Salon.com > Jean H. Lee

North Korea claims to have “striking means” on standby

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 11:10:00 +0000

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — A North Korean agency that deals with relations with South Korea claims Pyongyang has "powerful striking means" on standby for a launch amid speculation in Seoul and Washington that the country is preparing to test a mid-range missile.

The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland also said Thursday it has entered coordinates for targets. But it didn't elaborate on what it meant. The statement follows a recent torrent of warlike rhetoric seen as an effort to raise fears and pressure outside governments into policy changes.

The comments would carry more weight if they came from a military-related agency.

Analysts believe North Korea is extremely unlikely to stage an attack. But outside officials have said Pyongyang appears to be preparing to test-fly a missile that could reach Guam.

North Korea says it has detained a U.S. citizen

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 15:41:00 +0000

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) -- North Korea said Friday that an American citizen has been detained after confessing to unspecified crimes, confirming news reports about his arrest at a time when Pyongyang is facing criticism from Washington for launching a long-range rocket last week.

The American was identified as Pae Jun Ho in a brief dispatch issued by the state-run Korean Central News Agency in Pyongyang. News reports in the U.S. and South Korea said Pae is known in his home state of Washington as Kenneth Bae, a 44-year-old tour operator of Korean descent.

An expert said he is likely to become a bargaining chip for the North, an attempt to draw the U.S. into talks. Five other Americans known to have been detained in North Korea since 2009 were all eventually released.

North Korean state media said Pae arrived in the far northeastern city of Rajin on Nov. 3 as part of a tour.

Rajin is part of a special economic zone not far from Yanji, China, that has sought to draw foreign investors and tourists over the past year. Yanji, home to many ethnic Korean Chinese, also serves as a base for Christian groups that shelter North Korean defectors.

With U.S. support, South Korea cuts trade with North

Mon, 24 May 2010 13:31:00 +0000

South Korea's president cut trade to North Korea vowing the country would "pay a price" for a torpedo attack that killed 46 sailors, and promised to haul its impoverished neighbor before the U.N. Security Council.

The White House offered its full support for South Korea's moves, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed with China, a veto-wielding permanent seat holder on the Security Council, how best to handle the precarious situation.

North Korea has benefited from trade with South Korea, though not to the point where its economy has become dependent on its rival. Pyongyang's trade with close ally China, for example, is bigger.

"We have always tolerated North Korea's brutality, time and again. We did so because we have always had a genuine longing for peace on the Korean peninsula," President Lee Myung-bak said in a solemn speech to the nation from the halls of the country's War Memorial.

"But now things are different. North Korea will pay a price corresponding to its provocative acts," he said.

Lee also pledged to prohibit North Korea's cargo ships from passing through South Korean waters -- in retaliation for the March 26 sinking.