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The Diplomat
a day ago
- Politics
- The Diplomat
North Korea Has ‘No Interest' in Talking to Lee Jae-myung
Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the regime's main voice on inter-Korean relations, said Pyongyang has 'no interest' in restoring inter-Korean relations even under the new government of Lee Jae-myung, the liberal icon who assumed office on June 4 in the wake of Yoon Suk-yeol's illegitimate declaration of martial law. 'We clarify once again the official stand that no matter what policy is adopted and whatever proposal is made in Seoul, we have no interest in it and there is neither the reason to meet nor the issue to be discussed with the ROK,' Kim said in the statement published on July 28 by the North's state-controlled Korean Central News Agency on Monday. (ROK is an acronym of South Korea's official name: Republic of Korea.) Days after Lee took the presidency, he ordered the military to halt loudspeaker broadcasts near the inter-Korean border. After that, North Korea also halted such broadcasts, which many observers and government officials in Seoul saw as Pyongyang's friendly response to the South's goodwill. However, Kim Yo Jong downplayed that analysis. According to her statement, South Korea should have not resumed the loudspeaker broadcasts in the first place, so stopping such activities is not 'worthy of appreciation.' 'If the ROK, which had stoked the atmosphere of extreme confrontation in the past after unilaterally declaring the DPRK as its principal enemy, expected that it could reverse all the results it had made with a few sentimental words, nothing is [a] more serious miscalculation,' Kim said. (DPRK is an acronym of North Korea's official name: the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.) Kim also mentioned Lee's denunciation of his predecessor's ceaseless moves to aggravate unnecessary tensions on the Korean Peninsula. However, she pointed out that the lesson Pyongyang has learned in the past few years is that no South Korean president can make sincere moves to bring peace on the Korean Peninsula. Kim once again denounced Seoul's ties with Washington and the extensive joint military drills between South Korea and the United States, and blamed them for the deteriorating situation on the Korean Peninsula. 'No matter how desperately the Lee Jae Myung government tries to imitate the fellow countrymen and pretend they do all sorts of righteous things to attract our attention and receive international attention, there can be no change in our state's understanding of the enemy,' Kim said. She added that Lee's administration 'can not turn back the hands of the clock of the history which has radically changed the character of the DPRK-ROK relations.' Through Kim's statement, Pyongyang has clearly ruled out the possibility of working with Seoul to make progress on inter-Korean relations. That stance is in line with Pyongyang's policies on nuclear weapons in the past years, especially after the breakdown of the North Korea-U.S. summit in Hanoi, and its decision to officially abandon the goal of reunification last year. South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said on Monday that he will suggest that Lee halt the bilateral military drills with the United States. During his confirmation hearing two weeks ago, Chung also implied that it is time to reset the Unification Ministry's approach to North Korea. He admitted that working with Pyongyang to reunify the two Koreas is de facto an unrealistic goal. However, it is uncertain how South Korea can carry out a new updated approach on North Korea while its Constitution clearly stipulates that 'the territory of the Republic of Korea shall consist of the Korean Peninsula and its adjacent islands.' There needs to be a broader consultation with the public to decide how to build fruitful relations with North Korea should Seoul withdraw its conventional ambition of reunification.
The Diplomat
a day ago
- Business
- The Diplomat
South Korea's Indo-Pacific Role Under Discussion in US Trade Talks
U.S. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Jack Love, U.S. Forces Korea Senior Enlisted Advisor (right), along with U.S and ROK senior leaders pose inside an AAVP-7A1 Amphibious Assault Vehicle during the Ulchi Freedom Shield Battlefield Circulation, Aug. 22, 2024. Last week, Chosun Ilbo reported that the United States had formally asked South Korea to broaden the scope of the United States-Republic of Korea (ROK) Mutual Defense Treaty's Article III to cover the wider Indo-Pacific region. Today, Hankook Ilbo reported that the push to expand the role of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) across the Indo-Pacific under the so-called 'alliance modernization' framework is now a part of the bilateral tariff talks between the two countries. The request to reframe the South Korea-U.S. alliance as a 'comprehensive strategic partnership for the future' was made by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau in Tokyo on July 18. This would presumably include a role for South Korea in a China-U.S. conflict, such as a crisis in the Taiwan Strait. Landau also raised issues such as increasing South Korean defense spending (reportedly from 2.3 percent of GDP to 5 percent of GDP) and greater cost-sharing for deployment of U.S. strategic assets in the region. These discussions echo meetings that U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kevin Kim held in Seoul on July 10-11. Such developments align with the Pentagon's Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance from March, and what is expected from the full National Defense Strategy (NDS) and Global Posture Review (GPR) later this year: an assertion that deterring a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is the United States' top priority. The United States has also pressed Japan and Australia for clarity on what they would do in a Taiwan Strait contingency and clarified with the Philippines that their mutual defense pact 'extends to armed attacks on our armed forces, aircraft or public vessels, including our Coast Guard, anywhere in the Pacific, including the South China Sea.' While all countries prefer to maintain strategic ambiguity over Taiwan to not upset China (South Korean President Lee Jae-myung has previously expressed reluctance to involve South Korea in a Taiwan-related security issue), South Korea is different from Japan and Australia. South Korea faces a direct threat from a different source: North Korea. For Seoul, USFK has always been about addressing the threat from North Korea. Thus, South Korea has been reluctant to embrace the 'one theater' concept that Japan champions, which integrates the Korean Peninsula with the East and South China Seas. The United States, Australia, and the Philippines reportedly support this concept, while South Korea understands the risk that such a structure could take away U.S. resources from deterring and if needed, defeating North Korea. However, with the deadline for trade talks looming on August 1, South Korea has sought trade concessions, including on tariffs and non-trade barriers, in return for accepting the U.S. request to recalibrate the USFK's strategic posture. Alliance modernization is a broader issue that also encompasses increased defense spending and expanded cooperation in the defense industry; the topic cannot be fully settled in the current round of trade talks. Still, a senior official from South Korea stated, 'We're asking the U.S. to show flexibility in trade in proportion to our security contributions.' The purpose of the South Korea-U.S. alliance in an era of increasing China-U.S. competition has already been under debate, and the ongoing deliberations will affect topics such as wartime operational control and extended nuclear deterrence. Throughout this, it is important not to antagonize China. It is also vital for U.S. officials to '[bring] South Korea into the process early and often' to not politicize the changes. As the deadline for the trade talks fast approaches, it will be interesting to see whether tying economics and security will make it easier or more difficult for Lee to sell the changes in the nature of the alliance to the South Korean public. Lee's success will, of course, hinge on the U.S. reception of the South Korean overture.
Kuwait Times
a day ago
- Politics
- Kuwait Times
North Korea says ‘no reason' for talks with South
SEOUL: North Korea has no interest in pursuing dialogue with the South, leader Kim Jong Un's powerful sister said Monday, dismissing a new president in Seoul who has vowed to mend ties. Since his election in June, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has broken with his predecessor's hawkish tone on the North and halted loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts along the border - begun in response to a barrage of trash-filled North Korean balloons. North Korea has ended its own propaganda broadcasts, which had boomed strange and eerie noises into the South. But such gestures do not mean Seoul should expect a thawing of icy ties, Kim Yo Jong said in an English dispatch carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency on Monday. 'If the ROK... expected that it could reverse all the results it had made with a few sentimental words, nothing is more serious miscalculation than it,' she said, referring to South Korea by its official name. 'We clarify once again the official stand that no matter what policy is adopted and whatever proposal is made in Seoul, we have no interest in it and there is neither the reason to meet nor the issue to be discussed with the ROK,' she added. 'The DPRK-ROK relations have irreversibly gone beyond the time zone of the concept of homogeneous,' she said, using the North's official acronym. Seoul said Kim's statement—Pyongyang's first reaction to Lee's overture—'reaffirms the high level of mistrust between the two due to years of hostile policies'. 'We take this as a sign that the North is closely monitoring the Lee administration's North Korea policy,' Unification Ministry Spokesman Koo Byung-sam said at a press briefing. Hong Min, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told AFP that Kim's statement underscored Pyongyang's entrenched anti-South stance. 'It declares that its hostile perception towards the South has become irreversible,' he said. The two countries technically remain at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. The United States, a key security ally of South Korea, keeps around 28,000 troops in the South to help it defend attacks from the nuclear-armed North. The South's Lee has said he would seek talks with the North without preconditions, following a deep freeze under his predecessor when relations plummeted to their worst level in years. – AFP
New Straits Times
a day ago
- Politics
- New Straits Times
North Korea says 'no reason' for talks with South
SEOUL: North Korea has no interest in pursuing dialogue with the South, leader Kim Jong Un's powerful sister said on Monday, dismissing a new president in Seoul who has vowed to mend ties. Since his election in June, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has broken with his predecessor's hawkish tone on the North and halted loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts along the border – begun in response to a barrage of trash-filled North Korean balloons. North Korea has ended its own propaganda broadcasts, which had boomed strange and eerie noises into the South. But such gestures do not mean Seoul should expect a thawing of icy ties, Kim Yo Jong said in an English dispatch carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency on Monday. "If the ROK... expected that it could reverse all the results it had made with a few sentimental words, nothing is more serious miscalculation than it," she said, referring to South Korea by its official name. "We clarify once again the official stand that no matter what policy is adopted and whatever proposal is made in Seoul, we have no interest in it and there is neither the reason to meet nor the issue to be discussed with the ROK," she added. "The DPRK-ROK relations have irreversibly gone beyond the time zone of the concept of homogeneous," she said, using the North's official acronym. Seoul said Kim's statement – Pyongyang's first reaction to Lee's overture – "reaffirms the high level of mistrust between the two due to years of hostile policies." "We take this as a sign that the North is closely monitoring the Lee administration's North Korea policy," Unification Ministry spokesman Koo Byung-sam said at a press briefing. Hong Min, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told AFP that Kim's statement underscored Pyongyang's entrenched anti-South stance. "It declares that its hostile perception towards the South has become irreversible," he said. The two countries technically remain at war because the 1950–53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. The US, a key security ally of South Korea, keeps around 28,000 troops in the South to help it defend against attacks from the nuclear-armed North. The South's Lee has said he would seek talks with the North without preconditions, following a deep freeze under his predecessor when relations plummeted to their worst level in years.
The Star
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Star
Kim Jong-un's sister says 'no reason' for talks with South
SEOUL: North Korea has no interest in pursuing dialogue with the South, leader Kim Jong-un's powerful sister said Monday (July 28), dismissing a new president in Seoul who has vowed to mend ties. Since his election in June, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung has broken with his predecessor's hawkish tone on the North and halted loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts along the border -- begun in response to a barrage of trash-filled North Korean balloons. North Korea has ended its own propaganda broadcasts, which had boomed strange and eerie noises into the South. But such gestures do not mean Seoul should expect a thawing of icy ties, Kim Yo-jong (pic) said in an English dispatch carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency on Monday. "If the ROK... expected that it could reverse all the results it had made with a few sentimental words, nothing is more serious miscalculation than it," she said, referring to South Korea by its official name. "We clarify once again the official stand that no matter what policy is adopted and whatever proposal is made in Seoul, we have no interest in it and there is neither the reason to meet nor the issue to be discussed with the ROK," she added. "The DPRK-ROK relations have irreversibly gone beyond the time zone of the concept of homogeneous," she said, using the North's official acronym. Seoul said Kim's statement -- Pyongyang's first reaction to Lee's overture -- "reaffirms the high level of mistrust between the two due to years of hostile policies". "We take this as a sign that the North is closely monitoring the Lee administration's North Korea policy," Unification Ministry Spokesman Koo Byung-sam said at a press briefing. Hong Min, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told AFP that Kim's statement underscored Pyongyang's entrenched anti-South stance. "It declares that its hostile perception towards the South has become irreversible," he said. The two countries technically remain at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. The United States, a key security ally of South Korea, keeps around 28,000 troops in the South to help it defend attacks from the nuclear-armed North. The South's Lee has said he would seek talks with the North without preconditions, following a deep freeze under his predecessor when relations plummeted to their worst level in years. - AFP
