India - South & North Korea Thread

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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by Cain Marko »

ramana wrote:It's possible U.S. has its own Kalidasas who don't want this Korean peace. Holding military exercises while on glide path to summit is quite provocative.
What if the military exercise was announced without trump's knowledge, major egg in face for him courtesy of deep state?
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by g.sarkar »

US press says that these military exercises are annual and regularly held, and should not be stopped even before a summit or an agreement has been reached. Every such items need to be bargained for and not removed in advance. The fact is NK is a master of such games and has always come out a winner. DT and Bolton are new to this game. Most of the old Washington hands in NK affairs are gone, not that they were much better at this game.
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by Karthik S »

Times of IndiaVerified account
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#JUSTIN | VK Singh, minister of state for external affairs, meets the leadership of North Korea in Pyongyang today
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by ramana »

g.sarkar wrote:US press says that these military exercises are annual and regularly held, and should not be stopped even before a summit or an agreement has been reached. Every such items need to be bargained for and not removed in advance. The fact is NK is a master of such games and has always come out a winner. DT and Bolton are new to this game. Most of the old Washington hands in NK affairs are gone, not that they were much better at this game.
Gautam

Interesting. They did other things prior to the Olympic Games.
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by Austin »

'Our country is not Libya or Iraq': N. Korea may reconsider Trump-Kim summit if guaranteed safety

https://www.rt.com/news/426847-pyongyan ... kim-trump/
Criticizing Washington’s demands for unilateral concessions and unconditional “nuclear abandonment,” North Korea’s first vice minister of foreign affairs Kim Kye-gwan recalled the eventual fate of Libya and said such negotiations style is unacceptable for Pyongyang.

“This is not an attempt to solve the problem through dialogue but rather the manifestation ...to force the destiny of the collapsed Libya and Iraq to our dignified state,” Kim said, according to KCNA.

I doubt whether the United States really wants sound dialogue and negotiation,” Kim added, again noting that “the world is so well aware that our country is not Libya or Iraq.”


Korea Summit Press Pool/North Korea cancels talks with South, threatens to call off US talks over military drills Denouncing the ongoing “sanctions pressure offensive” against the North, he accused Washington of misrepresenting North Korea’s “generosity and bold measures as an expression of weakness.”
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by g.sarkar »

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44142046
How rival agendas threaten Trump's summit with Kim
By Laura Bicker
BBC News, Seoul
North Korea is making its demands clear. This has very little to do with military drills and more to do with the Sunday talk shows in the US during which John Bolton, President Donald Trump's national security adviser, and Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, outlined what might be on offer if Kim Jong-un gave up his nuclear weapons.
The North Koreans have been watching and they do not like what they have heard.
The whole reason the state has spent years building up a nuclear arsenal, at such a great cost, is for survival.
So to compare denuclearisation in North Korea with Libya - as John Bolton did on Sunday - is not going to offer much comfort. The regime collapsed and its leader did not survive.
Rival agendas
For months, the world has heard that North Korea is willing to denuclearise and many analysts in Korea raised their eyebrows.
They warned that there was a gap between what the US and North Korea would mean by that.
America wants North Korea to give up its weapons over a set period of time and only then will it be given economic rewards.
They also want the process to be quick, perhaps over a couple of years.
North Korea's definition of denuclearisation is very different. It has always talked in terms of the entire peninsula.
That means the US has to act too - perhaps cutting the number of troops based in South Korea or also getting rid of the nuclear umbrella it uses to protect the region. If the state is going to give up its weapons it will also want security guarantees
.....
North Korea wants the world to know that it is coming to the negotiating table from a position of strength. It may also feel that it is making all the concessions. It has suspended all missile tests and released the three US detainees. Kim Jong-un met President Moon and the pair signed a declaration, and they are about to dismantle a nuclear test site in front of international media. So to hear the Trump administration claiming credit for a deal it does not like has been a step too far. Many will say this move is straight out the Pyongyang playbook. That North Korea has a history of walking away from talks and deals. It does. It also has a lot more experience at this kind of diplomacy than the current US administration.
.....
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by Austin »

US demanded N. Korea ship ‘some’ nukes & missiles abroad within 6 months – Asahi

https://www.rt.com/news/426958-korea-nu ... s-demands/
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by ramana »

Consensus is John Bolton is on mission to derail the NoKo denuclearization.

He has undone all the good will that DT and MP had created to lead up to the NoKo-US summit.

So I was not incorrect.
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by ramana »

Austin wrote:US demanded N. Korea ship ‘some’ nukes & missiles abroad within 6 months – Asahi

https://www.rt.com/news/426958-korea-nu ... s-demands/

Sure fire way to derail the process.
This has to be part of a step by step process towards the de-escalation.

Removing from sanctions is hardly an incentive for NoKo which has 95% trade with China!

An incentive has to be valuable for trading the nukes.
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by Austin »

Bolton is a war mongrer a hawk on Iran and Noko

For all you know this is part of SD plan DT/ Pompea playing good cop and Bolton bad cop ... noko needs to keep on guard or meet Libya like fate

You can’t trust DT to keep his word if he cannot keep Iran deal he is a flip flop guy
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by UlanBatori »

ramana wrote:
Austin wrote:US demanded N. Korea ship ‘some’ nukes & missiles abroad within 6 months – Asahi
Sure fire way to derail the process. This has to be part of a step by step process towards the de-escalation. Removing from sanctions is hardly an incentive for NoKo which has 95% trade with China! An incentive has to be valuable for trading the nukes.
I wonder. First, since the nukes are Chinese, this is a reasonable demand. Secondly, I think it is already done: the special slow-moving armored train from PY to Beijing.
Thirdly, what do they expect? Why should US ratchet down the pressure just because there are a few smiling dictators and giggly cheerleaders singing
I luv u, u luv me,
V'r a glowing familee!
What substantive step has been taken by NoKo except for smoke & mirrors? How does any of these remove the US' legitimate fear of a sneak attack on a city? So DT is doing exactly what one would do if one really wants to achieve a negotiated de-escalation towards real peace and stability.
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by g.sarkar »

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/20/us/p ... n=Politics
Trump Grappling With Risks of Proceeding With North Korea Meeting
By David E. Sanger
May 20, 2018
WASHINGTON — President Trump, increasingly concerned that his summit meeting in Singapore next month with North Korea’s leader could turn into a political embarrassment, has begun pressing his aides and allies about whether he should take the risk of proceeding with a historic meeting that he had leapt into accepting, according to administration and foreign officials.
Mr. Trump was both surprised and angered by a statement issued on Wednesday by the North’s chief nuclear negotiator, who declared that the country would never trade away its nuclear weapons capability in exchange for economic aid, administration officials said. The statement, while a highly familiar tactic by the North, represented a jarring shift in tone after weeks of conciliatory gestures.
On Thursday and Friday, Mr. Trump peppered aides with questions about the wisdom of proceeding, and on Saturday night he called President Moon Jae-in of South Korea to ask why the North’s public statement seemed to contradict the private assurances that Mr. Moon had conveyed after he met Kim Jong-un, the 35-year-old dictator of the North, at the Demilitarized Zone in late April.
.....
Mr. Trump’s aides have grown concerned that the president — who has said that “everyone thinks” he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts — has signaled that he wants the summit meeting too much. The aides also worry that Mr. Kim, sensing the president’s eagerness, is prepared to offer assurances that will fade over time.
Moreover, Mr. Trump’s decision this month to withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal raises the stakes for the North Korea negotiation. If he emerges with anything less than what President Barack Obama got, which in Iran included the verified shipment of 97 percent of all nuclear material out of the country, it will be hard for Mr. Trump to convince anyone other than his base that the negotiation was a success.
....
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by abhik »

How is Kim jong un going to get to Singapore? No rail line to take no? Else If summit does no good well he can be Malaysia Airline'd while returning, with simultaneous coup back home.
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by Kashi »

abhik wrote:How is Kim jong un going to get to Singapore? No rail line to take no? Else If summit does no good well he can be Malaysia Airline'd while returning, with simultaneous coup back home.
He's flying there, on a Soviet era plane.
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by Amber G. »

Sorry if posted before ..
>>>As strategic equations in the Korean Peninsula undergo a dramatic shift, India too has decided to enter the fray. Earlier this week, India’s Minister of State for External Affairs, General VK Singh, paid a two-day visit to North Korea. This first ministerial visit from India to North Korea in nearly two decades was at the invitation of the North Korean government>>> India’s Pyongyang outreach
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by g.sarkar »

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/20/south-k ... -face.html
South Korea, US to work closely on summit after Pyongyang's about-face
South Korean President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump held discussions on Sunday to ensure that the North Korea-U.S. summit remains on track. South Korean President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump held discussions on Sunday to ensure that the North Korea-U.S. summit remains on track after North Korea threatened to pull out of the high-level talks.
Moon and Trump spoke over the phone for about 20 minutes, and exchanged their views on North Korea's recent reactions, South Korea's presidential office said without elaborating.
.....
_____________________________________________________________________________________
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/18/politics ... index.html
US B-52 bombers changed flight plan after North Korea threatened Trump summit
Washington (CNN)The US, South Korea and Japan agreed this week to shift a planned flight of at least two nuclear-capable B-52 bombers so they would not fly over the Korean Peninsula, according to two US defense officials.
The decision was made in the wake of North Korea's objection to US military exercises in the region and a suggestion from Pyongyang that the upcoming summit between Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump could be at risk. North Korea threatened to cancel the planned summit between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un scheduled for June 12 in Singapore, saying the US should carefully consider the fate of the upcoming meeting, in view of what it calls "provocative military disturbances with South Korea," North Korea's state news agency reported early Wednesday local time.
......
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by ramana »

Trump calls off 12 June summit.
Earlier Kim blew up the tunnel entrances to close down test site.
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by chola »

Kim hesitated on meeting first. I think he was scared that Trump is crazy and erratic enough that he’ll personally tackle and arrest the little fat Korean in Singapore.
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by IndraD »

ramana wrote:Trump calls off 12 June summit.
Earlier Kim blew up the tunnel entrances to close down test site.
meeting cancelled yet Noko blows up N test site: two things don't go hand in hand.
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by ramana »

IndraD wrote:
ramana wrote:Trump calls off 12 June summit.
Earlier Kim blew up the tunnel entrances to close down test site.
meeting cancelled yet Noko blows up N test site: two things don't go hand in hand.
Look at big picture.

NoKo is capped at test site. No more testing. Kind of defacto CTBT.

They blew it up first and then the summit cancellation was done.
Anyway the site was supposed to be all fractured due to the large explosions.
And NoKo has enough proven capability.

The next steps would be roll back and eliminate eventually.
Meantime DJIA goes down!
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by ramana »

chola wrote:Kim hesitated on meeting first. I think he was scared that Trump is crazy and erratic enough that he’ll personally tackle and arrest the little fat Korean in Singapore.

Everyone tends to see at two person game and ignore China. Even your comment shows that.

I think now its
US=0; NoKo = 0; China =1

game is still on.
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by pravula »

Did they run out of mountains? It should be easy to drill a few more ( if they haven’t already)
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by Rudradev »

ramana wrote:
NoKo is capped at test site. No more testing. Kind of defacto CTBT.
Not defacto CTBT. It's more like the unilateral moratorium that ABV & co. declared... in theory can be rescinded at any time and a new test site utilized. In practice, NoKo is perceived by the international community to be far more capable of rescinding than India.
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by g.sarkar »

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/opin ... n=Trending
Opinion
Trump’s Relationship With North Korea Just Got More Dangerous

Now we enter a more dangerous period in relations with North Korea.
President Trump topped a particularly inept diplomatic period by canceling his summit with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un. The previous policy of maximum economic pressure on North Korea may no longer be viable, so the risk is that Trump ends up reaching for the military toolbox.
As every president since Nixon — except for Trump — has realized, the military options are too dangerous to employ. That’s even more true today, when North Korea apparently has the capacity to use nuclear, chemical and biological weapons against Seoul, Tokyo and perhaps Los Angeles. Yet Pentagon officials seem deeply nervous that Trump doesn’t realize this and has a Kim-like appetite for brinkmanship in ways that create risks of a cataclysm. It was at least a relief that Trump, in canceling the summit, didn’t slam the door on diplomacy. “I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting,” he wrote Kim in a letter, in a tone more of regret than anger. He added: “Some day, I very much look forward to meeting you.” He added that South Korea and Japan are “ready should foolish or reckless acts be taken by North Korea.”
The Trump statement leaves open the possibility that South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has been the crucial figure in the peace process, can put Humpty Dumpty together again, so that a meeting could be held later this year. Indeed, if the cancellation now leads to working-level talks between American and North Korean officials, that would be progress.
The risk, though, is that we’re back to confrontation.
I hope that North Korea will respond to Trump’s letter in similarly measured, calm terms. But no one has ever made money betting on North Korean calmness. North Korea could decide to create a new crisis, perhaps by conducting a missile test or an atmospheric nuclear test. If such an atmospheric test were conducted in the northern Pacific, that could send radiation toward the U.S. and would be perceived in Washington as a great provocation.
Likewise, the U.S. could respond to new tensions by sending B-1 bombers off the coast of North Korea. If North Korea scrambled aircraft or fired antiaircraft missiles, we could very quickly have an enormous escalation.
....
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... rikes.html
Think Military Strikes Could Stop North Korea? Try It and See.
By MARK FITZPATRICK MAY 24, 2018
The White House seems to believe preventative strikes are a viable option. Try this simulation and you may find it’s not so simple.
United States-North Korean relations have been a rollercoaster in recent months. Escalating missile tests from Pyongyang and taunting tweets from the White House in 2017 were followed by a period of seeming rapprochement as President Trump and North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, agreed to meet for a summit to discuss “denuclarization.” And now things seem to be taking another turn for the worse.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump, in a fiery letter to Mr. Kim, called off the summit, following North Korea’s clarifications that it would not immediately give up its nuclear weapons. The Trump administration, led by the hawkish national security adviser John Bolton, seems to once again be contemplating military options. In his letter to Mr. Kim, Mr. Trump wrote, “You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used.”
The results of any American military action against North Korea could be disastrous. To truly understand the consequences of what such a strike would mean, click through the options presented below.
This is an exercise based on what we know about American policy, North Korea’s military and the strategic calculus of Northeast Asia. It isn’t a sure thing, but it should make clear pretty quickly that the outcome of war on North Korea will be bad, worse or much, much worse.
Let's Begin.
......
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by Prem »

https://www.yahoo.com/news/south-korea- ... 32018.html
South Korea Responds To Trump's Sudden Cancellation Of Kim Jong Un Summit
South Korea was at a loss for words Thursday after President Donald Trump’s announcement that he was scrapping next month’s planned nuclear summit with North Korea.“We are attempting to make sense of what, precisely, President Trump means,” South Korean presidential spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom said in a statement.South Korean President Moon Jae-In urged both Trump and Kim to hold direct talks, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, testifying on Capitol Hill, wouldn’t comment on whether Trump’s letter blindsided the South Koreans.The summit’s fate was thrown into question after North Korea backed away from the Trump administration’s demands to fully denuclearize. Trump then appeared to soften the demand, hinting first that he was flexible, but then saying there would be no meeting without full denuclearization. Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton and Vice President Mike Pence sparked further North Korean outrage with comments comparing North Korea with Libya.Just hours before Trump pulled the trigger to cancel the meeting, North Korean officials called Pence a “political dummy” and threatened to pull out of the summit themselves.
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by Philip »

Trump and his looney lot are the worst specimens ever to have handled foreign policy in modern history.It's going to be a v.tough task to find worse imbeciles than this precious lot in the historical files.They're setting a new benchmark in the cretinous species.Poor Stumpy " Fat Boy" ,blowing up his test site for nothing and being b*ggered!
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by g.sarkar »

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/nation ... ld-n877291
Inside the summit collapse: Trump wanted to cancel before N. Korean leader could
The president was caught between Pompeo and Bolton, say multiple officials.
by Courtney Kube, Hallie Jackson, Carol E. Lee, Kristen Welker and Peter Alexander / May.24.2018 / 4:17 PM ET
WASHINGTON — Early Thursday morning, after a flurry of calls with a handful of senior advisers, an angry President Donald Trump personally dictated the three-paragraph letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that canceled the scheduled summit between their two nations.
It had been less than 12 hours since Trump and his team began grappling intensely with the prospects for shelving what would have been a historic meeting between the two heads of state. But the president, fearing that the North Koreans might beat him to the punch, wanted to be the one to cancel first, multiple officials told NBC News. "There was no hint of this yesterday," a person briefed on the summit preparations said, calling Trump's decision "high risk, high reward." In the previous hours, the president had listened to blistering rhetoric from North Korea, was contending with inflammatory remarks from his own vice president and caught between competing positions from his secretary of state and his national security adviser, officials said.
White House officials said discussions about cancelling began in earnest late Wednesday and included the president, Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, chief of staff John Kelly and National Security Adviser John Bolton. Defense Secretary James Mattis wasn't involved in the discussions Wednesday, though Trump said that he called Mattis about it Thursday morning. But it was a second round of calls early Thursday, between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m., according to senior White House officials, that convinced Trump to walk away from the summit. His letter went to the North Koreans at 9:43 a.m. The decision occurred so abruptly that the administration was unable to give congressional leaders and key allies advance notice and the letter went out while more than two dozen foreign journalists, including several U.S. citizens, were inside North Korea where they had gone to witness a promised dismantling of a nuclear test site. At 8:20 a.m., the State Department sent a note to reporters touting the positive discussions that Pompeo was having with Asian counterparts in preparation for the summit.
The move exposed significant disagreements among the president's top advisers. Several administration officials said Pompeo, who has taken the lead in negotiating with the North Koreans, blamed Bolton for torpedoing the progress that had already been made. Pompeo flew to Pyongyang twice, met personally with Kim and helped secure the release of three Americans who had been held there. Bolton, a longtime national security hawk who has publicly advocated for regime change in North Korea, was integral, these officials said, to convincing Trump to back out of the summit.
.....
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/heres-why- ... ea-summit/
CBS NEWS May 24, 2018, 6:04 PM
Here's why Trump canceled the North Korea summit
President Trump's decision to call off the June 12 Singapore summit with North Korea came down to a "trail of broken promises," one White House official put it Thursday. The president's letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — a letter he dictated, the White House official told reporters in a conference call Thursday afternoon — blamed "tremendous anger and open hostility" in a recent North Korean statement. But the White House official cited North Korea's objection to a routine annual military exercise, North Koreans' failure to show up when the U.S. sent and advance team to Singapore, an inability to verify North Korea's claims it destroyed its nuclear cite, and unreturned communications as contributing reasons.
It was Mr. Trump who made the decision Thursday morning to call off the June 12 summit, CBS News' Margaret Brennan reports, according to a senior administration official. Mr. Trump met with national security adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Vice President Mike Pence. Some on the "staff level" — specifically chief of staff John Kelly — were also involved in the discussion.
The decision to scuttle the summit came after a late-night huddle between Pompeo, Bolton, the vice president and the president, following a North Korean statement slamming Pence. That statement was issued Wednesday night, and then generated the late-night conversation.
The regime's statement Wednesday night may have been the final straw, but in recent days, prospects for the summit itself had been dimming, as North Korea appeared to be trying to "move the goal posts" for the meeting, specifically on the issue of the military exercises. Mr. Trump alluded to this recently, when he had raised questions about whether the summit would take place.
Another factor was the North Koreans' silence over the past five to 10 days, Brennan reports. Communications had "basically ceased" in the words of this senior administration official, despite outreach by Pompeo and South Korea. South Korean President Moon Jae-in did not have much new information when he came to the White House two days ago. Brennan was also told that Pence's recent reference to the so-called "Libya model" during an appearance this week on Fox News wasn't a deliberate effort to provoke the North. Pence had apparently been trying to clarify and use similar language to that of the president, when he talked about the "Libya model."
The "Libya model," as far as North Korea is concerned, was an abject failure, given that Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi ended up dead eight years after giving up his nuclear weapons program. National Security Adviser John Bolton suggested to Brennan on "Face the Nation" last month that the "Libya model" could be applied to North Korea, but the North reacted poorly, and Mr. Trump construed it as a threat that would apply only if Kim Jong Un did not denuclearize the Korean peninsula. Pompeo publicly claimed Thursday during congressional testimony that Bolton's original remarks about Libya were not meant as a veiled reference to the death of Gaddafi in 2011, but rather to the process used by the Bush administration in 2003-2004 to disarm Libya and welcome it into the international community.
The change in tone from the North, referencing a nuclear showdown, and the military exercise rhetoric indicated that something was changing. The president has an "inkling" of what that is and has publicly suggested that China may be meddling with the diplomatic efforts. Brennan specifically asked the official if the past few days of trade tension with China, as well as the decision yesterday by the U.S. to disinvite China from military exercises had accounted for the shift. This official said that is "definitely a piece of it."
.....
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by SSridhar »

All that explanation by the White House doesn't cut much ice. Neither is NoKo making its moves independently without Chinese advice. It is a very dangerous high-stakes game that both China & US are playing. Each one is trying to outwit the other.
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by yensoy »

I listened to Trump/Moon press conference the other day. It was a strange experience. Started off with Trump being very upbeat and confident about meeting Kim, then halfway it looked like the meeting was in jeopardy and by the time the conference was done Trump was almost beseeching Kim to meet him in Singapore. Trump also came across surprisingly suave about the interplay between China trade deal and Korea peace deal.

Clearly, there are vested interests, both in the US and puppet masters China, which don't want peace. The opposite of peace is not necessarily war with NoKo but a trade war with China, which will be the interesting thing to look out for in the next several weeks.
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by ramana »

Robert Axelrod wrote that random tit for tat best strategy to bring cooperation.
'Evolution of Cooperation'
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by g.sarkar »

Trump has no time for Korea. His state department has too many vacancies that are not going to be filled, or at least filled by competent people. With countries such as China and Korea, he needs experienced people that can prepare him for such summits. He can not just wing it. He is busy searching for strategies to beat Mueller, who is relentless. Relations with the Europeans have soured. China does not like the trade war that he wants to start. But he thinks that he deserves the Nobel Piss Prize. On the top of it, mid term elections are looming. A loss by the GOP may even bring an attempt for impeachment.
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by g.sarkar »

ramana wrote:Trump calls off 12 June summit.
Earlier Kim blew up the tunnel entrances to close down test site.
Ramanaji,
NK has given up nuclear weapons many times in the past. Later on it has revived its enrichment plants and exploded nuclear weapons. It is just a game.
Gautam
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by SSridhar »

Even if we have to believe that the tunnels are destroyed, NoKo still has the nuclear weapons. It won't give them up. NoKo certainly is not Libya, if the US miscalculates it that way.
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by g.sarkar »

I just watched the German Tagesthemen News program. It was reported that Moon of SK was not informed beforehand about the withdrawal from the meeting. Neither was Merkel who is visiting in China.
https://www.npr.org/2018/05/24/61419590 ... rea-summit
How South Korea Is Reacting To the Cancellation Of U.S.-North Korea Summit
May 24, 20184:35 PM ET
South Korean leaders met late at night to discuss President Trump's decision not to go ahead with his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
To get a sense of how today's announcement is playing in South Korea, let's turn now to NPR's Elise Hu in Seoul. Hi, Elise.
ELISE HU, BYLINE: Hey there, Ari.
SHAPIRO: It seems South Korean President Moon Jae-in was as invested in these talks as anyone. He met with Kim Jong Un, was at the White House just this past week meeting with President Trump. What is the reaction from his team to the cancellation of these talks?
HU: There's no question that this blindsided not only the Moon Jae-in team but South Korea's government in general. Moon says that he's, quote, "baffled and very regretful that the North Korea-U.S. summit planned for June 12 isn't happening."
SHAPIRO: Does he blame one side or the other?
HU: Moon did kind of get off an understated and pointed criticism in his response. He noted that the problem here may lie in the way the countries communicated through the public rather through back-channel diplomacy and that it would be difficult to resolve a - you know, a sensitive diplomatic issue through the methods of communication that were currently being employed. So Moon is still holding out hope that the U.S. and North Korea will resolve issues through direct dialogue rather than what's been playing out in the last 24 hours or so, which is rather, you know, public rhetoric being traded.
SHAPIRO: The Trump administration is blaming North Korea for this. They say beyond the rhetoric, the North Koreans never showed up in Singapore to prepare for the summit as arranged, that even the big show of destroying North Korea's main nuclear test facility fell short since they only invited journalists and not experts. Help us unpack this.
HU: Sure. There's a lot to unpack. On the logistics meeting where North Korea didn't show up, we have to keep in mind the context, which is that North Korea often makes 11th-hour decisions after not showing up or total silence or no explanation of its behavior. It's pretty par for the course for North Korea negotiating behavior or pre-negotiation behavior - this week, as an example, where not only did North Korea not show up to a planning meeting; it also wasn't allowing South Korean journalists into its big nuclear site dismantlement, did not grant visas, no explanation until the morning of. The morning of the trip to Punggye-ri to actually see this dismantlement, it suddenly allowed South Korean journalists to fly in by a government plane.
The Olympics is another example of this. North Korea will often sort of test the leniency of its negotiating partner. So last - all last year, Moon Jae-in was trying to make efforts to get North Korea to participate in the Olympics. North Korea just never responded. It went months without responding until the last-minute, if you will, change of course where it agreed to participate and took part in the unified team that we saw at the Olympics in February. So, you know, this is not a huge surprise. What is a little bit more surprising is that U.S. negotiators are citing it as a reason for pulling out because, you know, those with background and history with North Korea wouldn't have been surprised by this behavior.
.....
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
https://thediplomat.com/2018/04/is-the- ... n-trouble/
Is the US-South Korea Alliance in Trouble?
Recent trends suggest that U.S.-South Korea relations are increasingly strained.
While the resplendent beauty of cherry blossoms returned to Seoul this spring, the hordes of curious and free-spending Chinese tourists, upon which the local Korean economy has become dependent, did not. In the wake of an as-yet unresolved spat between South Korea and neighboring China over the former’s agreement to host the U.S.-supplied Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) ballistic missile defense system in 2016, the flow of visitors, inbound investment and trade from mainland China to South Korea shifted from a deluge to a trickle. Key export-driven sectors like entertainment, cosmetics, automobiles, electronics, and tourism were hit hard by the virtual Chinese boycott. Many Koreans have openly wondered whether crossing Beijing to maintain favor with an erratic Washington was wise and in the nation’s long-term interest. In light of South Korea’s rising economic codependence with and historical affinity for China, the rise of a progressive government historically given to wariness toward the United States., and younger Koreans’ increasing skepticism toward Washington’s geopolitical motives on the peninsula, it is fair to ask whether the best days of this security alliance, and the sometimes uneasy friendship that accompanied it, are over.
China is now Korea’s largest trading partner by a large margin; the Middle Kingdom was the destination for more than $90 billion in South Korean exports in 2017. This figure has grown more than 82 percent over the last five years, and was nearly double the value of goods and services sold to the United States (just over $46 billion), where bilateral trade volumes have grown far more sluggishly, at about 7 percent over the same period. But China’s concomitant emergence as a tech and industrial power in its own right means that South Korea cannot simply rely on its neighbor as a captive consumer market for wildly popular South Korean music, movies, and beauty products. China is also a source of technology, research and development, and even competition in South Korea’s other leading industries. Chinese rivals have continued to capture significant market share from South Korean shipbuilding, chemical, and consumer electronics companies. As bilateral economic ties grow and evolve, good relations with China will become more important to Seoul.
As the complexity of the trade and cultural relationship has grown amidst China’s emergence as an economic superpower, so too have Beijing’s assertiveness and confidence in perceiving that it can, at a minimum, give Seoul major pause in simply going along with the demands of its long-time U.S. ally. The de facto trade sanctions imposed by China may already have borne fruit: despite Seoul’s acceptance of the THAAD shipments, some reports indicate that the South Korean government hasn’t decided when or where to deploy additional batteries. This hesitation may reflect an apparent (if implicit) bowing to Beijing’s pressure campaign. Recent strong-arming of South Korean counterparts by the Trump administration to renegotiate portions of the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, which Trump has repeatedly criticized since his 2016 presidential campaign, may also trigger resentment in South Korean diplomatic circles, while bringing little substantive economic change: U.S. exporters were unable to even reach the original export quotas, suggesting that the raising of these levels will make no practical difference in the volume of trade.
.....
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by Rudradev »

Despite all kinds of convoluted Chanakian CT defenses of how Trump is actually very clever, the outmaneuvering of DC by Beijing could not be more obvious.

Trump had two choices:
1) Don't cancel the summit, and lose face completely when KJU cancels instead
2) Cancel the summit, and push SoKo further into China's camp

What a great dealmaker.
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by nachiket »

IMHO More than even the ill-timed (or perfectly timed depending on the intentions) military exercises, it was National Security Walrus John Bolton blabbing about the "Libya Model" that pissed Kim off. There was no recovery from that even thought Trump all but contradicted Bolton on it later. Pence seemed to support Bolton. Trump got royally screwed by the deep state here.
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by A_Gupta »

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/0 ... -Forgotten
The best overview of this history of this period is University of Chicago’s Distinguished Service Professor and Dept Chair, historian Bruce Cumming’s The Korean War: A History. I will summarize it, but reading the short 250 page book is highly recommended. Korea was a land with a long history of autonomy and a vibrant culture. When Japan colonized it in 1910 it was blessed by the US. Teddy Roosevelt thought they would “modernize” what was a feudal system, but one with a separate language, culture and distinct political structures. Japan imposed its rule, destroyed existing institutions and even tried to eradicate the native language. All of this led to feelings of hatred of the Japanese and those Koreans who allied with them---predominantly the existing elites.

When Japan lost its colonies after defeat in World War II, the US became the occupying power in the southern part of Korea. Kim Il-sung, a Korean Communist, living in the north, was a leading guerilla fighter against the Japanese and he as well as Koreans throughout the entire country fully expected Korea would be turned over to Koreans and those who had collaborated during the war and before with Japan would be punished, or at least removed from power. He was not a puppet of Moscow or Mao. Not of Ho Chi Minh’s stature, but highly respected. Instead, the US brought in a US-based “leader” of Korean ancestry, who had been in exile for years, Syngman Rhee, to lead a new country called South Korea. Korea was “divided” by the US occupiers, arbitrarily using the 38th parallel as the demarcation point, a line rejected by Koreans of all stripes. Moreover, Rhee, an autocrat, relied upon a leadership team composed entirely of those who were collaborators with the Japanese. When resistance developed in the area governed by Rhee and his henchman, extreme brutality was used to repress it. Sounds like Vietnam, right? Diem was the Vietnamese version of Rhee.

Eventually, the Korean War started. The northerners had wanted to unify what had always been one country. The southern leadership wanted to re-unify as well. The US was content to leave the country divided—as in Vietnam a decade later when French colonialism ended and we became the new external power. The north probably “invaded” the southern region of what was always one country, but it’s immaterial and some think it was the other way around. Rhee and Kim Il-sung both wanted a war to re-unify on their terms.

The Korean War was as brutal as a civil war could be and atrocities were committed by both sides, though Cummings estimates the south was significantly more likely to slaughter civilians, perhaps 100,000 to the North’s 30,000 victims. What about the US, especially after it entered the war at a point where the southern regime was nearly defeated? Rhee’s soldiers lacked the morale of those of the north, because the regime was considered illegitimate. Again, just like in Vietnam. The US had to save the day.

Turns out the US dropped more bomb tonnage during the three years of the war than we did against Japan during WWII and the widespread use of incendiary bombs destroyed between 40 and 90 percent of every city in the country. We also bombed dams which flooded railways, rice fields and highways. Napalm, as it happens, was first used in Korea, with more than 30,000 tons dropped. There were mega-Korean versions of My Lai as well---the infamous Taejon Massacre of 4,000 prisoners by South Korean troops with US ones standing by; Nogun, where American GIs slaughtered hundreds of civilians under a bridge and blamed it on the North.

The South Korean governments after the 1953 Armistice have continued to be populated by Japanese collaborators and perpetrators of atrocities during the Korean War or the children of those responsible who fully embraced their parents’ actions. The recently deposed President of South Korea is the daughter of Chung Hee Park, the brutal dictator of South Korea from the end of the Rhee regime—he had to flee the country again after riots in 1960---until his 1979 assassination by a North Korean sympathizer. Park had proudly fought for the Japanese Emperor in Manchukuo in WWII. At the same time, Park did have talks with Kim Il-Sung about a future peaceful unification of Korea, which were actively discouraged by the US. In fact, talks between leaders of both Koreas regarding peaceful re-unification have periodically been undertaken, though all failed.
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

Post by SSridhar »

Every dawn is dreadful for the world at large because none can predict what new bombshell would the predictably unpredictable & erratic Trump drop this morning around on unsuspecting people after a night of rest. He is exacerbating already worsening reputation of the US as an unreliable ally, especially in Asia. And yet, I do not believe that SoKo would be pushed into the Chinese orbit because of this woolly-headed turn of events inflicted by the American administration, though it is now put in a very difficult situation. The South Koreans know their dangers well. The US has been steadily conceding ground to China through its various words and deeds but Trump is hastening the process with a vengeance because of his dumbness.
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

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South Korea's Moon Jae In might join Trump, Kim in Singapore for 3-way summit: Official - Straits Times
SEOUL - South Korean President Moon Jae In could make a trip to Singapore for a three-way summit with his US and North Korean counterparts next month, depending on the outcome of ongoing discussions between Washington and Pyongyang, Yonhap News Agency quoted a South Korean government official as saying on Monday (May 28).

The trip, if made, would likely be made around June 12 when US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are scheduled to meet for the first time, the official from Seoul's presidential office, the Blue House, said.

"The discussions are just getting started, so we are still waiting to see how they come out, but depending on their outcome, the president could join President Trump and Chairman Kim in Singapore," the official told Yonhap, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A three-way summit was originally proposed by Moon and the North Korean leader when they held their first-ever meeting at the border village of Panmunjom on April 27.

Moon again expressed hope to hold such a meeting on Sunday, one day after he held his second meeting with Kim.

"Should the North Korea-US summit succeed, I would like to see efforts to formally end the (Korean) war through a three-way summit of the South, the North and the US," he told a press briefing.

The Presidential Blue House earlier said the South Korean Government was already studying the possibility of a three-way summit following a successful US-North Korea meeting but that nothing had been decided or even discussed between the countries.

The official speaking to Yonhap noted a three-way summit in Singapore would largely depend on the outcome of ongoing pre-summit talks between the United States and North Korea, suggesting Moon's Singapore trip will likely be decided before the US-North Korea summit even begins.

The three-way summit, if held, will likely be aimed at providing a security guarantee for North Korea in exchange for its denuclearisation, Yonhap said.

Separately, Moon said on Monday there could be more impromptu talks with North Korea including summits between pre-arranged dialogue, Reuters quoted him as saying.

"What's more important than anything from the latest inter-Korean summit was that the leaders easily got in contact, easily made an appointment and easily met to discuss urgent matters, without complicated procedures and formalities, just like a casual meeting," Moon told a meeting with senior secretaries.

"If we could hold working-level, back-to-back talks on both sides of Panmunjom if urgently necessary in addition to formal summits, it would expedite faster advancement of inter-Korean relations."
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Re: India - South & North Korea Thread

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Senior North Korean official in Beijing en route to Singapore for Trump-Kim summit discussions - Straits Times
BEIJING - A senior North Korean official arrived in Beijing on Monday (May 28), apparently on his way to Singapore for preparatory talks leading up to a potential summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump.

The official is said to be leading the country's delegation to discuss the logistics and security issues associated with the summit, sources told Yonhap News Agency.

Yonhap initially said the official is Mr Ri Son Gwon, chief of the North's agency handling inter-Korea affairs, but later amended its report to say it was unable to confirm the official's identity.

The news agency also tweeted a photo of a North Korean embassy vehicle leaving Beijing's airport.

A US team lead by White House deputy chief of staff for operations Joe Hagin is also reportedly bound for Singapore for summit-related discussions with the North Korean team.
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