Tag: North Korea

Wanna Talk With North Korea

We have had a back and forth with the two sillies that control NK and the US….Kim has made some deep statements of rebellion towards Trump……and yet Trump still looks for ways that they can come to terms for more talks….

The Trump administration has continued to seek contact with North Korea in an effort to reinstate working-level talks to discuss the country’s nuclear weapons program, a senior U.S. official has said.

Robert C. O’Brien, the assistant to the U.S. president on national security affairs (APNSA), told Axios in an interview that the United States has been actively making efforts to return to working-level talks with North Korea.

The administration has “reached out to the North Koreans,” O’Brien said. “We’ve been letting them know, through various channels, that we would like to get those [negotiations] back on track and to implement Chairman Kim’s commitment” to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” he added.

Working-level talks between the two sides have not resumed since an attempt in October 2019 when U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen E. Biegun met Kim Myong Gil, North Korea’s appointed negotiator, in Stockholm, Sweden.

https://thediplomat.com/2020/01/us-official-confirms-efforts-to-restore-working-level-talks-with-north-korea/

Seriously?

Wants to have talks with a country that has nukes already but will not have talks with a nation that is in search of nukes…..a reversed logic?

I do not know of what technique this is other than to use the Chaos Method….or maybe we should call it the “Pasta Method”

Look for further claims and further international situations….news will be needed to change the discourse in the very near future.

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

North Korea At Year’s End

It seems that I may have told a fib when I said I would post only drafts for the rest of this year…..my bad.

This report has to be posted because of the implications for the coming year……..

We all know of the song and dance, the dog and pony show that Trump and Kim have given the world this year……well it has gotten more threatening as 2019 comes to an end….

The start of the year 2020—or, in North Korea, the year 109—is approaching and observers fear Kim Jong Un might be planning something big. According to North Korean state media, the dictator told a meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party Central Committee Sunday that North Korea needs to “take positive and offensive measures” to “fully ensure the sovereignty and security of the country, as required by the present situation,” the BBC reports. The AP notes that in the Korean-language report in state media, Kim’s words were given as “active and offensive measures.” The ominous-sounding “Christmas gift” Kim promised the US never materialized, but he has said the end of this year is the deadline for Washington to make major concessions in nuclear talks.

Analysts suspect Kim might use either the Central Committee meeting, which continues Monday, or his New Year’s Day address to announce that he has decided to end the moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests. “By ‘positive and offensive measures,’ they might mean highly provocative action against the United States and also South Korea,” Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, tells Reuters. White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien said Sunday that the US has “many tools in its toolkit” to deal with a resumption of nuclear testing. “If Kim “takes that approach we’ll be extraordinarily disappointed and we’ll demonstrate that disappointment,” he said.

What does “extraordinarily disappointed” mean?

This continues to be based on weeks of speculation of a Christmas surprise coming out of North Korea, and several days after Christmas, with no signs of anything being done, US officials are still threatening North Korea in case anything ever happens.

O’Brien didn’t say what the US would actually do, but has “tools in its tool kit” to do something if they want to, and that they’ll want to in response to tests which, again, were only mentioned in North Korean state media offhand once, and then for weeks in US media as a foregone conclusion that they were going to happen.

For now, there is no reason to expect North Korea is on the verge of any sort of test, except for all the talking about it that the media has been doing. Now, with media frenzy being coupled with US threats, there are still no signs what North Korea’s plans are, if any.

What a way to begin a new year….with threats.

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

More On North Korea

The war of words and insult has erupted again between Kim and Trump……my recent post on NK…..https://lobotero.com/2019/12/09/north-korea-us-the-way-it-has-always-been/

We all have heard and some of the bloggers keep repeating the humanitarian horror stories about life within the borders of NK…..and yet the US went to the UN to block needed legislation…..

While the US was initially one of the countries that wanted a UN Security Council meeting on North Korea’s human rights situation, the Trump Administration has changed its mind, and is now refusing to sign the authorization, effectively blocking the meeting.

Officials are not saying why they decided to block the UN meeting, but North Korea warned last week that they would view the meeting as a “provocation,” and this gives the appearance that the US is trying to keep them placated.

The State Department took their comments a different way, saying they still support a meeting that would be a comprehensive review of North Korea’s missile firing since May, even though President Trump has long insisted he didn’t object to those tests. That meeting is set for Wednesday.

The State Department is suggesting that recent missile launches were an “escalatory DPRK provocation,” and it seems either way the US is going to use a UN Security Council meeting to rail against North Korea.

Though some speculated blocking the human rights meeting was a sign that the US had not given up on nuclear talks, they seem to be continuing to avoid negotiating directly with North Korea.

(antiwar.com)

This action the US is why I say for the world to come into the 21st century we need to abolish the permanent status of the 5 major powers on the UNSC…….of which the US is one.

Not to worry this is not the last report you will read the US “special” relationship that Trump has with Kim.

Watch This Blog!

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

North Korea/US–The Way It Has Always Been

NK and the US were always international adversaries and then Trump came along with his style of foreign policy (I am still trying to decipher just what the Hell that style is all about) and there was the appearance of a thaw in the relations with the two countries and that lasted for about 2 years and now the war of words and insults appears to be ready to fire up once again…….

Then just last week NK’s rhetoric to pick up when he promised a “Christmas gift” for the US……https://lobotero.com/2019/12/04/a-north-korean-christmas-gift/

But the two kids in the sand pile are back to the name calling….

With a year-end deadline for resuming talks fast approaching, the US and North Korea don’t appear to have any solid idea how they could get back to successful negotiations. They have, however, gotten really good at calling each other names.

President Trump is back to firing off screeds about “Rocket Man” Kim Jong Un, while claiming that he, Trump, may be Kim’s only friend on the entire planet, and also threatened to further isolate him.

North Korea responded by saying Kim was “displeased with the undesirable remark,” and that Trump is showing “the senility of a dotard.”

This calls back to the hostility between the US and North Korean officials in 2017, when both were trading name-calling as a matter of course, and did so as seemingly the only bilateral engagement

(antiwar.com)

Dotard?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a dotard as “a person whose mental faculties are impaired, specifically, a person whose intellect or understanding is impaired in old age”.

The foreign ministry said if Mr Trump was confrontational, it “must really be diagnosed as the relapse of the dotage of a dotard”.

The North first called Mr Trump a dotard, meaning old and weak, in 2017.

It is the first time in over a year that Pyongyang has been openly critical of Donald Trump, the BBC’s Korea correspondent Laura Bicker said

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50682235

Here we go again……will this lead to tough talk then love chat and then a meeting?

We have seen this film before…..and it lad to nothing but a photo op.

But is there some sort of plan about the handling of NK?

The Neocons and the M-IC have a plan in waiting.

North Korea’s nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons represent a grave threat to the United States and its allies. To convince North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to relinquish these weapons, the Trump administration initiated a “maximum pressure” campaign. This effort imposed significant economic costs on North Korea and incentivized Kim to come to the negotiating table. So far, however, this pressure has been insufficient to persuade him to denuclearize.

It is certainly possible that no level of pressure will persuade Kim to change course. But there is a need to test that proposition. The United States and its partners have not yet implemented a more aggressive and comprehensive maximum pressure campaign that targets Kim’s cost-benefit analysis. Such a campaign likely represents the only way to denuclearize North Korea without resorting to war.1

This monograph proposes that the United States, working with its allies and partners, implement a “Plan B” to drive Kim to relinquish his nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Such a campaign must integrate all tools of national power, including diplomacy, military, cyber, sanctions, and information and influence activities.

Maximum Pressure 2.0

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

A North Korean “Christmas Gift”

Trump’s bromance with Kim is not going the way that would lead us to believe that all is well with a guy that Trump stated that he loves…..the bromance is waning and waning badly….

Kim has even promised a “Christmas Gift” for the US….

North Korea says the US could be in for an unpleasant Christmas gift unless denuclearization talks move forward. The veiled threat came Tuesday as Pyongyang denounced little progress in discussions with Washington, reports CNBC. Calls for a “sustained and substantial dialogue” are “nothing but a foolish trick” serving the US, which is in “a tight corner” owing to its current “political situation” and upcoming election, KCNA quotes Ri Thae Song, vice foreign minister in charge of US affairs, as saying. North Korea “has heard more than enough dialogue” and “no one will lend an ear to the US any longer.” Pointing to a year-end deadline for proposals, Ri adds “it is entirely up to the US what Christmas gift it will select to get.”

The Washington Post sees “a veiled threat to resume long-range missile tests”—something the North has previously done on a US holiday. Kim Jung Un described the regime’s first test of an ICBM on Independence Day 2017 as a “gift package” for the US. This year, the North is believed to have fired two short-range projectiles from a “super-large” multiple rocket launcher on Thanksgiving. “He definitely likes sending up rockets … That’s why I call him Rocket Man,” Trump said, reviving his nickname for Kim, while meeting with NATO leaders in London on Tuesday, per the Hill. “I have confidence in him,” he added before noting denuclearization may or “may not” work out. “In the meantime, we still have peace,” Trump said. And “if I weren’t president, you’d be in a war right now in Asia.”

It was the month before Christmas and all over the planet…

War rages and civilian die….

Kim smiles and promises…..

A special gift for our dear leader….

Will we return to the days of insulting Tweets by the two dictators trying to our Tweet the other?

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

North Korea–A Year Of Chaos

With the brouhaha going on in DC over whether to impeach or not the news from around the world gets very little attention….like the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

So much has happened while you were otherwise diverted…..https://lobotero.com/2019/11/20/north-korea-has-lost-that-loving-feeling/

More has happened in the last couple of weeks…..

The North and the South have been pushing agsainst one another….

Following South Korea opening fire on a North Korean merchant ship to chase it out of contested waters, North Korea has test fired its rocket launchers again on the east cost, firing two projectiles into the sea.

North Korea has repeatedly test fired their multiple rocket launcher system in recent months, though this is the first such test in November. South Korea condemned the test, saying they are stoking military tensions.

The test comes just a little over a month before the deadline between US and North Korea to get negotiations going again, and is likely to be seen as a reminder of that fact. New talks are seen as unlikely, with the US refusing to entertain new positions where North Korea gets anything in return for disarmament.

The US has so far not objected to the tests of rockets, with President Trump saying he doesn’t consider it a problem at all. North Korea has a massive amount of artillery to retaliate in the case of a US-South Korean attack, and has been trying to add rockets to that arsenal.

(antiwar.com)

Then the news came out that North Korea will soon deploy a “super missile launcher”…..

North Korean state media reported on the most recent test-firing of its “super-large” multiple rocket launcher, saying it was the “final review.” Since it was apparently successful it is expected there will be a deployment soon.

South Korea expressed ‘strong regret’ over the test, but doesn’t appear to be intent on doing anything beyond that. President Trump has not commented, but in the past expressed ambivalence about tests of short-range rockets.

North Korea has established its deterrence to attack around massive amounts of artillery aimed at South Korea, and the rocket launchers will even further add to their ability to project strikes if a fight begins.

Japanese PM Abe Shinzo condemned the North Korean tests, leading North Korea to mock him as “the most stupid man ever known in history” who can’t tell the difference between rocket systems and a missile.

Abe was complaining about ballistic missile tests, which North Korea hasn’t done in some time. The North Korean statement warned that “Abe may seewhat a real ballistic missile is in the not distant future and under his nose.”
(antiwar.com)

I have said many times that as a trained analyst I do not see whatever policies it is that Trump has in mind for the Korean Peninsula….all I see is chaos but just in case there is some sort of policy lurking just below the BS I think time is ran out for the implementation…..

North Korea has said the US has until the end of the year to come up with a new proposal to revive stalled diplomatic engagement between the two nations. US officials have similarly warned North Korea that time is running out, albeit without specific deadlines.

As a practical matter, these deadlines are all artificial and arbitrary, and the nations could engage whenever they want to. At the same time, many months have gone by without any progress, and the process is plainly growing stale for it.

It isn’t even that there are a slew of disagreements holding things up. Rather, there is a very specific issue: North Korea wants something in return for denuclearization, and the US just keeps demanding they denuclearize unconditionally, with hints they might get something in return eventually.

This had led to months of reiterating this position, boiling down to North Korea saying the US needs to offer a new approach, and no sign the US is even considering anything of the sort.

Again, the US could come forward with a proposal at any time, but the longer they ignore this one straightforward obstacle, the more it gives the appearance that the administration is content to let North Korea talks die on the vine, or would rather do that than make any concessions.

(antiwar.com)

The end of the year is quickly approaching…..what will the New one bring us in the form of the situation on the Peninsula?

Japan braces for the possibility of a rocket attack……

the North insisted it was testing a “super-large multiple-rocket launcher”.

On Saturday, state media said Japan “may see what a real ballistic missile is in the not distant future”.

North Korea is banned from firing ballistic missiles under UN Security Council resolutions.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50613051

The chaos of 2019 will not be any better in 2020…..

“Imagine another two months of North Korean refusal to talk twinned with escalating insults directed at the president. Then an ICBM launch, with hints of more to come. At which point the president feels betrayed. Having personally embraced Kim, the president then personally feels the latter’s rejection. So Trump pens the opposite of a love letter to the Supreme Leader, with threats rather than concessions offered. To further increase the pressure, the North schedules a nuclear test. Democrats erupt with brutal criticism of the president, arguing that his weakness has triggered the latest crisis.”

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/korea-watch/2020-could-bring-us-north-korea-crisis-here-how-it-could-unfold-100102

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

North Korea Has Lost That Loving Feeling

Trump and Kim of North Korea have had a love hate relationship for a coupe of years…..at first Trump talked tough (his usual BS) and then after the exchange of niceties he “fell in love” with Kim (his words not mine)……

After a success then there was a mis-start and then the cooling of the budding relationship….but now Kim has done all he can to break any ties that he has with Trump……

North Korea took a diplomatic shot at President Trump on Monday while rejecting the idea of another meeting. After a Trump tweet suggested the two sides would again get together—”see you soon!” he wrote—a diplomat from North Korea said thanks, but no thanks. The North, he said, isn’t interested in a meeting that results only in bragging points for Trump. “The US only seeks to earn time, pretending it has made progress in settling the issue of the Korean Peninsula,” said diplomat Kim Kye Gwan, per the AP. “As we have got nothing in return, we will no longer gift the US president with something he can boast of.”

The response came after the two sides found some common ground in dissing Joe Biden, notes the Wall Street Journal. After the North likened Biden to a “rabid dog,” Trump responded with a backhanded compliment. “Mr. Chairman, Joe Biden may be Sleepy and Very Slow, but he is not a ‘rabid dog,'” Trump wrote. “He is actually somewhat better than that, but I am the only one who can get you where you have to be. You should act quickly, get the deal done. See you soon!” His reference to “the deal” is about the stalled nuclear talks between the two nations.

The lack of the US giving North Korea anything in return is a big reason why talks haven’t made progress in some time. The US has expressed a willingness for more talks, but has shown no sign they’ll let North Korea get sanctions relief or anything in return.

Though there had been some talk of another summit in December, North Korea seems to be backing away from that unless the US commits to taking a different approach from the previous meetings, which were largely done with an eye toward global media praise.

Looks like the “bromance” has run its course and now we will return to the tough talk and threats……

No way to run a foreign policy.

I read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”