International Crisis Group

North Korea rejects US call for talks | Financial Times

By Simon Mundy 

Daniel Pinkston, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the statement was consistent with previous pronouncements. “They’re so committed [to the nuclear programme]. People fail to recognise that this policy was announced by the party central committee – they wrote it into law.”

Mr Pinkston said he doubted that the US would open talks with North Korea while it vowed to press ahead with its nuclear programme, calling such a move “politically unacceptable” in Washington.

FULL ARTICLE (Financial Times) (paywall)

Photo: Joseph A Ferris III/Flickr

N. Korea urges foreigners in South to evacuate | AFP

By Park Chan-Kyong 

Last week’s warning to embassies in Pyongyang was also largely dismissed as rhetoric, with most governments making it clear they had no plans to withdraw personnel.

“It’s almost comic,” said Daniel Pinkston, a North Korea expert with the International Crisis Group.

“They want to rattle the investment market, create pressure and make people nervous.

“But it’s just not working. It’s as if they didn’t get a rise out of the embassies in Pyongyang, so they’re just moving on to the next target,” Pinkston said.

FULL ARTICLE (AFP)

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China swiftly becoming exasperated with North Korea | Catholic Online

Daniel Pinkston, a North Korea expert at the International Crisis Group, said Beijing was “fed up” at the distractions being created by Pyongyang while it tries to focus its energies on other problems. “They need to address issues in the South China Sea, they have a corruption campaign going on at home, North Korea is giving them a headache,” Pinkston says.

China’s relationship with North Korea had become a liability, he says. “Why should China maintain relations with a regime and a country that will face failure sooner or later?” he asked. “Once North Korea has nuclear weapons, it cannot be ruled out that the capricious Kim regime will engage in nuclear blackmail against China,” he added.

FULL ARTICLE (Catholic Online)

Photo: Joseph A Ferris III/Flickr

N Korea loads missiles onto launchers, tells Russia, Britain to evacuate embassies  | Herald Sun

There has been speculation that Pyongyang might schedule a missile launch to coincide with the birthday of the North’s late founder Kim Il-Sung in mid-April.

“A flight test would make sense,” Daniel Pinkston, a North Korea expert at the International Crisis Group, told AFP.

“But I’d be surprised if they used an untested missile. At this stage in the game, they don’t want to be firing off something that might disintegrate after 30 seconds.”

FULL ARTICLE (Herald Sun)

Photo: Joseph A Ferris III/Flickr

Why is North Korea Risking the Closure of the Kaesŏng Industrial Complex?

from Crisis Group’s blog on Korea, “Strong & Prosperous”

by Daniel Pinkston

After five days of restricting access to the inter-Korean Kaesŏng Industrial Complex (KIC), Pyongyang ordered suspension of operations pending a review on the future of the project. KIC was established in accordance with an agreement reached during the June 2000 inter-Korean summit and remains one of the few symbols of inter-Korean cooperation. The project is home to 123 South Korean firms that employ about 53,000 North Korean workers who produce labour-intensive manufactured goods that are losing competitiveness in South Korea’s increasingly high-wage economy. For Pyongyang, KIC is an important source of hard currency, given that both the country’s export competitiveness and its foreign-exchange sources are very limited.

The North Korean government receives about $90 million per year for KIC labour services, but workers see only a portion of this, which they receive in North Korean wŏn at the official exchange rate. Former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and supporters of the “sunshine policy” envisioned that KIC would be a transformative project that would draw North Korea out of its isolation. It offered an opportunity for North Koreans to see the subversive reality of an alternative economic system; this was in turn expected to encourage reform and opening. Instead, North Korea has operated KIC as if it were a hermetically sealed space station. South Korea has supplied electricity, water and waste-water treatment, heating oil, construction materials, and components and material inputs for the manufactures. The only things North Korea has supplied are the land and labour.

Given that the North succeeded in sealing off KIC, why would the Pyongyang leadership now risk losing it? There are two possibilities, neither of which is reassuring for the future of the Korean peninsula.

FULL POST

Photo: Uriminzokkiri

Who’s In Charge North Korea? A Brief Look At Who Pulls The Political Strings | Huffington Post

By Eline Gordts

The International Crisis Group explains that the Korean Workers Party (KWP) is North Korea’s main political organ. The 124 members of the party’s Central Committee select a General Secretary, the 10-member Secretariat, a 14-member Politbureau, a Presidium and the members of the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC).

As the ICC notes, the party structure fully support the dictatorship. Deceased leader Kim Jong Il is the party’s “Eternal Secretary,” while Kim Jong Un is First Secretary. Kim Jong Un also heads the powerful National Defense Commission (NDC), a position that gives him control over the armed forces.

Powerful figures in the regime can take up different mandates within the party or the security apparatus over time and can even combine several positions.

FULL ARTICLE (Huffington Post)

Photo: Joseph A Ferris III/Flickr