North Korea set to test Obama’s resolve: analysts

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Seoul goes on alert after sharp talk by Pyongyang

January 19, 2009

	A North Korean military spokesman threatened “all out confrontation posture” against the South on Saturday in a TV statement. [YONHAP]

South Korea heightened its military readiness over the weekend following a North Korean threat to take “an all-out confrontational posture.”

In a statement broadcast through the communist country’s state-run TV network on Saturday, a North Korean military spokesman said, “Now that traitor Lee Myung-Bak and his group opted for confrontation ... our revolutionary armed forces are compelled to take an all-out confrontational posture to shatter them.”

The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said yesterday that the nation’s troops were ordered to intensify their combat readiness starting at 6 p.m. the day before. The heightened alert was the first since Oct. 9, 2006 when North Korea tested a nuclear weapon.

Dressed in a military uniform, a spokesman for the chief of the General Staff of the North’s Korean People’s Army said that the country will “preserve” the sea border in the Yellow Sea, hinting at a possible sea skirmish in the waters near the Northern Limit Line, a de facto maritime demarcation line between the two Koreas.

In 1999 and 2002, two inter-Korean naval skirmishes flared in the Yellow Sea.

Military and intelligence sources said the possibility of an armed provocation by the North, however, is unlikely. They said that the two previous incidents have made the North aware of the South Korean Navy’s superior capabilities.

“As we have issued the military alert against the North, all commanders have readied their units,” said Park Seong-wu, public affairs chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “As of now, no abnormal activity by the North Korean military has been detected.”

“We have increased surveillance of the North and strengthened patrols along the border,” said a Defense Ministry official. “We have also requested the U.S.-South Korea Combined Forces Command to collect more intelligence on the North.”

The Blue House held an emergency meeting on Saturday but reacted calmly. Sources at the Unification Ministry and the National Intelligence Service said the North’s statement exhibits Pyongyang’s frustration about the Lee Myung-bak administration’s hard-line policy. “If we are jolted by the North’s statement or start an internal debate over how to react, we will be playing into Pyongyang’s hand,” an official in Seoul said.

Meanwhile, the North also declared that it may retain its nuclear weapons even after it forms diplomatic ties with the United States.

“Normalization of diplomatic relations and the nuclear issue are entirely different issues,” a spokesman for the North’s foreign ministry said Saturday.

“We can live without normalized relations with the United States but can’t live without nuclear deterrence. That is the reality of Korea today,” he said.


By Ser Myo-ja Staff Reporter/ Kim Min-seok JoongAng Ilbo [myoja@joongang.co.kr]

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Expect N.Korea challenge, Bush aide advises Obama

Wed Jan 14, 2009 9:13pm EST



SCENARIOS: The North Korea problem awaiting Obama

By Paul Eckert, Asia Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The incoming Barack Obama administration should be ready for early challenges from North Korea as it tries to test Obama and sunder the six-party talks over the North's nuclear ambitions, President George W. Bush's top Asia adviser said on Wednesday.

Dennis Wilder, senior adviser for Asia on the National Security Council, also said doubts remained about the health of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, despite recent efforts to show that he had recovered from a suspected stroke last August.

"The North's best act is to try to create the conditions of crisis in order to renegotiate with the United States and the new team will have to be ready for that," he told reporters and scholars at a Washington think tank.

"Part of the North's goal will be to see if they can split this five-party consortium that has been created," said Wilder of talks in which China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States have tried to convince North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions in exchange for aid and diplomatic benefits.

Any renewed North Korean brinkmanship would also be designed to "see just what the new leader of the United States is made of," he added. Obama takes office on January 20.

Wilder welcomed remarks by U.S. Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton on Tuesday in which she backed the six-party talks.
"It is a framework that the president-elect and I believe has merit but it also provides an opportunity ... for bilateral contact as well between North Korea and the United States," Clinton said at her Senate confirmation hearing.

DOUBTS ABOUT KIM'S HEALTH
Wilder told the Nixon Center that keeping the six-party format was critical in ensuring China stays involved in the nuclear issue as Pyongyang tries to "reduce the six-party element of this process" in favor of talks with Washington.

Prodding China, the country with the most leverage on Pyongyang, to move from passive observer to active participant after the nuclear crisis with North Korea erupted in 2002 was a hard-won gain that should not be squandered, he said.

"The Chinese would be happy if we let them off the playing field and back onto the bleachers. I don't think that's in our interest. I don't think it's in Northeast Asia's interest," said Wilder.

Under the six-party talks, North Korea in 2005 agreed to abandon all its nuclear programs. However, Pyongyang tested a nuclear device in 2006 and has since dragged its feet on carrying out agreements on disabling its plutonium program.

North Korean state media have repeatedly shown photographs of leader Kim Jong-il meeting soldiers and attending concerts -- public outings believed designed to show Kim was in full command after the suspected stroke in August.

But Wilder said the North had shown only still photos and no video footage of the reclusive Kim, indicating there may still be questions in Pyongyang about his long-term viability.

"That suggests to me that there are some physical signs of his health crisis that they are unwilling to put out there," he said.

(Editing by Anthony Boadle)
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

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S. Korea Seeks To Buy Older Apaches

By JUNG SUNG-KI
Published: 16 Jan 11:30 EST (16:30 GMT)

SEOUL - South Korea's arms procurement agency has been in close consultation with the U.S. government to purchase 36 refurbished Apache attack helicopters to deploy in 2012, when South Korean commanders take over wartime operational control of their troops from the U.S. military, a source said Jan. 14.

The Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) wants to receive the first batch of 18 Block II Apache Longbow models modified from the Block I standard in 2012, and the second batch of the older units, dubbed MIMEX, in 2014, said the source privy to negotiations.

In a related move, the agency plans to start a feasibility study this month on the acquisition of Apaches, he said.

The moves follow U.S. Forces Korea (USFK)'s announcement in November that it will pull a fleet of 24 Apache helicopters out of the Korean Peninsula in March for rotational deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan this fall.

Public jitters have grown here since then over a possible security vacuum, as the U.S. Apache units are in charge of key missions to deter North Korean armored units in case of war.

"I heard that DAPA's international product team is receptive to the U.S. Army Apache program manager meeting with DAPA and also with JUSMAG-K, and that there is strong interest in 18 MIMEX in 2012 and 18 more in 2014,'' the source said on condition of anonymity.

JUSMAG-K refers to the Joint U.S. Military Affairs Group-Korea, which coordinates South Korean purchases of U.S. weapons through the Pentagon's government-to-government Foreign Military Sales program.
The DAPA has shown interest in Block II models, so the U.S. government may want Boeing to do the upgrade, he said.

The source, however, said the agency was still "keeping all options open," including the introduction of the up-to-date AH-64D Apache Longbow heavy attack helicopters through a commercial deal with Boeing, given the proposed refurbishment would cost more than buying new models.

"I'm sure the ROK Army wants the latest and greatest, but also wants capability fast. It also must be affordable. These are the issues,'' he said.
To help boost the Army's independent anti-tank and fire support capabilities after the wartime control transition, South Korea has pushed to buy the older Apaches, separately from the Korea Attack Helicopter project aimed at building an indigenous helicopter with technological support from foreign helicopter manufacturers.

Last year, the two governments opened negotiations over the MIMEX program, with the United States offering for sale about 260 Block I Apaches available for upgrades, according to the JUSMAG-K.

South Korea proposed that the U.S. government sell 36 second-hand Apaches for about 1 trillion won ($744 million), and said later that it would make a final decision as late as August, according to JUSMAG-K officials.

The Apache Longbow is armed with AGM-114 Hellfire air-to-surface missiles, AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and Hydra 70 laser-guided rockets.

Their main missions are to help prevent North Korean special forces from infiltrating the South by sea and neutralize North Korean armored units crossing the military demarcation line in case of war.

The USFK maintains two Apache battalions here.

On Jan. 12, U.S. and South Korean military officials announced that 12 F-16 fighter jets would temporarily replace the departing Apache battalion.

Previously, the USFK said 12 A-10 attack aircraft would replace the Apaches' air-to-ground and close-air-support missions.

Col. Mike Chandler, chief of staff of the U.S. 7th Air Force, said the change of plans was due to "a structural issue'' with the A-10's airframe.

"The air-to-ground mission and the close-air-support mission are primarily to support the soldiers on the ground,'' Chandler said. "Helicopters, the A-10 platform and the F-16 platform are all capable of performing that mission."
Despite USFK's explanations, critics here say the "flip-flop" could cause a security vacuum due to different mission capabilities between Apaches and F-16s.

Some experts say F-16s are outstanding performers but not well suited for conducting missions against enemy tanks at low air speeds and altitude. They also speculate the F-16 deployment signals USFK's mission shift to an air- and naval-centric support of South Korean troops after the transition to wartime operational control in 2012.

"The F-16's combat-proven record is well known and will provide an enhanced deterrent capability on the Korean Peninsula," USFK Commander Gen. Walter Sharp said in a press release. "This deployment also increases Republic of Korea-United States training opportunities, which further strengthens Combined Forces Command's ability to defeat any North Korean aggression."

According to the release, the F-16 is a multirole fighter capable of conducting a broad range of missions, including close air support, precision strike and counter-air.

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Jan 13, 2009
US to deploy F-16s in S.Korea

SEOUL - THE United States on Tuesday announced a plan to deploy a dozen F-16 jet fighters in South Korea as a replacement for Apache attack helicopters being withdrawn from the country.

The US forces in Korea said in a statement the F-16s would arrive here before the attack helicopters move out in March.

General Walter Sharp, commander of 28,500 American troops in South Korea, said the planned replacement will 'further strengthen Combined Forces Command's ability to defeat any North Korean aggression.'

South Korea has remained technically at war with North Korea since the 1950-1953 conflict ended only in an armistice and not a full peace pact.

US military authorities had previously announced that a battalion of 24 AH-64 Apache Longbow helicopters, to move from here to Iraq and Afghanistan, would be replaced with a dozen A-10 anti-tank aircraft.

But they decided to send a dozen F-16s instead 'due to increased requirements for inspections and repairs' to the A-10s.

Nato and US commanders have made repeated calls for more helicopters to be deployed in Afghanistan, where US President-elect Barack Obama has promised to intensify military operations to stem a growing insurgency. -- AFP

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Jan 17, 2009
Smart power play in Pyongyang
By Donald Kirk

SEOUL - The United States and South Korea will face a period of testing early in Barack Obama's presidency, with severe disagreements likely on the critical issues of North Korea as well as trade.

While incoming secretary of state
Hillary Clinton applauds the idea of both six-party and bilateral negotiations, North Korea is reverting to one of the oldest demands in its nuclear playbook, that of reciprocity on verification.

The North Korean logic is that as long as others demand verification of claims to have stripped down the nuclear complex at Yongbyon, then South Korea should open up to full inspection of all military facilities to prove it, too, is nuclear-free.

North Korea advanced this notion in a statement calling for "denuclearization of the whole Korean Peninsula … in a verifiable manner", just as the North has been demanding since the talks that led South and North to get together on a joint declaration on denuclearization concluded at the end of 1991.

The United States, years before the signing of that declaration, had hundreds of nuclear warheads in South Korea - and had still more on board some of the vessels that called at South Korean ports. Then, in 1991, according to a survey in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, then-president George H W Bush "ordered the removal of all remaining weapons, which was accomplished in late 1991". [1]

The purpose of the order was to pave the way for the denuclearization agreement and reassure North Korea even as the North revved up its own nuclear program. In six-party talks over the past four or five years, North Korea has alternated between muting and raising the issue - and even suggested the US abandon nuclear weapons on warships at sea as a condition for finally giving up its own program.

South Korea might call the North Korean bluff by agreeing, yes, please send inspectors and we'll show them we have no nukes, but there's no way the North would agree. Instead, South Korea's Foreign Ministry has said the North Korean demand "distorts the fundamental fact of the situation".

Now the question is whether Clinton's team can do any better than did the previous one under Condoleezza Rice, by pursuing what she calls "smart power" rather than the "cowboy diplomacy" of the administration of President George W Bush.

Tempting though it may be to see the verbiage as a cover for no real change in US policy, at least one observer forecasts sweeping shifts. That would be Kim Dae-jung, who initiated the "Sunshine" policy of reconciliation with North Korea during his presidency from 1998 to 2003.

DJ, as he is still widely known, has never forgiven Bush for embarrassing him during their first meeting at the White House in March 2001 by expressing "skepticism" about Kim Jong-il and asking why he should make a deal with no guarantee of "verification". Then, in his State of the Union address in January 2002, Bush compounded the offense, as far as DJ was concerned, by lumping North Korea in an "axis of evil" extending to Iran and Iraq.

DJ clearly does not believe that Bush's outlook changed a lot during his second term, despite unreserved US support for six-party talks that resulted in agreement by North Korea nearly two years ago to give up its nuclear program. Hope lies, he believes, in Obama's willingness to pick up where Hillary's husband, Bill, left off as president before Bush took over eight years ago.

"Unlike the hardline policy of the Bush administration," said DJ, talking to foreign correspondents, "the Obama administration is expected to take a different approach in dealing with North Korea."
The Obama people, DJ predicted, are "likely to move down the path of direct dialogue and package deals” similar to those that Bill Clinton had espoused. DJ did not say so, but presumably he was referring especially to the 1994 Geneva framework agreement that blew apart in late 2002 two years after DJ won the Nobel Peace Prize after going to Pyongyang for the first inter-Korean summit in June 2000.

DJ's main message was that Obama should waste no time giving "priority to resolving the nuclear issue" after his inauguration. "The resolution of the North Korean issue is likely to strengthen momentum for the eventual denuclearization of Iran," he argued.

Nor did he see much point in haggling over North Korean demands. "Let's give North Korea what they need and take what we need," said DJ, claiming as "indisputable fact" that Kim Jong-il "aspires to improve North Korea's relationship with the United States." The final goal: "To encourage North Korea to pursue openness and reform and become a second China or a second Vietnam."

The clear implication of DJ's remarks was that Obama, having said during his campaign that he would be glad to hold dialogue with leaders of countries with which the US has problems, should go along with North Korea's desire to open diplomatic relations with the US - yet another condition on which North Korea insists as a precondition for getting rid of its nuclear warheads.

Two complications, however, may slow down the process. One is that power may be shifting in North Korea. Kim Jong-il's physical condition remains highly uncertain despite frequent attempts to show he's in good health in photographs of visits to factories, farms and military units, but he's never seen in motion.

It hardly seems coincidental, considering the Dear Leader's uncertain grip on life, if not power, that reports are spreading that he's earmarked his third son, 25-year-old Kim Jong-un, as his anointed successor.

Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, carried a lengthy report quoting seemingly authoritative sources as saying that Kim Jong-il, incapacitated mentally as well as physically in the aftermath of a stroke, had decided the Swiss-educated Kim Jong-un, son of Kim's third wife, who died five years ago, was better qualified than either his second son, deemed "effeminate", or his eldest, seen as spoiled and overly Western in his tastes.

Kim Dae-jung predicted that whichever son takes power would be a "symbolic" leader while a coterie of men elevated to high cabinet and party posts would coordinate in a kind of collective rule.
The Obama administration, waiting out the results of North Korea's succession struggle, also is anxious not to get on the wrong side of South Korea's conservative president, Lee Myung-bak. Lee has staked his prestige on confronting North Korea on controversial issues that DJ avoided, notably the human rights of millions of North Koreans who have been jailed, persecuted and, in thousands of cases, tortured to death or executed, often in public.

Obama - and Hillary Clinton - may have to deal with the hypersensitive Free Trade Agreement (FTA) concluded by US and South Korean negotiators well before Lee Myung-bak became president. Lee has been pressing for ratification of the agreement by the South's fractious, and sometimes violent, National Assembly. Although dominated by like-minded conservatives, the assembly's minority, including politicians loyal to DJ, have been trying to prevent the agreement from coming up for a vote.

The opposition of South Korean farmers to the agreement, which they say will let in a flood of imported goods, is similar to that of US motor vehicle workers, who say they'll lose jobs while very few - if any - American cars will be sold in South Korea.

Both Obama and Clinton have called for revisions that will guarantee increased motor vehicle exports to Korea, but South Korean officials say they're not open for new negotiations on a deal reached following one and a half years of very difficult US-Korean talks.

The view among many observers here is that the FTA will have to wait for a long time before it even comes up in US Congress. Nor is anybody taking odds on North Korea ever giving up its nuclear program despite Kim Dae-jung's plea "to get back on the right track before it is too late".

Note
1. Norris, Robert S, and Hans M Kristensen, "“Nuclear Notebook: North Korea's nuclear program, 2005," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May/June 2005.

Journalist Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and the confrontation of forces in Northeast Asia - for more than 30 years.

Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Nuclear news heightens fears over tough-talking N Korea

Posted Mon Jan 19, 2009 11:00am AEDT
Updated Mon Jan 19, 2009 12:22pm AEDT

North Korea's military is warning the South to keep in line.


North Korea's military is warning the South to keep in line. (AFP)

Its military parades may be predictable and synchronised, but North Korea's brand of public diplomacy is anything but.

And over the weekend, Pyongyang pulled another surprise, with a senior member of the Korean People's Army joint chiefs of staff appearing on state television.

A uniformed member of the military bobbing up on TV is unusual, and he delivered a message dripping with menace.

Accusing South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and his government of pushing for confrontation, the North's spokesman vowed his country would respond by taking an all-out confrontational posture to shatter the South.

He also warned that strong military measures will follow from the North's armed forces.

At issue here is the passage of South Korean ships into disputed waters of the Yellow Sea, a quarrel which triggered naval skirmishes between the two sides in 1999 and 2002.

In response to Pyongyang's threat, South Korea has put its military on alert along its land and sea borders.

North Korea watchers say this is a worrisome development, but with Barack Obama to be sworn in as US President this week, it could all be just elaborate posturing by Pyongyang to set up a negotiating position on its nuclear program.

The sabre-rattling came shortly after an American scholar returned from a visit to Pyongyang, revealing that North Korean officials told him that they had enough plutonium for four or five nuclear bombs.

US scholar and North Korea expert Selig Harrison says in Pyongyang he was told by regime officials that they had "weaponised" 31 kilograms of plutonium.

"It does change the game and it's going to make it a much more difficult negotiation than it looked like before this," he said.

Mr Harrison's admission, and the appearance of a senior military official on North Korean TV, both raise new questions about who is doing the day-to-day running of the communist state.

With Kim Jong-Il suffering a stroke last year and struggling with reported heart and diabetes troubles, Mr Harrison believes the Dear Leader has loosened his grip on the affairs of state.

"People I talked to have many indications that some important things are submitted to him, but he is not working in the way he used to before," he said.

Which all means the new Obama Administration will face an even more unpredictable regime in Pyongyang.

Based on a report by North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy, first aired on AM on January 19, 2009.

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US warns of N Korea nuclear intent

By Andrew Ward, Edward Luce and Demetri Sevastopulo in,Washington

Published: January 19 2009 02:00 | Last updated: January 19 2009 02:00

North Korea might have continued to engage in uranium enrichment activities in spite of its pledge to give up all nuclear weapons prog-rammes, according to the outgoing US national security adviser.

Stephen Hadley urged tough questions over highly enriched uranium (HEU), while encouraging Barack Obama, the president-elect, to keep faith with the six-party framework to deal with North Korea.

"We strongly believe that there is an undetermined amount of highly enriched uranium in North Korea," Mr Hadley told the Financial Times. "It got there either because it was manufactured there or because it was imported - we don't know which. But either way, it's got to be explained."

North Korea has had a plutonium-based nuclear programme for more than two decades and tested its first nuclear device in 2006, but the US believes the secretive country has also tried to develop a second, uranium-based programme.

Without giving details, Mr Hadley said there was evidence that Pyongyang had continued to experiment with HEU since the US first confronted Kim Jong-il's regime over the issue in 2002. "That, of course, gives us real concern," he said.

He predicted that Pyongyang would seek fresh bilateral talks with the new administration but argued that the six-party process still offered the best chance of a lasting settlement. The administration of George W. Bush launched the six-party talks - involving the US, North and South Korea, China, Japan and Russia - in 2003 to apply multilateral pressure on Pyongyang.

North Korea agreed in 2005 to denuclearise in return for economic and political incentives but progress towards concluding the deal has been slow.

Mr Hadley's remarks came days after Mr Bush, the outgoing president, voiced renewed concern over North Korea's suspected HEU programme at his farewell press conference.

However, the possible existence of an HEU programme in North Korea remains a source of intense debate in intelligence circles. Michael McConnell, director of national intelligence, on Friday said the US -intelligence community's consensus view - that it believes with "moderate" confidence that North Korea had an active HEU programme - had not changed.

Some critics of Mr Bush have suggested that the White House is highlighting fears over HEU before leaving office to justify its decision to confront North Korea in 2002 - a move that led to the collapse of a Clinton-era agreement that had frozen Pyongyang's more advanced plutonium programme.

Over the past year, the US has downplayed concerns about HEU as it focused on getting Pyongyang to disclose and verify its plutonium programme. In recent weeks, however, government scientists have determined that particles found on documents and aluminium tubes received from North Korea as part of the verification process contained HEU.

However, there has been considerable debate about the significance of the particles and about intelligence analysis dating it to three and a half years. A senior official told the FT that the timeframe did not represent a "smoking gun".

Mr Hadley added that the election of a black president with a multicultural background had increased faith in US democracy around the world.

"It was a convincing display that . . . contrary to the view of many, our democracy and electoral process was not a sham," he said.