US position on North Korean sanctions unchanged as Koreas push railway project A train bound from South Korea heads to Jejin Station in Goseong County in Gangwon Province in May 2007 after passing the military demarcation line that divides South and North Korea during a test of the connecting section between Gyeongui Line and Donghae Line. Korea Times fileThe United States has not changed its position that sanctions on North Korea must remain in full force despite the two Koreas' push to reconnect railways and roads across their border, a U.S. government spokesperson said Wednesday.South Korea and North Korea plan to hold a groundbreaking ceremony between late November and early December to reconnect and modernize railways and roads along their eastern and western coasts.The move comes amid rapid rapprochement between the Koreas, sparking concern in the U.S. that the delivery of supplies to the North could undermine sanctions placed on the regime for its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs."Our position has not changed," Katina Adams, the spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, said in response to a Yonhap query. "The United States and our alliesOct 25, 2018
Businesspeople to visit Gaeseong next week By Kim Bo-eunA group of businesspeople who had operations at the now-stalled inter-Korean industrial complex in the North Korean border city of Gaeseong will visit there next week.They will inspect production facilities there, South Korean officials said Wednesday. However, speculation is rampant that their visit is a step toward reopening the complex.The issue could create a rift between Seoul and Washington, which have been reportedly at odds over maintaining sanctions against Pyongyang. The U.S. has insisted reopening the complex would violate international sanctions.The visit will be the first since South Korea shut down the complex in February 2016, due to the North's missile and nuclear provocations. Since then, the businesspeople have filed six requests for visits, including three this year _ the unification ministry has turned all of them down.The ministry's approval this time is seen as reflecting the current circumstances in which economic cooperation with the North has seemingly become more viable. The ministry, however, said the visit was not related to resuming operationOct 24, 2018By Kim Bo-eun
'North Korea ready to expand internet access' North Korean students are using computer learning programs at the Pyongyang Sci-Tech Complex on Oct. 4. Joint Press CorpsBy Jung Da-minNorth Korea is a country where residents do not have free access to the internet, but the country's science-priority policies are leading to an expansion in the number of new users.On Aug. 31, the Korean Society for Internet Information (KSII), a South Korean institute focusing on information technology, published a paper written by five North Korean scholars, titled “Improved Hybrid Symbiotic Organism Search Task-Scheduling Algorithm for Cloud Computing,” on its website.This was the first time that a paper by North Korean scholars was published in a South Korean journal. The paper deals with how to speed up the processing of file storage in an internet-connected computer cloud through the latest artificial intelligence techniques.The academy told KBS that they received the article from the North through email, and North Korean scholars expressed their hope for joint inter-Korean research projects in the field of information technology (ITOct 24, 2018
Seoul cancels own military training By Lee Min-hyungSeoul is on track to reduce or cancel planned military drills in line with the ongoing inter-Korean tension-easing despite concerns the move may weaken defense readiness here.Last week, the Pentagon said Washington and Seoul will suspend their upcoming joint air defense exercise, Vigilant Ace, scheduled to take place in December, as part of a bargaining chip for North Korea to speed up its denuclearization.The decision came amid the rare peace gesture from Pyongyang which has in recent months urged Seoul and Washington to stop their joint annual drills. The regime has viewed such joint drills as a potential security threat, calling it the biggest stumbling block to prevent inter-Korean reconciliation.Aside from the Seoul-Washington joint drills, South Korea has also decided to cancel its own military training. The biannual drill, taking place on the South's East Sea area, was supposed to take place next month, but the military decided to cancel it following an inter-Korean military agreement last month.Under the agreement, South Korea set a buffer zone spanning 80 kilOct 24, 2018By Lee Min-hyung
Two Koreas to create joint military committee By Lee Min-hyungSouth Korea will propose to North Korea that the envisioned inter-Korean military committee be headed by vice minister-level officials from both sides in an effort to prevent possible border conflicts.In September, the two Koreas agreed to launch a joint military committee to fulfill a series of inter-Korean military agreements signed during a summit in Pyongyang between President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.Details of the launch of the committee are expected to be discussed during the planned inter-Korean general-level military dialogue on Friday.According to the defense ministry here, Seoul plans to propose Vice Defense Minister Suh Choo-suk as the head of the committee on its side, and expects the North's Army General So Hong-chan, first vice minister of the regime's People's Armed Forces, to lead the northern side of the committee.The Ministry of National Defense said details will be refined during the upcoming military dialogue.On Wednesday, Suh attended a two-day defense forum in Beijing, and discussed the security situation on the Korean PenOct 24, 2018By Lee Min-hyung
South Korean business people to visit now-suspended factory park in North Korea: official South Korean business people who ran factories in the Kaesong Industrial Complex are pushing to visit the now-suspended industrial park in the North Korean border town next week at the earliest, a government official said Wednesday.Baek Tae-hyun, a spokesman of the Ministry of Unification, said that the Seoul government is discussing with North Korea details of the South Korean business owners' visit to Kaesong."The business owners need to visit the Kaesong Industrial Complex to protect their property rights and inspect their assets. Discussions with the North are still underway, and the schedule has yet to be fixed," Baek said in a media briefing.In this regard, ministry officials said about 150 business people are expected to make single-day trips to Kaesong in small groups for three days starting Oct. 31. Baek then stressed that the business owners' planned visit to Kaesong is only aimed at protecting their property rights and has nothing to do with the resumption of the industrial park.He explained that the Kaesong visit has been pushed in accordance with an inter-Korean sumOct 24, 2018
South Korea seeks high-profile joint military committee with North Korea South Korea's defense ministry plans to propose to North Korea that vice minister-level officials head a joint military committee to be formed to carry out a set of tension reduction measures agreed to at last month's summit, officials said Wednesday.The South will put forward details of its offer, including the level of the co-chair of the envisioned panel, when their Army generals meet each other at Panmunjom on Friday."(We) will discuss the formation and operation of the joint military committee during the general-level talks," the ministry official said.The committee would be in charge of overseeing the implementation of a set of tension-reducing measures in the Sept. 19 Comprehensive Military Agreement (CMA).The South will recommend Vice Defense Minister Suh Choo-suk as its top delegate to the committee. It hopes that his counterpart will be Army Gen. So Hong-chan, first vice minister of the People's Armed Forces.It remains uncertain whether the North will choose So, as he also serves as director of the military's general logistics department, a post not directly related to miliOct 24, 2018
UN expert says North Korea's rights abysmal despite summits North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's summits with the presidents of South Korea and the United States have not changed his country's abysmal human rights record, the U.N. independent investigator on human rights in the isolated Asian nation said Tuesday. Speaking at a news conference, Tomas Ojea Quintana said he is ``very concerned'' that statements following Kim's meetings with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump made no mention of human rights in North Korea. He pointed to reports of ``systematic, widespread abuses'' of human rights and a U.N. commission of inquiry's findings in 2014 that possible crimes against humanity have been committed in North Korea. ``The human rights situation at the moment, at the moment, has not changed,'' Quintana said. Quintana said dealing with North Korea's nuclear arsenal is extremely important for humanity, and he strongly supported rapprochement between the two Koreas and talks with the U.S. that have decreased tensions and improved prospects for peace. But he stressed that North Korea's human riOct 24, 2018
Voyage home from North Korea Pyongyang Station seen on Sept. 19 / Image by Jon Dunbar This is the third in a three-part series about travel in North Korea.By Jon DunbarWhere are you if, to go home, you have to travel in the opposite direction?This is the story of how the 195-kilometer distance from Pyongyang to Seoul became a 1,022-kilometer journey taking 27 hours, four trains, three buses, one taxi, one random Chinese couple's car, one airplane, two border crossings and six beers. Additionally, I was dressed in North Korean clothes the whole way. I visited the tailor at the Yanggakdo Hotel in Pyongyang, to make my “Yanggakdo leisure suit.” Ever since my 2010 visit, I wanted to get a North Korean suit made. You might be thinking of a severe black high-collared “Mao suit” befitting an authoritarian look. But I had vivid memories of the leisure suit. North Korean men wearing short-sleeved suits, something I'd never seen before which struck me as humble and unpretentious.The morning of my departuOct 23, 2018By Jon Dunbar
Moon ratifies Pyongyang Declaration President Moon Jae-in presides over a Cabinet meeting held in Cheong Wa Dae, Tuesday. YonhapBy Kim Yoo-chulPresident Moon Jae-in ratified an agreement signed between him and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at their third summit in Pyongyang last month. “Moon ratified the Pyongyang Joint Declaration. An official announcement will soon follow,” a Cheong Wa Dae official said.As a procedural step for the ratification, the Cabinet earlier approved the declaration, as well as a separate inter-Korean military agreement reached at the summit. The move comes after the Ministry of Government Legislation concluded that obtaining the National Assembly's consent for ratification of the two agreements was not necessary as a broader inter-Korean agreement, the Panmunjom Declaration reached at the first Moon-Kim summit in April, is undergoing the Assembly ratification process.The conservative parties sharply criticized the move, claiming Moon was backtracking on his earlier pledge to seek parliamentary consent for inter-Korean deals.However, the presidential office said the ratification Oct 23, 2018By Kim Yoo-chul
