Archive for the ‘Myanmar’ Category

Burma, North Korea restore diplomatic ties

Friday, April 27th, 2007

Joong Ang Daily
ser Myo Ja
4/27/2007

North Korea and Burma, two of the world’s harshest dictatorships, agreed yesterday to restore diplomatic ties 24 years after Pyongyang was implicated in a deadly bomb attack which targeted South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan, who was visiting Rangoon.

North Korea’s vice foreign minister, Kim Young-il, arrived in Rangoon, the former capital of Burma, also known as Myanmar, on Wednesday. Kim and Kyaw Thu, Burma’s deputy foreign minister, signed an agreement yesterday to reestablish relations between the two countries, Thu said.

The specifics of the agreement were not released.

The October 9, 1983 bombing was one of the most audacious acts of terror ever attributed to a nation-state. During an official visit, Chun planned to lay a wreath at a mausoleum dedicated to Aung San, the founder of modern Burma. Chun was delayed by traffic, but 21 people were killed, including three Korean cabinet ministers, when bombs in the roof of the mausoleum exploded. Burma quickly blamed the attack on North Korea.

Shortly after the bombing, Burmese authorities arrested three North Korean agents, one of whom killed himself. The other two were convicted and sentenced to death. Jin Mo was executed in 1985, but Kang Min-chol’s sentence was reduced to life in prison because he confessed.

Kang, 51, has been held at Insein prison near Rangoon. Irrawaddy, a magazine published by Burmese exiles, reported in its current issue that Kang did not wish to return to either Korea if he is released from prison. A former inmate told the magazine, “Kang said he did not want to go to the North because he would be treated as a traitor and he did not want to go to the South because he would be punished for the terror.”

North Korea has denied responsibility for the incident, claiming that it was a South Korean conspiracy to frame the North.

South Korea respects Myanmar’s decision to restore ties with N. Korea
Yonhap
4/26/2007

South Korea respects Myanmar’s decision to restore diplomatic ties with North Korea, a government spokesman said Thursday.

The spokesman said that South Korea expects the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries after 24 years will provide momentum for North Korea’s opening and contribute to peace and stability in the region.

Myanmar severed ties with North Korea following a bomb attack by North Korean agents on the entourage of then South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan at the Aung San Mausoleum in Yangoon in October 1983.

Meanwhile, North Korea confirmed foreign news reports that the two sides agreed to reopen diplomatic relations, quoting a joint communique on the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between the DPRK and the Union of Myanmar.

DPRK is the acronym for Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North’s official title.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency reported, “According to the joint communique, the government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the government of the Union of Myanmar, desirous of developing friendly relations and bilateral cooperation between the two countries and peoples, based on the principles of respect for each other’s sovereignty, non-interference in their internal affairs, and equality and mutual benefit, as well as the norms of international law and the objectives and principles of the United Nations Charter, have agreed to reestablish diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level in accordance with the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 18th April 1961.”

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