N. Korea Calls for Peace, Warns of "Nuclear Holocaust"

N. Korea Calls for Peace, Warns of "Nuclear Holocaust"
Tom Lasseter, McClatchy Newspapers: "North Korea on Saturday called for dialogue and peace on the Korean Peninsula in a state-issued New Year’s Day editorial, warning that a breakout of war with the South 'will bring nothing but a nuclear holocaust'.... While the statement also characterized South Korea’s government as a 'minion of war' beholden to 'pro-U.S. war hawks,' the document’s repeated calls for more cooperation suggest that the North might be moving, for now, away from a pattern of attacks against the South."
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China, North Korea stand fast despite US anger

China, North Korea stand fast despite US anger
Seoul (AFP) Dec 9, 2010 Communist allies North Korea and China proclaimed their unity Thursday as the North's leader Kim Jong-Il held his first meeting with a senior Chinese envoy since the region's worst crisis in years erupted. China's most senior foreign policymaker Dai Bingguo visited Pyongyang as pressure intensifies on Beijing to rein in its neighbour, after North Korea's deadly shelling of a South Korean island inflamed tensions on the peninsula.
The top US military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, accused China of aiding and abetting the hardline Kim regime's "reckless behaviour".
Pyongyang and Beijing, allies during the Korean War, stand firmly together, their official media said.
"The two sides reached consensus on bilateral relations and the situation on the Korean peninsula after candid and in-depth talks," said a brief report from China's Xinhua news agency, datelined Pyongyang, after Kim and Dai met.
North Korea's official news agency said the delegations discussed "issues of mutual concern" and efforts to improve friendly relations.
It marked the first time that Kim has met a senior foreign official since the North's shock artillery attack on the border island, and since his regime startled the world by showing off a sophisticated new nuclear programme.
China is North Korea's sole major ally and sustains its shaky economy with fuel and food aid. More at link.

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South Korea, U.S. to Discuss Extended Deterrence from GSN Daily News

http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20101112_4772.php

The United States and South Korea are set to hold talks before year's end on issues tied to extended nuclear deterrence and a ballistic missile shield, the Asahi Shimbun reported today (see GSN, April 21).
The discussions would fall under the Extended Deterrence Policy Committee that Seoul and Washington "agreed to institutionalize" in October, according to a joint statement. Senior-level South Korean and U.S. defense officials are expected to determine the group's format and issues it would address.
South Korean defense insiders said their government would begin by requesting that the two nations swap intelligence tied to North Korea's nuclear arms work (see GSN, Nov. 11). The South would also like to talk about potential North Korean nuclear proliferation and how to react if attacked with various kinds of nuclear strikes, the sources said.
While Washington has stated its nuclear umbrella covers Japan and South Korea, concrete military details about what that would mean in the event of a nuclear assault have not yet been laid out (see GSN, Oct. 12). The United States has held off on providing specifics over worries that such information could anger China and give Pyongyang further grounds to continue its nuclear weapons work.
Seoul, though, has been urging talks about the nuclear umbrella to address public worries regarding the ramifications of future drawdowns of U.S. soldiers stationed on the Korean Peninsula.
The Obama administration might now be willing to provide these deterrence specifics because Washington "may have become worried that if it did not make a virtual guarantee of its nuclear umbrella, (South Korea) might have decided to embark on its own nuclear weapons development," a South Korean source said (Yoshihiro Makino, Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 12).

U.S. Announces New N. Korea Sanctions - Council on Foreign Relations

U.S. Announces New N. Korea Sanctions

The White House announced new sanctions against North Korea (WashPost), which target weapons providers, luxury goods producers, and financial services involved in money laundering, counterfeiting, and narcotics trafficking. The sanctions come in response to the March sinking of a South Korean warship, which an international investigation blamed on North Korea. The announcement came days after former president Jimmy Carter visited North Korea to secure the release of an American activist. The sanctions would make it illegal for U.S. companies to do business with firms found to be helping North Korea with illicit activities. The sanctions may complicate the relaunch of talks on North Korea's nuclear arms program, which the Obama administration said it is still hoping to resume. The U.S. announcement came hours after North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il told Chinese President Hu Jintao during a four-day visit to China that North Korea wanted to rejoin Six Party Talks (KoreaTimes) on denuclearization. South Korea, a member of the talks, has said the talks can only resume after North Korea admits to the March 26 attack (Bloomberg) and apologizes.

Analysis:

On ForeignPolicy.com, Weston Konishi, associate director of Asia-Pacific studies at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, says there have been so many rounds of sanctions against North Korea that there's not much added benefit to additional measures.

In an interview with CFR.org, Marcus Noland, of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said that Washington's new sanctions against North Korea, focusing on international financial institutions and banking systems, are likely to have more impact than trade sanctions.

This CFR Analysis Brief examines heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula, in part fueled by U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises.

Background:

This CFR Crisis Guide examines politics on the Korean Peninsula.

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Carter Leaves North Korea With Message on Nuclear Talks Friday, Aug. 27, 2010

The second in charge of North Korea told visiting ex-U.S. President Jimmy Carter that the regime was resolved to seeing the Korean Peninsula stripped of nuclear weapons and to rejoining the moribund six-nation talks, Reuters reported today

"Kim Yong Nam expressed the will of the D.P.R.K. government for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the resumption of the six-party talks," the state-controlled Korean Central News Agency said.

Pyongyang abandoned the nuclear talks in April 2009 in the wake of another round of U.N. Security Council sanctions. It subsequently conducted its second nuclear test and announced it was rolling back denuclearization measures undertaken during the years-long six-nation process.
The U.S. State Department indicated yesterday the Obama administration was likely to wait until next month's U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York to directly discuss relaunching the negotiations with the other participating states -- China, Japan, the two Koreas and Russia, Agence France-Presse reported More at: .http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20100827_9331.php