From KCNA:
Kim Yong Nam Receives Credentials from British Ambassador to DPRK
Pyongyang, September 30 (KCNA) — Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the DPRK Supreme People’s Assembly, received credentials from Peter Hughes, ambassador of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the DPRK, at the Mansudae Assembly Hall on Tuesday.
After receiving the credentials, Kim had a talk with the ambassador.
(The Wilson Center’s North Korean International Documentation Project (NKIDP) does innovative historical work collecting, translating, comparing, and analyzing records kept on the DPRK in the archives of formerly (and some currenty) communist countries. They recently held an innovative conference where they brough in period policy makers to discuss and comment on these archival records.)
NKIDP publishes document reader from international conference “Crisis and Confrontation on the Korean Peninsula: 1968-1969”
September 8-9, 2008
Crisis and Confrontation on the Korean Peninsula: 1968-1969 focused on the two tumultuous years which saw the capture of the U.S. Navy’s intelligence ship USS Pueblo by the DPRK, the North Korean attempt to assassinate ROK President Park Chunghee with a cross-border commando raid on the Blue House, and numerous other provocative incidents.
The conference’s document reader—a 1200 page collection of newly declassified documents from South Korean, American, and former communist bloc archives–is the most comprehensive collection of primary source materials on US-ROK-DPRK relations during the late 1960s ever assembled, and it is now available for download free of charge from NKIDP.
Armed with this document reader, scholars from around the world, and former policy-makers from the United States, South Korea, and the former communist bloc gathered at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington for two days of discussions.
These discussions gave historians the opportunity to interact with the very officials whose reports and memoranda comprised the document reader, and will result in a more nuanced understanding of US-ROK-DPRK relations during the late 1960s.
The DPRK’s recent efforts to reconstruct the Yongbyon 5MW nuclear reactor seem to have brought implementation of the “second” Agreed Framework to a halt, though it was already behind schedule. This week the US sent Chris Hill to Pyongyang to try and rescue the process which is hung up on verification protocol. The North claims to have sufficiently declared their nuclear capabilities and believe they should be removed from the US list of state sponsors of terror. The US does not believe this condition has been met and seeks to establish a protocol to verify if the North’s declaration is accurate.
Japan is also set to extend sanctions (due to expire) on the DPRK. According to Bloomberg:
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party decided to extend sanctions against North Korea for six months after their Oct. 13 expiration date, Jiji Press reported.
LDP lawmakers agreed to extend the sanctions because North Korea took steps to reactivate its nuclear program and made little progress in an investigation into Japanese nationals abducted by North Korean agents, Jiji reported.
Prime Minister Taro Aso’s Cabinet is likely to endorse the extension by Oct. 10., the Japanese wire service said.
The sanctions include a ban on North Korean imports and the entry of North Korean ships into Japanese ports. The extension will be the fourth since sanctions began after North Korea’s October 2006 nuclear test, Jiji said.
Just as the DPRKs hopes of restoring/establishing relations with Japan and the US start to dim, however, they have reached out to South Korea, with whom political relations had recently gone sour due to the South’s policy change from unsupervised aid provision under the “sunshine policy” to a quid-pro-quo relationship under a “policy of mutual benefits and common prosperity“. Additionally, the fatal shooting of a South Korean tourist in Kumgangsan led to a deterioration in cooperation between the two governments and suspension of the inter-Korean project (a cash cow for the North).
How much was the Sunshine Policy worth to the North? South Korean GNP lawmaker Jin Yeong, who analzed data submitted by the Unification Ministry and the Export-Import Bank of Korea, claims that the Kim and Roh administrations oversaw the transfer of 8.38 trillion South Korean Won in aid and loans since 1998.
Taking office in February 2003 after the second North Korean nuclear crisis emerged in September 2002, Roh doled out 5.68 trillion won to Pyongyang over his five-year term, double that of his predecessor Kim (2.70 trillion won).
Kim and Roh gave to North Korea 2.4 trillion won for building light-water reactors and in food aid; 2.5 trillion won to pin the price of rice aid to that of the global market; 2.8 trillion won for other aid including fertilizer; and 696 billion won in aid from advocacy groups and provincial governments.
In 2003, South Korean aid to the North reached a high of 1.56 trillion won. Then after North Korean leader Kim Jong Il declared that his country had gone nuclear in 2005, the Roh administration sent 1.48 trillion won to the North.
Jin said, “South Korea gave a loan with rice first in 2000. Payments on the loan are deferred for 10 years. Thus, we are to receive the first repayment installment in 2010. But most of the 2.4 trillion won in loans seem irrecoverable.”
PricewaterhouseCoopers Korea audited the fiscal 2007 accounts of Seoul`s inter-Korean cooperation funds, saying, “Considering the characteristics of the North Korean government, grave uncertainty exists over the possibility of redeeming the loans given to the regime. The ultimate outcome depends heavily on the conditions around the Korean Peninsula.”
Since President Lee Myung-bak took office this year, exchanges between the two Koreas have been rare. Still, aid to the light-water reactor and the Gaesong industrial complex projects and civilian donations have continued, amounting to a combined 211.3 billion won. (Donga Ilbo)
It appears the Russians are doing their part to bring the North and South together through a project they can all agree on—building a natural gas pipeline from Russia to South Korea via the DPRK:
South Korea plans to import $90 billion of natural gas from Russia via North Korea, with which it shares one of the world’s most heavily fortified borders, to reduce its reliance on more expensive cargoes arriving by sea.
State-run Korea Gas Corp. signed a preliminary agreement with OAO Gazprom, Russia’s largest energy company, to import 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas over 30 years starting in 2015, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said in a statement. The accord was signed in Moscow during President Lee Myung Bak’s three-day visit that began yesterday.
Gazprom Chief Executive Officer Alexei Miller said after talks today between Lee and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that the exact delivery route hasn’t been determined and that shipments could begin as early as 2015.
“Russia suggested a pipeline via North Korea, which is expected to be more economical than other possible routes,” the minister said in a news briefing. “Russia will contact the North to discuss this.”
“Transporting gas through North Korea could be risky for South Korea,” said Kim Jin Woo, a senior research analyst at Korea Energy Economics Institute. “But the project will ease tensions on the Korean peninsula if Russia successfully persuades North Korea” to accept the plan.
North Korea could earn $100 million a year from the gas- pipeline project, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said.
“Russia will supply the fuel in the form of LNG or compressed natural gas if negotiations with North Korea do not work out,” according to the ministry’s statement. South Korea and Russia will sign a final agreement in 2010 when a study on the route is completed.
South Korea is turning to Russia, holder of the world’s biggest proven gas reserves, as it faces intensifying competition for energy resources from China and Japan. Asia’s fourth-largest economy depends on gas for 16 percent of its power generation.
Under the agreement, a pipeline to South Korea will be laid via North Korea from gas fields on Sakhalin Island in Russia’s Far East. The pipeline would initially carry 10 billion cubic meters of gas a year, or about 20 percent of South Korea’s annual consumption. The cost of the gas link’s construction is estimated at $3 billion, the ministry said.
Read the full articles here:
South Korea Seeks $90 Billion of Russian Natural Gas
Bloomberg
Shinhye Kang
9/29/2008
Liberal Gov`ts Gave W8.38 Bln to North Korea`
Donga Ilbo
9/30/2008
According to the Choson Ilbo, the South Korean government is monitoring 76 pro-DPRK websites:
The National Police Agency is monitoring a total of 76 pro-North Korea websites overseas. According to data on the NPA submitted to Grand National Party lawmaker Lee Bum-rae of the National Assembly’s Public Administration and Security Committee, of the websites with servers abroad, 31 in the U.S., 19 in Japan, 13 in China, 4 in Germany, and 9 in other countries.
The NPA said it has also asked or advised web portals to delete a total of 6,377 pro-Pyongyang postings since the inauguration of the Roh Moo-hyun administration in February 2003. The number has been on the increase from 1,010 in 2004 to 1,434 in 2007. Until August this year, the NPA already asked web portals to delete a total of 1,035 such postings.
I find this personally disturbing for a couple of reasons—the first being that the South Korean government asking content to be removed from the Internet sounds more like a North Korean policy than that of a democratic government in one of Asia’s wealthiest nations. The second bit of news that disturbs me is that I cannot come up with more than 10 pro-DPRK web sites. Where are these people hiding?
Read the full article here.
UPDATE: South Korea raids the offices of a pro-North group:
A group of agents from the National Intelligence Service, the police, and the Prosecutor’s Office Saturday stormed the headquarters of the All-Korean Committee for Implementation of June 15 Joint Declaration in Seoul and its 5 regional offices as well as the houses of the organization’s five officials simultaneously, Yonhap News reported.
The authorities also arrested seven officials of the organization, including its leader, whose last name is Choi, for violation of the National Security Law.
The authorities reportedly launched the massive investigation of the group when it was airing the media contents from North Korea through its Internet-based “6.15TV” that allegedly violated the 7th clause of the law that prohibits the praise for and encouragement on North Korea.
The group was established in October 2000 to commemorate the June 15 Joint Declaration and promote the unification movement on a civilian level. It has been engaged in civilian exchanges between the two Koreas, demanded the withdrawal of the U.S. troops from South Korea as well as a movement to understand North Korea better.The group’s Web site (www.615.or.kr) was inaccessible Saturday afternoon due to heavy traffic volume.
Read the full story in the Korea Times.
UPDATE 2: 4 South Korean arrested for “praising north”
Four progressive civic group members were arrested Tuesday for allegedly praising North Korea, leading the Solidarity for Practice of the South-North Joint Declaration (SPSNJD) to criticize the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and the prosecution for abusing what they call the outdated National Security Law.
They were charged with opening an exclusive pro-North chat room on the group’s Web site ― restricted to certified members ― and releasing North Korean press material to praise the Stalinist country at the expense of the South. (Korea Times)
Really? A chat room with 4 nobodys? It would be different if they had guns and plans, but reading silly North Korean press releases can’t seriously be considered subversive activity can it?
The Nautilus Institute has published an aritcle by Leonid Petrov on 60 years of Australian/DPRK relations.
Topics covered: on again/off agian diplomatic history, Australian foreign policy, bilateral relations, DPRK engagement with Australia, Pong Su (drug smuggling), denuclearization, economic sanctions, DPRK canberra embassy closing.
You may read the article on line here.
You may download a PDF of the article here: petrov-australia-dprk.pdf
I have updated the list of Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports published on North Korea and posted them here. I have also added a hyperlink under “pages” on the menu tab to the right.
Updates include:
US Assistance to North Korea: July 31, 2008
North Korean Ballistic Missile Threat: January 24, 2008
North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Program: January 21, 2008
North Korea’s Abduction of Japanese Citizens and the Six-Party Talks: March 19, 2008
The Kaesong North-South Industrial Complex: February 14, 2008
The North Korean Economy: Leverage and Policy Analysis: August 26, 2008
According to the Korea Times, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) is preparing to launch the first census taken in the DPRK since 1993.
According to the artilce:
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said it has conducted data-collecting education to North Koreans and has been inspecting regional-level education for a population census in which as many as 35,200 field researchers and 7,500 inspectors will be dispatched
The census will take place between October 1-15.
The above image is from Returned to North Korea, a documentary on the 1959 program to repatriate Japanese-Koreans to the newly founded Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Watch the video here.
Since passage of the North Korean Human Rights Act (NKHRA) the US government has admitted 63 North Korean defectors into the country. I am no lawyer, but I believe these individuals are classified as refugees, meaning they have more restrictive visa conditions than permanent residents.
The first of this cohort, however, has just received a “green card” (US permanent resident status), which grants the holder most of the privileges of US citizenship with the major exceptions of the right to vote or having the State Department stick up for you if you are detained overseas.
If there are any immigration attorneys out there who can contribute some details, please add them to the comments.
As an aside, the NKHRA statute has a “sunset provision”—meaning it automatically expires this month unless it is again passed by the congress and signed by the president. Joshua at One Free Korea is eager to see this statute renewed. I do not have any strong feelings about the foreign policy implications of this legislation, but as an economist I am in favor of allowing most immingrants into the US for economic reasons alone.
Read the full article below
N. Korean Defector Gets Permanent US Residency
Korea Times
Kim Sue-young
9/16/2008
Joseph Dresnok, the last of the DPRK’s four US defectors, sat down with Mark Seddon to give his first interview since the 2006 release of Crossing the Line.
Click on image below to see the interview on YouTube:
Pictured Above: Dresnok with Glyn Ford, EU parliamentarian and author of North Korea on the Brink
The interview was also written up in The Guardian. Much of the material is covered in Crossing the Line, with a couple of notable exceptions:
Dresnok describes himself as a citizen of Pyongyang. “I call it my country because I have been here for 46 years. My life is here. Enough? The government will take care of me until my dying breath.” So would he like to return to the US? “I tell you, yes; I must be honest to you. I would like to see the place. But how can I go there and dance in front of the American government, when they are arming South Korea?” Dresnok knows that he would be arrested on arrival, as was Jenkins, when he returned to the west in 2004. There is no love lost between Dresnok and Jenkins, who recanted on his return just over three years ago, denounced Dresnok and was granted clemency after only 30 days in the clink. Were he ever to leave North Korea, Dresnok is unlikely to get off so lightly, having been painted as the ringleader by Jenkins. Abshier and Parrish both died in North Korea, where their families remain.
…
And with that Comrade Joe prepares to return to his apartment, where his wife and children are waiting. It is illegal to listen to foreign broadcasts, but as he gets up Dresnok offers his opinion on the US election: “I’m told McCain will get it.”
(Hat tip to Gag Halfrunt for the story)
