N. Korea's top envoy to UN repeats calls for US return of seized cargo ship

North Korea's top envoy to the United Nations on Tuesday redoubled calls for the United States to quickly return a North Korean cargo ship seized on suspicion of violating international sanctions.Kim Song, the North's permanent representative at the UN, also said that Pyongyang will "sharply watch every move of the US" while stressing that the US should think about the consequences the seizure could have on future developments. On May 9, the US Justice Department said that it had seize

May 22, 2019

Minister: N. Korea food aid program will abide by humanitarian principles

Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul said Tuesday that the government’s plans to send food assistance to North Korea will adhere to humanitarian principles and pledged to separate the action from wider political goals. “Providing humanitarian aid is (a matter of) humanitarian principles, no more, no less. The international community’s universal consensus is that humanitarian aid should be separated from politics,” Kim told reporters in his first media briefing since he took office April 8. Unifica

May 21, 2019

‘US should accept incremental approach to North Korea nuclear issue’

The US should revise its strategy of pressuring North Korea to give up all its nuclear weapons before offering any sanctions relief, said a veteran diplomat, in order to avoid repeating diplomatic events that have ended in failure over the past two decades. “The US needs to take an incremental approach to resolve North Korea’s denuclearization issues. Demanding it to relinquish its entire nuclear arsenal first seems to be another repetition of the history of failure that begun (to be) attempted

May 21, 2019

60% of female N. Korean defectors in China trafficked into sex trade: report

About 60 percent of female North Korean defectors in China are believed to be trafficked for sexual exploitation, a London-based civic group said in a report, urging South Korea and China to take action to protect the women and girls. Of the victims, nearly half were forced into prostitution, over 30 percent were sold into forced marriages and another 15 percent were pressed into cybersex from 2015 to 2018, Korea Future Initiative said in the report, citing rescuers based in China.Titled "T

May 21, 2019

NK raises pressure on Seoul while receiving aid from China

North Korea continued its criticism of South Korea on Monday, calling on Seoul to reject interference from foreign powers and taking issue with a meeting of a Seoul-Washington working group. Meanwhile, Chinese data showed that Pyongyang received aid from Beijing last year despite UN Security Council resolutions.  (Yonhap)A North Korean propaganda outlet on Monday accused the South Korean government of fueling discord by working with the US, focusing on a recent meeting of a Seoul-Washington work

May 20, 2019

[Feature] Moon faces daunting task to revive stalled nuke talks

Just hours before South Korean President Moon Jae-in was set to appear in his first televised interview with a local broadcaster on May 9 marking his second anniversary of presidency, North Korea fired two short-range missiles.The surprising move came less than a week after it launched multiple projectiles into the East Sea on May 4.During what could have been a celebratory interview looking back on his past two years, Moon warned the North that such military actions would only heighten tensions

May 19, 2019

Pro-NK media presses US to drop demand for Pyongyang to forgo nukes first

A pro-North Korea newspaper in Japan urged the United States on Saturday to retract its position that Pyongyang should forgo nuclear arms first before rewards are given, in an apparent call for flexibility to resume nuclear talks between the two sides.The Chosun Sinbo also warned that diplomacy with Pyongyang could come to naught if the US fails to meet the year-end deadline that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has set for Washington to come up with the "right methodology" for the stalled negoti

May 18, 2019

Unification minister meets with Christian pastors over aid to N. Korea

Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul met with Christian pastors from major churches Friday to exchange views on humanitarian assistance to North Korea.The meeting came as North Korea is suffering food shortages, having apparently been hit by global sanctions and years of unfavorable weather conditions.The participants raised the need for the government to push for humanitarian assistance to Pyongyang as North Koreans are facing a food crisis at a time when inter-Korean ties remain strained, accord

May 17, 2019

S. Korea decides to donate $8ml for NK aid projects, allow biz people to visit Kaesong complex

South Korea decided Friday to donate $8 million to international agencies for aid projects in North Korea and allow a group of businesspeople to visit a shuttered joint industrial complex in the communist nation.  The decisions came as Seoul has been trying to keep the peace process with the North alive despite the North's firing of missiles and projectiles earlier this month. Seoul is also formulating plans to send food aid to the impoverished North.   "The government decided to approve the bus

May 17, 2019

S. Korea allows biz people to visit Kaesong park for first time since its closure

South Korea's unification ministry said Friday that it will allow a group of businesspeople to visit a joint industrial complex in North Korea for the first time since its shutdown in 2016.About 200 businesspeople, who used to operate their plants in the North's border town of Kaesong, had earlier asked for approval of their travel plans in their ninth attempt to visit the complex to check the condition of the equipment they left behind when it was closed. (Yonhap)Up until Friday, the government

May 17, 2019

Cheong Wa Dae seeks to provide N. Korea food aid despite missile firings

A top South Korean presidential official said Friday that Seoul would press ahead with food aid for North Korea despite its recent missile launches.Chung Eui-yong, head of the presidential National Security Office, stressed that the humanitarian issue should be separated from such a security issue.He said the government has already decided on the food assistance and it's making "various preparations" for specific measures. (Yonhap)"I think the food issue should be reviewed, irrespective of the s

May 17, 2019

Kim Jong-nam refused offer to lead government-in-exile: report

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s late step brother Kim Jong-nam had refused a request from an anti-Pyongyang group to lead a government-in-exile, a Japanese newspaper reported Thursday.Citing Park Sang-hak, who leads an organization of North Korean defectors, the Sankei Shimbun said that Adrian Hong Chang, leader of the group that led infiltrated the North Korean embassy in Spain in February, told Park that he had sounded Kim out on leading a government-in-exile. Kim refused, saying he wished t

May 16, 2019

Moon, Trump to hold summit in Seoul in June

President Moon Jae-in and US President Donald Trump will hold their eighth summit in Seoul in June to discuss North Korea and bilateral issues, Seoul and Washington’s presidential offices said Thursday. “At the summit, the two leaders plan to discuss ways to strengthen the Korea-US alliance and to establish permanent peace through complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Cheong Wa Dae spokesperson Ko Min-jung said in a statement. President Moon Jae-in and US President Donald Trump sha

May 16, 2019

Ministry downplays reports on North Korea’s food situation

Amid the Seoul government’s efforts to send humanitarian aid to the North, the Unification Ministry on Wednesday shrugged off reports that North Korea might not be facing a severe food crisis given that the price of rice in the country is on a downward trend. The price of rice in the North Korean market, known as jangmadang, had fallen to 4,000 won per kilogram as of April 30, from 5,000 won in November last year, according to a report by Daily NK, which regularly surveys the price. “We recogniz

May 15, 2019

7 NK defectors detained in China: Human Rights Watch

US-based human rights group Human Rights Watch on Tuesday said seven North Korean defectors are in custody in China and urged Beijing to take steps to protect them. According to Human Rights Watch, the seven North Koreans were taken into custody on April 28 and held in Anshan, Liaoning province. It cited unnamed South Koreans assisting families of the detainees.  (Yonhap)Human Rights Watch said the detainees consist of a 10-year-old girl, three men and three women. Some of the detainees had arri

May 15, 2019

Seoul mulls sending food aid to Pyongyang before October

The South Korean government is considering sending food aid to North Korea before the harvest season at the request of a UN agency that called on the international community to support Pyongyang, which is facing its worst food crisis in 10 years, a ministry official said Tuesday. Citing a recent joint report from the World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization on North Korea’s food situation, a Unification Ministry official said May to September would be an appropriate time to p

May 14, 2019

WFP head ‘very concerned’ about N. Korea‘s food shortages

The head of a U.N. food agency said Monday he is “very concerned” about food shortages in North Korea and called for donations to the impoverished communist nation, affirming that the agency will try to make sure aid will reach those intended.　World Food Programme Executive Director David Beasley made the remarks to reporters after he met with South Korean Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul to discuss North Korea’s worsening food situation.　“We are very concerned about the situation there and we

May 13, 2019

[News Focus] US stresses diplomacy; Seoul cautious on NK missiles

South Korea and the US appear determined to stay the course on North Korea in the face of an increasingly belligerent Pyongyang.In the latest hint that Washington will, at least for the time being, continue on its current course, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the goal of the Trump administration’s North Korea diplomacy remains clear. “Past efforts, agreements that we entered into with North Korea, only produced more North Korean nukes and American diplomatic failure,” Pompeo said, speak

May 13, 2019