Blog Archives

The envoy said his country wants to focus on economic development and needs a peaceful external environment for that aim, adding that his visit aims to consolidate ties with Beijing. Pyongyang observers said the suggested softened stance would break a months-long impasse on the peninsula. The envoy, Director of the Korean People’s Army’s General Political Bureau Choe [...]

The Special Envoy Is in Town | Vice Marshal Choe Ryong-hae’s visit to Beijingprovides a good opportunity to reappraise the current status of China-North Korea relations as pundits attempt to guess the narrative, tone and substance of talks between the Chinese government and Choe. With Chinese media emphasizing Choe’s [...]

Yung Kum Kim’s first child died of starvation in North Korea. She was a little girl named Sulim. She was 2 years old. “After the death of (longtime dictator) Kim Il Sung, they stopped rations. There was nothing to eat. Most days, we didn’t eat anything,” Kim, 41, said through a translator. After that tragedy in 1995, she [...]

Former Blue House spokesman Yoon Chang-jung, as is probably known to most readers of this blog, allegedly celebrated President Park’s up-until-that-moment successful visit to Washington by getting drunk and sexually assaulting a 21 year old Korean-American female who had been hired to work on summit-related tasks. Reportedly when the woman returned to her hotel room [...]

Japanese official: discussion finished for resuming talks with N. Korea . MAY 24, 2013 06:01. . Isao Iijima, an adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, said Thursday that when he visited North Korea last week, he finished working-level talks for the proposed resumption of negotiations for establishing formal diplomatic relations between the two countries. [...]

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s special envoy met with another top Chinese party official Thursday, the second day of his scheduled three-day trip here seen as aimed at mending frayed ties between the two countries.   Vice Marshall Choe Ryong-hae, director of the General Political Bureau of North Korea’s People’s Army, flew to Beijing on Wednesday. [...]

Kim Jong Eun’s special envoy in Beijing, Choi Ryong Hae met Chinese Communist Party official Liu Yunshan earlier today, where he asserted that North Korea seeks dialogue with “related countries.”Choi, who arrived in Beijing yesterday, met Liu, a CCP Politburo Standing Committee member, at the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square. “Chosun is [...]

The North Korean authorities have been pushing the concept of expedited membership of the Chosun Workers’ Party as a reward for border guards who capture would-be defectors and those who aid and abet them. The move is designed to incentivize members of the border forces to enforce prohibitions against defection, rather than turning a blind [...]

On the 22nd, Kim Jong Eun’s close advisor and director of the Chosun People’s Army General Political Department Choi Ryong Hae was sent on a surprise visit to China as a special envoy from the North Korean leader. The visit is attracting interest worldwide, especially in terms of whether it will lead to a summit [...]

A North Korean committee today suggested by fax that North and South Korea hold a joint event to commemorate next month’s thirteenth anniversary of the 6.15 North-South Joint Declaration, the agreement signed between former President Kim Dae Jung and Kim Jong Il at their summit in Pyongyang in 2000.“We received a proposal from the North [...]