AFP Contributor

SEOUL—The defection on Thursday of a North Korean soldier weaving his way across the DMZ is the latest in an accumulation of incidents putting not only the Korean Peninsula but much of East Asia on the razor’s edge of a crisis out of anyone’s ability to control.

The soldier, spotted by thermal imaging as he made his way across the heavily mined demilitarized zone, presumably is providing testimony about the problems of morale and hunger afflicting tens of thousands of North Korean troops within 20 miles of the line.

“As with the outbreak of World War I, it takes only one short-sighted or highly biased leader taking one needless gamble, or misconceiving just one action by the other side, to put the gears of war in motion.”

— Van Jackson, ‘On the Brink: Trump, Kim and the Threat of Nuclear War’

These are the facts about his country and especially the military that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un does not want known. And it’s to stave off simmering discontent exacerbated by sanctions and poor crops that Kim Jong Un is testing missiles and rocket systems—prime examples of threats that could send the region hurtling toward disaster, the United States along with it.

You may recall that President Donald Trump used to laud a supposed end to Pyongyang’s missile tests as a trumph for his weird personal diplomacy love-in with Kim. When new tests started, Trump declared the North Koreans “really haven’t tested missiles other than, you know, smaller ones.” When more tests happened last week, Trump said they were “short-range missiles, and many people have those missiles.” And Wednesday Kim sent some more of them aloft.

In fact, Kim has confirmed the tests are far from routine. The more they test, the more dangerous the standoff and no amount of happy talk can wish that away

Kim himself guided the latest test-firing of what Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency called “a newly developed large-caliber multiple launch guided rocket system.” That would suggest they have advanced their technical ability to strike anywhere in South Korea, notably the sprawling new American base, Camp Humphreys, 40 miles southeast of Seoul.

“The tactical data and technical characteristics of the new-type large-caliber guided ordnance rocket,” said KCNA in typically convoluted North Korean syntax, “reached the numerical values of its design, and verified the combat effectiveness of the overall system.”

Countering Trump’s dismissal of the importance of North Korean testing, Kim’s news agency continued in NorKspeak. It said the test-firing “would be an inescapable distress to the forces becoming a fat target of the weapon.”

Those comments coincided with the arrival in Bangkok of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and nuclear negotiator Stephen Biegun for an annual Asian regional forum at which Pompeo hopes to see North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho on the sidelines, but North Korea has said pointedly that Ri won’t be there.

“In a game of dare and double-dare, North Korean tests show the fragility of the North-South diplomacy and the perils of wishful thinking.”
In any case, Pompeo does not have to talk to Ri to know the test-firing Wednesday was a warning: Do not stage even small-scale exercises in South Korea this month, Kim is telling Washington and Seoul. And please lift those sanctions—or we may not cooperate on talks that Pompeo says are seriously in the works.

In a game of dare and double-dare, North Korean tests show the fragility of the North-South diplomacy and the perils of wishful thinking: Trump’s friend Kim isn’t going to have these missiles armed with real warheads, primed to fire at live targets, is he? Can’t we shrug off his latest shots as indeed “solemn warnings” against “war mongers” while the U.S. and South Korea gear up for small-scale, computer-driven military exercises?

Gingerly, South Korea’s National Security Council, avoiding outright condemnation, expressed “strong concerns” about tests that would have “a negative impact.” That was enough for South Korea’s defense minister, Jeong Kyeong-doo, to include North Korea again “in the concept of an enemy,” much though the South’s leftist president, Moon Jae-in, objects to applying the E-word to his northern neighbor.

The latest North Korean salvo didn’t go too far, about 150 miles off the North’s east coast—shorter range than the two missiles fired a week ago but once again just fine for Camp Humphreys, the largest U.S. base on foreign soil, where 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed

“Recent missiles are guided short-range at a lower altitude,” says Choi Jin-wook, former director of the Korea Institute of National Unification. They’re “more accurate and hard to be intercepted”—even by PAC-3, the most advanced surface-to-air counter-missile system.

It’s not just those upcoming war games that are upsetting the North Koreans. They also hate the prospect of the South Korean air force flying the latest F-35 stealth aircraft. With the South due to acquire 40 of them from the U.S. in the next two years, the North’s state press agency says, “We have no other choice but to develop and test the special armaments to completely destroy the lethal weapons reinforced in South Korea.”

“What if a South Korean plane hit a Russian bomber with one of those warning shots?”

The North Korean strategy is basic. “I believe North Korea is getting very frustrated with the U.S. and wants to pressure Mr. Trump,” says Choi. At the same time, considering Moon’s eagerness for reconciliation with the North, “South Korea is an easy hostage” that can be used “to pressure Washington.”

How better to intimidate the South Koreans? While “talking loudly about reconciliation and cooperation” the South Koreans go on “opening a gate to invading the north,” declared the KCNA. In this combustible mix, experts see tensions worsening as North Korea presses Moon to compromise and the danger arises of an “accident” or unscripted incident.

In an uncertain atmosphere, who knows what spark might ignite a conflagration?

“As with the outbreak of World War I,” writes Van Jackson in On the Brink: Trump, Kim and the Threat of Nuclear War, “it takes only one short-sighted or highly biased leader taking one needless gamble, or misconceiving just one action by the other side, to put the gears of war in motion.”

Inexorably, those gears are grinding. Trump may try to soothe those who doubt Kim Jong Un’s intentions, but one of the two shots fired last week was not exactly short-range as he contended. It soared more than 400 miles—plenty far enough to hit key targets in Japan—on a course that made it look like a model of a Russian Iskander which is capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads.

Despite “the most optimistic of projections,” writes Jackson, “policymakers and the public must remain attentive to the risks of nuclear war.”

And nukes are not the only imminent menace. Before Kim pressed the button on those missiles last week, South Korean warplanes, F15s and F16s, fired flares and 300 warning shots at a Russian A50 early warning and control aircraft reconnoitering over South Korean waters also claimed by Japan.

That was the first time Seoul’s forces have fired in the direction of a foreign plane, begging the question, what would it take for overflights and intrusions to turn into bloody shootouts?

The same day, two Chinese H6 bombers and two Russian TU 95 bombers flew in tandem around South Korea’s KADIZ, Korean Air Defense Identification Zone, the much larger area in which planes are free to fly while transponders relay where they are to the South Koreans.

What were the Chinese and Russians trying to prove? Was the dual mission timed for National Security Adviser John Bolton’s visit to Korea and Japan? Or were they out to show who’s boss over South Korea, which is now torn between the need for its military commanders to hone their computer skills in war games with the Americans and the desire of Moon to appease a nuclear-armed North?

Maybe China’s President Xi Jinping is still sore about Moon accepting THAAD, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense monster run by American soldiers way south of Seoul. The Russians don’t like THAAD either. Could it be they sent those planes around the periphery of South Korea to make that point? They both think THAAD is capable of getting into their own computer systems even though the Americans say its only mission is to shoot down high-flying North Korean missiles in a real war.

The question assumes urgency as South Korean and U.S. officials say they’ll definitely go ahead with those joint exercises. Missile tests, on top of Chinese and Russian overflights, raise the specter of a doomsday scenario even as South Korea tries to stay on friendly terms with China as well as Russia, not to mention North Korea in an era of rapprochement.

Then there’s the great power to the east, Japan, with which Korea is in an ugly dispute over Japanese reluctance to pay still more compensation to workers forced to serve as slave labor in Japanese factories in World War II.

The Japanese often send planes in hot pursuit of Chinese aircraft, scaring them away from the Senkaku Islands, held by Japan but claimed by China, which calls them Diaoyu. And the Japanese are not sending warplanes over disputed Korean waters, not even around Dokdo, those enormous twin rocks that Japan calls Takeshima and which it claims. But those outcrops are potential flashpoints defended by 50 lonely South Korean policemen way out there in the Sea of Japan, known to Koreans as the East Sea.

“Only weeks ago, the DMZ seemed a symbol of progress toward peace as Trump stepped across. Now we see a North Korean soldier coming the other way through a minefield.”

What if, accidentally, a Japanese plane veered off course over Dokdo and got shot at? Koreans would undoubtedly cheer if the plane were hit, such is the heightened nationalist ire after Japan vindictively cut off export of essential chemicals needed for the semiconductors that are the backbone of the South Korean economy.

And what if a South Korean plane hit a Russian bomber with one of those warning shots? Or the Chinese got really mad about the Americans spying on them via THAAD and sent warplanes over South Korean territory?

And what about the new submarine Kim Jong Un was just inspecting? Defense officials say it’s built to hold three submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Ok, he’s not ordering the firing of anything bearing a warhead—yet—but what if?

Meanwhile, we are watching the steady deterioration of the U.S.-South Korean alliance. Most U.S. troops stay inside the high barbed-wire surrounding Camp Humphreys as policy-makers quake over provoking anti-American protests or otherwise upsetting the Moon government.

But what if an accident did happen and U.S. forces fanned into the countryside, not on war games but for real?

David Straub, a retired senior U.S. diplomat with years of experience in Seoul, sees “the much bigger concern” as “the continued undermining of the U.S.-South Korea alliance and de facto acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear weapons state.” That result, he believes, “would not only be terrible in itself, it would likely contribute to much greater instability in regional and even global affairs.”

“I’m not terribly worried about an accidental outbreak of major hostilities,” says Straub. “None of the six countries concerned wants all-out conflict.”

The North “has continued to engage in bloody provocations” since the Korean War, he says, but “it’s hard to imagine what North Korea would have to do to prompt South Korea’s Moon administration to retaliate.” And, “although President Trump used to talk big about what he would do to Pyongyang, it has become evident that it was all bluff and bluster.”

Let’s hope. But it’s those little things—an intrusion here, an accident there—that might upset the carefully wrought equilibrium.

Only weeks ago, the DMZ seemed a symbol of progress toward peace as Trump stepped across into North Korea with his buddy Kim Jong Un. Now we see a North Korean soldier coming the other way through a minefield.

We should make no mistake. We’re at least as close to the razor’s edge of war as to the brink of peace.

Source: https://www.thedailybeast.com/after-north-korea-missile-launches-east-asia-is-on-the-razors-edge

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JAKARTA, Indonesia — Diplomats from the United States and North Korea alternately shook hands and lobbed critiques at one another Saturday, in what appeared to be another roadblock in the path to negotiations aimed at ending Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.

In a day of head-snapping twists of tone at the annual conference of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Singapore, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Russia not to help North Korea cheat on U.N. sanctions that Moscow had voted for.

Then, just a few short hours later, Pompeo and North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho approached each other for a public handshake and exchanged promising pleasantries with big smiles. According to State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, Pompeo suggested they would talk soon, and Ri agreed, adding, “There are many productive conversations to be had.”

Nauert said that beyond the brief exchange at the group photo, Pompeo and Ri did not have a more formal meeting. Given where the United States and North Korea were a year ago, Nauert said, “This is a step in the right direction.”

As the two top diplomats returned to their seats, Sung Kim, the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, approached Ri and handed him a white envelope bearing a letter from President Trump to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

While the full contents were unknown, Pompeo tweeted later Saturday that the letter was Trump’s reply to a missive the president received from Kim last week, which White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Saunders characterized as a “follow-up” to their June summit in Singapore. In his own tweet, Trump described Kim’s letter as “nice,” breezily adding, “I look forward to seeing you soon!”

But things at the Singapore conference went downhill after Pompeo departed for Indonesia: Ri waited until then to deliver a sharp attack on the United States in remarks at the forum.

Though he said the North Korean government remains committed to a joint statement that followed a summit between Trump and Kim in June, Ri criticized the White House for insisting on maintaining sanctions until disarmament is complete and demanded “confidence-building” measures along the way.

“What is alarming, however, is the insistent moves manifested within the U.S. to go back to the old, far from its leader’s intention,” Ri said.

The divergent rhetoric underscored the difficulties that have hampered previous attempts to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear and missile programs. It also was reminiscent of Pompeo’s last visit to North Korea in July, when he declared the meetings “productive” but North Korea hours later would say the U.S. approach was “gangster-like.”

Previous negotiators have seen similar rapid-fire mood swings from Pyongyang. This is just North Korea’s style of negotiating and indicates any talks would probably take many months, if not years.

Pompeo has acknowledged talks will be difficult and drawn out, but he said Saturday that he remains optimistic that eventually the two sides can reach a deal to end the North’s nuclear weapons program.

Pyongyang’s willingness to truly denuclearize has come into question lately. A confidential report by the United Nations, shown to reporters Friday, says North Korea has violated numerous U.N. Security Council sanctions by continuing to develop its nuclear weapons and missile programs. Also last week came news reports that intelligence agencies believe the North is developing new missiles.

[U.S. spy agencies: North Korea is working on new missiles]

Much of the discord stems from differences in how Washington and Pyongyang view the pace of rewards to North Korea if it proceeds dismantling its weapons programs. Pompeo has insisted that the United States expects total denuclearization and that sanctions will remain in place until the process is complete. North Korea, officially named the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), has demanded a phased approach, with sanctions eased in several steps as a show of goodwill.

“Confidence is not a sentiment to be cultivated overnight,” Ri said in his remarks after Pompeo’s departure. “In order to build full confidence between the DPRK and the U.S., it is essential for both sides to take simultaneous actions and phased steps to do what is possible one after another.”

Ri added: “Only when the U.S. ensures that we feel comfortable with and come close to it will we be able to open our minds to the U.S. and show it in action.”

An administration official brushed off the remarks as growing pains in a still-developing relationship that has been wobbly at times.

“This is to be expected,” said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the criticism frankly. “We’re building a relationship with North Korea after years of difficult relations.”

Pompeo used the ASEAN conference to hold meetings with diplomats from more than two dozen countries to urge their governments to keep up the economic pressure on Pyongyang until its nuclear weapons program is irreversibly dismantled.

At a news conference, Pompeo noted reports that Russia was entering into joint ventures with companies in the North and granted new work permits to North Korean guest workers. He said the United States considers the reports, first published in the Wall Street Journal, to be accurate and as such would violate a U.N. Security Council resolution restricting trade with North Korea.

“I want to remind every nation that has supported these resolutions that this is a serious issue and something that we will discuss with Moscow,” he said.

“We expect the Russians and all countries to abide by the U.N. Security Council resolutions and enforce sanctions on North Korea. Any violation that detracts from the world’s goal of finally, fully denuclearizing North Korea would be something that America would take very seriously.”

Despite the carping, the tone was considered a major improvement over last year, when the buzz of the ASEAN meeting was whether Pompeo’s predecessor, Rex Tillerson, would even be in the same room with North Korea’s foreign minister.

This year, in his first visit as secretary of state, Pompeo has been at the forefront of talks with North Korea aimed at its eventual denuclearization.

“From my meetings here, the world is united in seeing this achieved,” Pompeo told reporters. “There has not been single country that hasn’t thanked the United States for its efforts in moving the world toward the possibility of achieving this. . . . I’m optimistic that we will get this done in the timeline, and the world will celebrate what the U.N. Security Council has demanded.”

That view seemed to be supported by a communique expected from the ASEAN diplomats, who, along with representatives of Japan and South Korea, urged Washington and Pyongyang to “continue working towards the realization of lasting peace and stability on a denuclearized Korean Peninsula,” according to a draft seen by the Associated Press.

Earlier Saturday, Pompeo suggested that the timeline for denuclearization will be determined in large part by North Korea’s mercurial leader.

“The ultimate timeline for denuclearization will be set by Chairman Kim, at least in part,” he said in an interview with Channel NewsAsia. “The decision is his. He made a commitment, and we’re very hopeful that over the coming weeks and months we can make substantial progress towards that and put the North Korean people on a trajectory towards a brighter future very quickly.”

Pompeo started the morning with a rosy tweet, saying he had had productive discussions on North Korea with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. China is responsible for the lion’s share of trade across North Korea’s border.

“Our cooperation,” he tweeted, “. . . sends a strong signal to the region that, despite differences, #China and the US can work together to get important work done.”

[China is still North Korea’s most important ally]

Despite the United States’ growing trade war with China, there was a palpable sense of relief that the tensions of last year appeared to have eased considerably.

The Southeast Asian region is “quite happy to see how the events on the Korean Peninsula are turning out, especially compared to last year, which was a really worrying time,” said Dino Patti Djalal, a former Indonesian ambassador to the United States who led a delegation to Pyongyang for informal talks. “There was a real threat of clashes and talk of preemptive strikes.”

Things are “exceptionally much better” now, he added, and the region “welcomes this development and thinks the momentum should be kept.”

Apart from urging continued support for being tough on Pyongyang, Pompeo’s three-day trip to Asia is part of a U.S. effort to boost trade ties with the region, despite the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement.

Pompeo pledged on Saturday to provide nearly $300 million in new security funding for Southeast Asia. He said it would be used to strengthen maritime security, develop humanitarian assistance and peacekeeping capabilities, and counter “transnational threats.”

On Monday, Pompeo said the United States would invest $113 million in technology, energy and infrastructure initiatives in the region as part of what he characterized as “a down payment on a new era of U.S. economic commitment to the region.”

Read more:

Despite reports to the contrary, Trump says he’s ‘very happy’ with North Korea

Pompeo pushes back against North Korea’s ‘gangster-like’ criticism

U.S. hopes to resume joint field operations with North Korea to find war remains

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/pompeo-cautions-russia-not-to-violate-un-sanctions-on-north-korea/2018/08/04/022afc2c-97a6-11e8-80e1-00e80e1fdf43_story.html?noredirect=on

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FILE PHOTO: North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho walks to speak to the media outside the Millennium hotel New York, U.S., September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Shannon StapletonREUTERS

Source:  https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2018-03-15/china-says-north-korean-foreign-minister-on-his-way-to-sweden

The post China Says North Korean Foreign Minister on His Way to Sweden first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

“The foreign minister is very well aware of the intentions of our supreme leader, so I think you should take his words literally,” Ri Yong Pil, a senior diplomat in North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, told the network.

North Korea “has always brought its words into action,” an irritated Ri added.

During a visit to New York for the UN General Assembly last month, Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho raised the possibility that the rogue regime could test a powerful hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean.

The threat came hours after President Trump threatened during a speech at the United nations to “totally destroy” North Korea.

The rogue state carried out the strongest of its six nuclear tests in early September, claiming to have used an H-bomb. The UN responded by imposing a fresh round of sanctions on the country.

Ri also implied that diplomatic channels between the two countries were nonexistent, despite Secretary of State Rex Tillerson claiming they are still open.

“The US is talking about a military option and even practicing military moves. They’re pressuring us on all fronts with sanctions. If you think this will lead to diplomacy, you’re deeply mistaken,” Ri said, according to CNN.

Last week, CIA chief Mike Pompeo said North Korea could be only months away from gaining the ability to hit the US with nuclear weapons.

According to experts, an atmospheric test would be a way of demonstrating that capability. All of the hermit kingdom’s previous nuclear tests have been conducted underground.

Trump, who will visit Asia next week, declined to say Wednesday whether he would visit the Korean peninsula’s demilitarized zone.

“I’d rather not say, but you’ll be surprised,” Trump said, Reuters reported.

Source: http://nypost.com/2017/10/26/north-korea-doubles-down-on-threat-to-test-nukes-over-pacific/

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