, 04 August 2009

Today’s highlights:
1) The Russian Deputy Foreign Minister stated sanctions against North Korea must be implemented consistently but their unrestrained interpretation must be avoided
2) The North Korea Sanctions Act of 2009 has been submitted to the US congress for imposing an arms embargo on North Korea
3) Chinese communist party delegation led by a publicity official has arrived in North Korea for a “good will visit”
4) North Korea remained silent on the status of the captured South Korean fishing boat despite repeated calls for the release
and 5) North Korean defectors claim North Korea is helping Myanmar (Burma) develop its nuclear weapons program.

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Moscow Against Unrestrained Interpretation Of N. Korea Sanctions (Interfax-AVN)

Moscow believes that sanctions against North Korea must be implemented consistently, but their unrestrained interpretation should be avoided.

"Our approach is that these sanctions must be implemented by all - consistently, resolutely, fully and transparently," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Borodavkin told Interfax on Monday.

"But an unrestrained interpretation of these sanctions must be avoided," he said.

"We think unilateral sanctions must not be introduced bypassing the UN Security Council. Nor should these sanctions become a pretext for inciting additional tensions in Northeast Asia and on the Korean Peninsula," Borodavkin said.

Furthermore, the sanctions must not damage the humanitarian situation in North Korea, he said. "They must focus only on the prevention of further development of North Korea's nuclear and missile programs," the Russian diplomat said.

The sanctions against North Korea, listed in Security Council resolutions, are not for good, he went on to say. "If North Korea complies with the demands, advanced by the international community, naturally they will be lifted," he said.

"The idea of the sanctions is not to punish North Korea, but to demonstrate the international community's adherence to the goal of re-launching the six-party talks and making the Korean peninsula nuclear-free," Borodavkin said.

Russian-U.S. consultations on the implementation of the earlier adopted sanctions are underway in Moscow on Monday.

Moscow and Washington's positions on sanctions against North Korea "are very consistent, near and similar," he said.

Borodavkin commended the implementation of the sanctions by other members of the world community. "We have no reason to claim that any member of the international community does not observe these sanctions," he said.

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Congressmen Submit Bill to Sanction North Korea for Nuclear Test (Yonhap)

WASHINGTON – A bill has been submitted to US Congress for imposing an arms embargo on North Korea under a U.S. domestic law for the North's second nuclear test in May after one about three years earlier.

The North Korea Sanctions Act of 2009 (HR 3423), introduced by Michael McMahon (D-NY) and Rep Bob Inglis (R-SC) on Thursday, calls on the Barack Obama administration to "impose certain sanctions on North Korea as a result of the detonation by that country of a nuclear explosive device on May 25, 2009" under the Arms Export Control Act (AECA).

The AECA bans arms shipments to any countries if the exports "would contribute to an arms race, aid in the development of weapons of mass destruction, support international terrorism, increase the possibility of outbreak or escalation of conflict, or prejudice the development of bilateral or multilateral arms control or nonproliferation agreements or other arrangements."

It also prevents U.S. governments and financial institutions from doing business with those countries under an arms embargo.

North Korea has already been subject to international sanctions under a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted after the May 25 nuclear test.

Under the resolution, the Security Council blacklisted five North Korean firms early last month, imposed a travel ban on and froze the assets of five North Korean officials, and banned the trade to and from North Korea of graphite for electrical discharge machining and aramid fiber, used in nuclear weapons and missiles.

The introduction of HR 3423 also follows a U.S. Senate resolution adopted late last month to call on the Obama administration to "assess the effectiveness" of relisting North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The resolution calls for Obama to submit a report within 30 days on Pyongyang's record on weapons of mass destruction proliferation and terrorism since it was removed from the U.S. State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism in October.

North Korea was first put on the terrorism list soon after it downed a South Korean airplane over Myanmar in 1987, killing all 115 passengers. Its delisting came in October 2008 and paved the way for a fresh round of multilateral nuclear talks deadlocked for nearly a year.

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China's Party Delegation Arrives in N. Korea For 'Goodwill Visit (Yonhap)

SEOUL – A Chinese party delegation led by a publicity official arrived in North Korea on Monday [3 August] for a "goodwill visit," state media of the two countries said.

The delegation of the Communist Party of China was led by Luo Shugang, deputy head of the party's publicity department, the official Korean Central News Agency said.

The one-sentence dispatch did not elaborate on the purpose or length of the trip, only saying it came at the invitation of the Workers' Party of Korea.

China's Xinhua news agency said the delegation was making a "goodwill visit," but gave no further details.

The two countries are holding a variety of events to celebrate 60 years of diplomatic relations this year, but watchers say their traditional alliance has been displaying signs of fraying. China joined the world condemning North Korea's nuclear test in May and signed a U.N. Security Council resolution to tighten a trade embargo and other sanctions on North Korea.

Some watchers pointed out the watered-down attitude of North Korean media toward China, as some recent dispatches left out the usual descriptions of the relationship between the two countries, such as "blood-sealed." China fought for the North against the U.S.-led U.N. Command in the Korean War and is still a major donor to the impoverished country.

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N Korea silent on S Korean boat crew (AFP)

SEOUL – North Korea was silent Monday on South Korea's renewed call for the release of a fishing boat and four crew members which strayed across the maritime border four days ago.

"The North Korean side simply replied that the investigation was underway," said unification ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-Joo, after maritime authorities of the two countries communicated with each other early Monday.

Seoul says the 29-ton squid fishing boat drifted into the North's waters off the east coast Thursday due to a malfunctioning navigation system.

Pyongyang on Saturday said the boat had "illegally intruded" into its territorial waters, its first direct official response to the incident.

"A relevant institution is conducting concrete investigation into it at present," the communist state's official news agency said.

The two countries have remained technically at war since their 1950-53 conflict, but have sometimes returned each other's craft in the past.

Two South Korean trawlers strayed into the North's waters in April 2005 and December 2006 and were returned after five days and 18 days respectively.

But tensions have been mounting this year after nuclear and missile tests by the North and tougher UN Security Council sanctions in response.

The North has since March 30 detained a South Korean worker at the Seoul-funded Kaesong industrial estate, accusing him of insulting its system and urging a North Korean worker to defect.

It is also holding two US journalists captured on its border with China. They were jailed for 12 years in June for an illegal border crossing and an unspecified "grave crime."

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Defectors tell of Burma's secret nuclear reactor (The Independent)
North Korea is helping country develop weapons, according to the men

Two of Asia's most oppressive regimes may have joined forces to develop a nuclear arsenal, according to strategic experts who have analysed information supplied by a pair of Burmese defectors.

The men, who played key roles in helping the isolated military junta before defecting to Thailand, have provided evidence which suggests Burma has enlisted North Korean help to build its own nuclear bomb within the next five years.

Details supplied by the pair, who were extensively interviewed over the past two years by Professor Desmond Ball of the Australian National University and Thai-based Irish-Australian journalist Phil Thornton, points to Burma building a secret nuclear reactor and plutonium extraction facility with the assistance of North Korea.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak, the head of Thailand's Institute of Security and International Studies, said: "The evidence is preliminary and needs to be verified, but this is something that would completely change the regional security status quo.

"It would move Myanmar [Burma] from not just being a pariah state but a rogue state – that is one that jeopardises the security and well-being of its immediate neighbours," he said.

The nuclear claims, revealed by The Sydney Morning Herald at the weekend, will ring alarm bells across Asia. The newspaper said the testimony of the two defectors brought into sharp focus the hints emerging recently from other sources, supported by sightings of North Korean delegations, that the Burmese junta, under growing pressure to democratise, was seeking a deterrent to any foreign moves to force regime change.

Their evidence also reinforces concerns expressed by Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, in Thailand last week about growing military co-operation between North Korea and Burma. "We worry about the transfer of nuclear technology and other dangerous weapons," she said at a regional security conference.

The two defectors whose briefings have created such alarm are both regarded as credible sources. One was an officer with a secret nuclear battalion in the Burmese army who was sent to Moscow for two years' training. He was part of a nuclear programme which planned to train 1,000 Burmese. "You don't need 1,000 people in the fuel cycle or to run a nuclear reactor. It's obvious there is much more going on," he said.

The other is a former executive of the regime's leading business partner, Htoo Trading, who handled nuclear contracts with Russia and North Korea. The man, who died in 2008, provided a detailed report which insisted that Burma's rationale for a nuclear programme was nonsense.

"They [the generals] say it is to produce medical isotopes for health purposes in hospitals. How many hospitals in Burma have nuclear science? he asked. "Burma can barely get electricity up and running. It's a nonsense," he said.

Professor Ball and Mr Thornton reported that the army defector claimed that there were more than five North Koreans working at the Thabeik Kyin uranium processing plant in Burma and that the country was providing yellowcake – partially refined uranium – to both Iran and North Korea.

The authors concluded that the illicit nuclear co-operation was based on a trade of locally refined uranium from Burma to North Korea in return for technological expertise.

What is missing in the nuclear chain at the moment is a plutonium reprocessing plant, but according to the army defector, one was being planned at Naung Laing in northern Burma, parallel to a civilian reactor which is already under construction with Russian help.

The secret complex would be hidden in caves tunnelled into a nearby mountain. Once Burma had its own plutonium reprocessing plant, it could produce 8kg of weapons-grade plutonium-239 a year, enough to build one nuclear bomb every 12 months.

If the testimony of the two defectors proves to be correct, the secret reactor could be operational by 2014, The Herald reported. "These two guys never met each other, never knew of each other's existence, and yet they both tell the same story basically," said Professor Ball.

"If it was just the Russian reactor, under full International Energy supervision, then the likelihood of them being able to do something with it in terms of a bomb would be zero," Professor ball said. "It's the North Korean element which adds danger to it."

Korean Peninsula Today, 01 - 03 August 2009

Today's highlights:

1) The former President George W. Bush urged the six-party member nations to send a strong and clear message to North Korea to give up its nuclear program
2) Asia Times reported there is information suggesting that Kim Kye-gwan, North Korean vice foreign minister and its nuclear envoy, may have been purged as a scapegoat for misjudging the US stance toward North Korea
3) North Korea agreed to loosen border crossing regulations for the South Koreans crossing the border to visit the Kaesong Industrial Complex
and 4) and South Korea approved the World Vision's request to conduct a humanitarian visit to North Korea.

Strong Message Necessary to Resolve N. Korean Nuclear Issue: Bush (Yonhap)

SEOGWIPO, South Korea – Former U.S. President George W. Bush on Saturday urged member nations to the six-party disarmament talks to send a strong and clear message to North Korea to persuade it to give up its nuclear weapons program.

Bush made the remark at an economic forum organized by the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) on the southern island of Jeju during his five-day visit to South Korea.

Unless North Korea clearly and transparently ends its nuclear weapons drive, the U.S., South Korea, China, Japan and Russia should let North Korea know that it will face economic and other consequences, Bush said.

North Korea has made a series of provocative actions since its leader, Kim Jong-il, reportedly fell ill in August 2008. Responding to a U.N. condemnation of its long-range rocket launch in April, Pyongyang withdrew from the multilateral denuclearization talks.

In July in South Korea, Kurt Campbell, the U.S. Secretary of States for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said if North Korea takes "serious and irreversible steps" to end its nuclear program, Washington -- together with Seoul and other allies -- is ready to offer a "comprehensive package" of incentives.

Bush was scheduled to have dinner with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on the same day in Jeju, according to the forum's organizers.

On Monday, Bush plans to visit the city of Andong, 268km south of Seoul, on Monday, as well as the nearby Hahoe Folk Village at the invitation of Poongsang Group Chairman Ryu Jin.

The village is known for traditional wooden structures, costumes, mask dances and exceptionally beautiful scenery.

Ties between the Bush family and the defense company Poongsan go back to November 2005, when former U.S. President George H.W. Bush visited the traditional Korean city.

Bush will also give a speech at an Andong high school, which was founded by Ryu, before returning home on Tuesday.

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Pyongyang purges for a new era (Asia Times)

By Donald Kirk

WASHINGTON – For the most skilled and toughest North Korean negotiator, the task of pushing the line while remaining on cordial terms with the man across the table carries inherent risks. A change in policy may be fatal. One mistake and you may never live to make another.

Take Kim Kye-gwan, the North Korean vice foreign minister with whom the United States' Christopher Hill spent years cozying up with Hill in venues from Berlin to Singapore to Beijing when Hill was US nuclear envoy and assistant secretary of state for Asia and the Pacific.

Kim seemed like a pretty tough guy, conning Hill into deals such as the six-party agreement of September 2005, under which North Korea vaguely agreed to do away with its nukes in return for multi-billions of god-knows-what.

And that wasn't all. Kim then got Hill to sign on to two deals in 2007 under which North Korea agreed in careful detail first to disable and then dismantle its entire nuclear program. All the US had to do was remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism - something former president George W Bush was glad to do in his waning months in office.

So what is Kim's reward for all his success in bamboozling the Americans into thinking they had succeeded in getting North Korea to give up its nukes? He seems to have disappeared, and nobody has a clue as to whether he's dead or alive, working on a chicken farm or sent to a prison for re-education.

Analysts here believe Kim may have become a scapegoat for hardliners in the ascendancy in North Korea. In the quest for people to blame for North Korea's flirtation with reconciliation with the United States and South Korea, they say, Kim would rank high on the list of those now viewed as "enemies".

Speculation about Kim Kye-gwan's possible fate is circulating in the US, while the generals take center stage and North Korea toughens its policies in the final phases of the reign of Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, who rose to power in July 1994 after the death of his father, the long-ruling Kim Il-sung.

A purge of those perceived as soft toward the United States and South Korea is to be expected, according to this analysis, while North Korea's intelligence and security agencies crack down with increasing ferocity on the slightest signs of discontent, much less dissent. The crackdown is gaining urgency as reports of Kim Jong-il's health grow more pessimistic - first he was said to have suffered a stroke nearly one year ago, and now he's reportedly suffering from pancreatic cancer.

"The storm of control measures blowing over that country now was started by the power people in North Korea," a Japanese journalist, Jiro Ishimaru, has written. They "are doing everything they can to tighten social order because they see a crisis looming in the maintenance of the system".

Bruce Bechtol, professor at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College in Quantico, Virginia, says the purges have accompanied a shift in the political winds. One example, he said, is that of Choe Sung-chol, who as vice chairman of the Asia-Pacific Peace Committee was responsible for dealing with South Korea. He was reportedly "languishing on a chicken farm" in January while undergoing "revolutionary training" - before he was reported executed.

Choe, a key figure in arranging the inter-Korean summit of October 2007 between Kim Jong-il and South Korea's president Roh Moo-hyun, committed the grave offense of making "wrong predictions" about the policy of Roh's conservative successor, Lee Myung-bak, elected president by a landslide two-and-a-half months after the summit.

Soon after his inauguration in February 2008, Lee cut off aid to North Korea while waiting to resolve the sticky question of verification of North Korea's claims to be doing away with its nukes. North Korea, reviling Lee as a "traitor", has since boasted of restarting its nuclear program, test-fired a long-range missile and exploded a nuclear device underground while repudiating the July 1953 Korean War armistice.

"Despite hardliners' objections, Choe had strongly pushed for progress in relations with the South," according to a source quoted by Yonhap, the South Korean news agency. "[B]ut inter-Korean relations deteriorated after the government change in the South and he was blamed for the 'misjudgments' and all other fallout".

The parallels between Choe's case and that of Kim Kye-gwan are all too clear, in the view of analysts. He, too, stands to face severe criticism, if not charges, for the same offences - except that his misdeeds were in talks with a far worse enemy than South Korea - the US.

Reported purges of Choe and other key officials are the most specific manifestation of a much more sweeping campaign to purify the society.

"Nobody circles the wagons like North Korea," said Bechtol in a paper presented at the Korea Economic Institute in Washington. "As North Korea always has done in times of possible internal instability or turmoil, it cracked down on the populace."

Among the first in the line of fire, beside negotiators all too visibly involved in dealings with the US and South Korea, have been those attempting to escape across the Yalu and Tumen river borders to China.

One experienced source for that perception is Tim Peters, director of Helping Hands Korea which has years of experience aiding escapees. "The penalties are getting stronger," Peters has been quoted as saying. The government is even refusing to issue passports to those who need to go to China and elsewhere on normal business.

"Since Kim's reported stroke, those fleeing the country have undergone stiffer punishment as a result of new measures that were apparently put into effect," said Bechtol, while "inquisition squads" roam the streets and "ideology sessions" are increasingly frequent.

The crackdown often focuses on the small community of secret Christians that has grown in North Korea in recent years, which is viewed by the regime as an immediate threat.

Activists in South Korea report that a 33-year-old woman was executed in June in a city near the Chinese border for distributing copies of the Bible. They say another woman, aged 30, was reportedly tortured and possibly killed along with her husband and their two children, all of whom have disappeared.

Although public executions in North Korea are commonplace, the ferocity of the current sweep of enemies accompanies the first basic shift in the power structure since the death of Kim Il-sung.

With the power of the elite surrounding the Dear Leader "under close scrutiny", said Bechtol, many analysts believe "that the party and the military have consolidated power in the wake of Kim Jong-il's health issues".

Mark Fitzpatrick, senior fellow for non-proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, sees whatever is happening in North Korea as "surely connected with the succession question that suddenly became more acute" after Kim's stroke.

"For all of North Korea's neighbors," he wrote in a newly published report, "the collapse of the Kim regime could be best way out of a downward cycle - and the sooner this happens, the better."

That's a view that is not likely to bring about redemption for Kim Kye-gwan, for whom it may in any case be too late as the regime defends itself against enemies, real and imagined, at home and abroad.

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North Korea Says Seized South Korean Boat Illegally Intruded Into Its Waters (Yonhap)

SEOUL – North Korea's state media said Saturday [1 August] it was investigating a South Korean boat that "illegally intruded deep into" its territory in the East Sea, two days after its seizure by a North Korean naval vessel.

North Korea's military sent a similar message to South Korea by fax a day earlier, and the only difference was that Saturday's media report used the word, "deep," Seoul's Unification Ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo said.

"A patrol ship of the Navy of the Korean People's Amy captured one ship of South Korea on July 30 when it illegally intruded deep into the DPRK (North Korea) territorial waters in the East Sea of Korea," Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency said.

"A relevant institution is conducting a concrete investigation into it at present," the two-sentence report said.

On Thursday, an unnamed North Korean military official in charge of operations in the East Sea sent a fax message through an inter-Korean military communication line, saying the boat illegally intruded into North Korean waters and that a relevant body was investigating the case.

With four crewmen aboard, the 29-ton squid-fishing boat, named the Yeonanho 800, was hauled away by a North Korean patrol vessel to an eastern port in the communist country early Thursday morning after straying 13 km past the inter-Korean maritime border.

South Korean authorities suspect the boat either did not have a satellite navigation device or that it malfunctioned.

The ministry spokeswoman said North Korea customarily accuses stray fishing boats of territorial intrusion, and that this should not be viewed as some kind of warning.

"With the message, North Korea was explaining about the situation from its perspective," she said.

Seoul officials called North Korea's prompt response an encouraging sign. But they cautioned that the isolated state is often unpredictable.

"Now that there was a prompt response about the situation, I'm looking at it in a positive way," Unification Minister Hyun In-taek said on Thursday. "But I will keep an eye on the situation."

In a reply to the North Korean military, South Korea said the crossing occurred by navigational errors and requested the early release of the boat and its crew "on humanitarian grounds."

In previous incidences, fishing boats that have strayed into the North have been released after a week or two of inquiry. The latest case has caused greater concern as cross-border tensions are running high.

Some fear the fishermen could be detained for longer. A South Korean worker has been held in the North since March on accusations of insulting the North's political system at a joint industrial park.

Thursday's seizure was the first such case among South Korean fishermen since President Lee Myung-bak took office in Seoul last year.

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N.Korea agrees to streamline border crossing (Associated Press)

SEOUL – North Korea has agreed to streamline rules for South Korean visitors crossing the border to visit a Seoul-funded joint industrial site, officials here said Sunday.

The North's move stands in contrast to its stance since 2008, which has seen the communist regime toughening its control on South Koreans travelling to the Kaesong estate.

The South's Kaesong Industrial Complex Management Committee, which supervises the estate just north of the border, said Sunday visitors would no longer need to provide anything more than ID cards and travel permits.

Responding to complaints about inconvenience, the North agreed to allow the South's office to process some paperwork on behalf of individuals.

"The extra documents were redundant because they carried exactly the same information as ID cards and travel permits," the South's office spokesman told AFP, adding the new rules would take effect from Monday.

Despite the easing of border controls, the fate of Kaesong remains uncertain because of the North's demand for huge pay and rent increases, along with its holding of a Seoul worker.

Pyongyang detained the South Korean male worker on March 30 for allegedly criticising its political system and trying to incite a female North Korean worker to defect.

Kaesong, which opened in December 2004, is the last remaining large-scale reconciliation project between the communist North and the capitalist South.

Some 40,000 North Koreans work for South Korean firms in Kaesong.

Cross-border relations have deteriorated since Seoul's conservative president Lee Myung Bak took office in February 2008, instigating a tougher North Korea policy linking aid to Pyongyang's nuclear disarmament.

North Korea has been under ever-toughening UN Security Council sanctions since its long-range rocket launch in April and a second nuclear test in May.

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S. Korea Gives Nod For First Group Trip to North Since Nuke Test (Yonhap)

SEOUL – South Korea on Friday greenlighted a request by aid workers to visit North Korea, the first such approval since the communist state's nuclear test in May.

Seoul placed a blanket ban on non-governmental cross-border trips after the nuclear blast, effectively freezing humanitarian aid projects as well as social and cultural exchanges with the North. Its first approval in nearly two months was given to World Vision, a multinational aid organization.

"The decision was made based on the government's position that humanitarian assistance to North Korea should be continued," Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said in a briefing.

A group of seven World Vision staff and agricultural experts will begin an eight-day trip on Saturday, during which they plan to visit potato seedling farms the organization operates in Pyongyang and several provincial towns, said Kim Hye-young, a member of the team.

"We couldn't go in June and July, but it's better late than never," Kim said.

Seoul has recently shown signs of flexibility over humanitarian aid to North Korea. The ministry is currently reviewing funding requests from about 10 aid organizations, after suspending such financial support after North Korea's long-range rocket launch in April.

Ministry officials said, however, the current restriction on civic visits to North Korea is still effective and that the ministry will selectively approve other cases depending on the purpose of the visit and its urgency, as well as the state of inter-Korean relations.

Only business-related trips involving a joint industrial complex in the North Korean border town of Kaesong [Kaeso'ng] and a tourism resort in Mount Kumgang are exempt from the ban.

Earlier this week, a Seoul-based aid group, the Korean Sharing Movement, was forced to cancel its planned visit to the North as it failed to receive an official invitation from Pyongyang.

North Korean media runs report on seizure of South Korean fishing vessel

At its 5PM broadcast this evening, the Korean Central Broadcasting Station (KCBS) reported on the 30 July seizure of a South Korean fishing vessel by the North Korean navy in the East Sea (Sea of Japan). This report seems to be the first North Korean media reporting of the incident.

At its 8PM broadcast tonight, the Korean Central Television Station (KCTV) also reported on the incident.

Below is the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) report on the incident that was obtained from their website.

Pyongyang, August 1 (KCNA) -- A patrol ship of the Navy of the Korean People's Amy captured one ship of South Korea on July 30 when it illegally intruded deep into the DPRK territorial waters in the East Sea of Korea.

A relevant institution is conducting concrete investigation into it at present.

So, why is it important that the North Korean media is now reporting on this incident? Because based on the past trends, the public admission of incidents such as this by the North Korean media has always been an invitation to bid for the release by the South Korean government. In other words, a North Korean way of saying that they want to talk to the outside world.