Biegun visits Seoul for talks on bilateral alliance, North Korea Stephen Biegun, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State and Special Representative for North Korea / Korea Times fileU.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun arrived in Seoul on Tuesday for talks with South Korean officials on the bilateral alliance and the stalled nuclear negotiations with North Korea. Biegun landed aboard a chartered plane at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul, at about 4:15 p.m., officials said.Among his delegation were Alex Wong, deputy assistant secretary of state for North Korea, and Allison Hooker, senior director for Asian affairs at the White House's National Security Council, according to diplomatic sources. His four-day trip comes amid concern that North Korea could stage provocations to test the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden that has yet to unveil its detailed policy on the communist state. The trip is expected to be his last visit to Seoul as the No. 2 American diplomat and the U.S. envoy for North Korea under the Donald Trump administration that ends its four-year term early next year. On Wednesday, Biegun Dec 8, 2020
North Korea designated again as violator of religious freedom Students visit the statues of late North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il on Mansu Hill to pay their respects on the occasion of the 74th founding anniversary of the Workers' Party of Korea on Oct. 10, 2019. AFPThe United States on Monday renewed its designation of North Korea as one of the state violators of religious freedom.It marks the 19th consecutive year the North has been named a state violator of religious freedom."Religious freedom is an unalienable right, and the bedrock upon which free societies are built and flourish. Today, the United States ― a nation founded by those fleeing religious persecution, as the recent Commission on Unalienable Rights report noted ― once again took action to defend those who simply want to exercise this essential freedom," U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a released statement.North Korea and nine other states were designated "countries of particular concern" under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 for "engaging in or tolerating systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom," according to theDec 8, 2020
Bill banning anti-North Korea leaflets faces backlash Police officers attempt to retrieve a balloon bearing an anti-North Korea banner from a mountain river in Hongcheon, Gangwon Province, June 23, as the balloon fell there after being launched a day before in the border town of Paju by a Seoul-based organization of North Korean defectors. / YonhapBy Jun Ji-hyeThe ruling Democratic Party of Korea's push for passage of a bill to criminalize the sending of propaganda leaflets and other items from South Korea into North Korea is facing backlash from an international organization dedicated to human rights, as well as from domestic civic groups, for what they claimed is a violation of freedom of expression.Human Rights Watch, the New York-based organization conducting systematic investigations of human rights abuses around the world, said Monday that the proposed law would also make engaging in humanitarianism and human rights activism a criminal offense. “The South Korean government seems more interested in keeping North Korea's Kim Jong-un happy than letting its own citizens exercise their basic rights on behalf of their northern neiDec 7, 2020By Jun Ji-hye
North Korea publicly executes 2 people for quarantine violations Health workers disinfect a public building in North Korea's northeastern city of Tanchon in South Hamgyong Province, Dec. 5. YonhapBy Yi Whan-wooNorth Korea publicly executed a smuggler for violating the COVID-19 quarantine measures, according to Radio Free Asia (RFA).This can be interpreted as an indication that the reclusive regime, despite repeated claims it has zero COVID-19 infections, is concerned about the spread of the deadly virus.The Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party elevated the emergency quarantine measures to “ultra-high-level emergency quarantine measures,” the RFA said last week, citing a source in the North.The committee also imposed a series of ever harsher measures recently, with fear that frequent border crossers could bring the virus back with them from China.Still, the smugglers continued bringing Chinese goods into North Korea.“There's been a lot of contact with people on the other side of the border, including a lot of smuggling,” the source said.A firing squad reportedly executed a smuggler in his 50s in front of local resiDec 7, 2020By Yi Whan-woo
North Korea to convene Supreme People's Assembly meeting in late January North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. YonhapNorth Korea will convene a Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) meeting in late January, its state media reported Saturday.The SPA usually meets once a year in April to rubber-stamp decisions by the ruling Workers' Party. The North has also used SPA sessions as a major platform to unveil key policy changes or messages."The 4th Session of the 14th Supreme People's Assembly of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea will be convened in Pyongyang late in January," the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.The decision was made at a plenary meeting of the presidium of the SPA, Friday, the KCNA added.The meeting is expected to come after the North holds a rare party congress in early January for the first time in four years.Pyongyang is likely to unveil a new five-year economic development plan at the party congress, and make decisions on laws and budgets at the SPA meeting as a follow-up to the plan.Meanwhile, the KCNA said several agenda items were passed at a plenary meeting, Friday, including those on ideology, achievements in technology,Dec 5, 2020
US military families in South Korea? Top US general wants policy change U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley gives remarks during the 19th annual 911 observance ceremony at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., Sept. 11, 2020. ReutersThe top U.S. general on Thursday suggested he favored an overhaul of a longstanding military policy that sends thousands of family members to live with forces deployed overseas in select locations including South Korea and Bahrain.Any sudden decision to stop sending U.S. military families to South Korea, home to 28,500 troops, could stoke anxiety across the border in North Korea, which would likely see it as increasing American readiness for conflict.Similarly, any abrupt move to pull relatives of U.S. military members from Bahrain, site of the U.S. Navy's Middle East headquarters, would raise concerns in nearby Iran.U.S. Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it was time for a more methodical, "hard look" globally at the practice of sending families of servicemembers abroad, where they could be danger."If we were ever to have a conflict with Iran, those noncombatDec 4, 2020
Biden will have to make early decision on North Korea: adviser U.S. President-elect Joe Biden points to Wally Adeyemo as he announces nominees and appointees to serve on his economic policy team at his transition headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, U.S., Dec. 1, 2020. ReutersThe incoming U.S. administration will have to make an early decision on what approach it will take with North Korea and not repeat the delay of the Obama era, a former U.S. official who has advised President-elect Joe Biden said on Wednesday.Kurt Campbell, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia under President Barack Obama and seen as a contender for a senior position under Biden, said the administration he had served in began with a "rather prolonged period of study" on how to handle Pyongyang."One of the key challenges of Biden administration is the need to make an early decision about what to do with respect to North Korea," Campbell said.He said the period of delay during the Obama administration saw "provocative" steps by North Korea "that basically headed off any possibility of engagement."Campbell had praise for the "extraordinarily bold strokes" of outgoing President Dec 3, 2020
US says China's failure to enforce sanctions delaying North Korea denuclearization Chinese President Xi Jinping / ReutersChina's failure, if not refusal, to implement U.N. sanctions aimed at denuclearizing North Korea may be delaying the process, a senior U.S. diplomat said Tuesday.Alex Wong, deputy assistant secretary of state for North Korea, insisted China often "chooses" not to implement the sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council, of which it is a permanent member."It (China) has the resources to implement its UN sanctions obligations. But again, it chooses not to," Wong told an online seminar hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.Just over the past year, Wong noted, there were 555 occasions where ships suspected of carrying coal or other sanctionable goods from North Korea reached China with the Chinese authorities doing nothing to stop them."One thing I can say is that Beijing's failures to meet its obligations is in direct contravention of China's professed desire to support a denuclearized and peaceful Korean Peninsula. If it truly wants the latter, it must do former," he told the webinar.To helpDec 2, 2020
Summer is 'golden time' for nuke talks, inter-Korean ties: think tank gettyimagesbankBy Kang Seung-wooThe period from May to September of next year could be a “golden time” to make headway in frayed inter-Korean ties and activate the stalled denuclearization talks between North Korea and the United States, a Seoul-based think tank said Tuesday.The organization also said it also expects that the new U.S. administration to follow the joint statement issued after the Pyongyang-Washington summit in Singapore in June 2018, adding this would be a good sign for an improvement in bilateral relations. “The May-September period could be the right time to resume peace talks and reach an agreement. In addition, during the span, the Tokyo Summer Olympics are scheduled to take place, where the relevant countries could officially declare an end to the Korean War,” said Hong Min, the director of the North Korean Research Division at the Korea Institute for National Unification, during a press conference in Seoul.The Moon Jae-in administration is keen to take advantage of the Tokyo Games to provide momentum to resuscitate the stalled nuclear talDec 1, 2020By Kang Seung-woo
North Korea steps up virus control along inter-Korean border: state media In this Nov. 15, 2020, file photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attends a meeting of the ruling Workers' Party Politburo in Pyongyang. APNorth Korea has stepped up virus control measures along the inter-Korean border and at sea, state media said Sunday.The communist country is "firmly establishing a blockade wall in the areas near the border and the Military Demarcation Line and asking workers and residents to keep established system of action and immediately gain control of and respond to even the slightest abnormal situations," the Korean Central News Agency reported.The Korean Central Broadcasting Station also reported that the country is building a "blockade wall" deep inside the border area and near the Military Demarcation Line."We are strengthening our self-defensive security system and military reporting system," it said.Both outlets also reported that the country is taking strong measures in coastal areas to prevent the inflow of the coronavirus."We are responding strongly to allow no room for the transmission of the virus through sNov 29, 2020
