North Korea has officially warned the United States that recent actions may “block the path to denuclearization on the Korean peninsula forever” in a statement from their Foreign Minister on their official state news service, KCNA. KCNA Watch has the full statement.
They blame not President Trump, but rather the State Department. Their efforts in that regard allow the President to continue to claim a great relationship between himself and Kim Jong Un, but also to enhance the distrust many of the President’s supporters have in their government by way of the “deep state” conspiracy theory.
During the past six months since the Singapore DPRK-U.S. summit, the U.S. high-ranking politicians including the secretary of state have almost every day slandered the DPRK out of sheer malice, and the State Department and the Treasury Department have taken anti-DPRK sanctions measures for as many as eight times against the companies, individuals and ships of not only the DPRK but also Russia, China and other third countries by fabricating pretexts of all hues such as money laundering, illegal transactions through ship-to-ship transfer and cyber-attack.
Recently, the U.S. is resorting to anti-DPRK human rights plot in such a way that it carries deliberate provocation by adding high-ranking government officials of the DPRK, a sovereign state, to its unilateral sanctions list, while taking issue with the non-existent “human rights issue”.
The officials being referenced are three who were added to the list of those sanctioned by the United States one week ago. They are Propaganda and Agitation Department head Kwang Ho Pak, State Security Minister Kyong Thaek Jong, and most importantly Kim Jong Un’s aide Ryong Hae Choe.
This development follows November’s disclosures of new bases being found, weaponry being developed, and the threat of nuclear missiles again being constructed.
Meanwhile, the concessions to North Korea regarding joint US / South Korea exercises continue but in a diminished state, as reported in the India Times. Prior exercises have been scrapped but there is a plan to hold a joint exercise in 2019; that exercise is to be reduced in scope from prior years.
The relationship between North and South Korea has also warmed, with the latest evidence a trip by South Korean officials to inspect the North Korean train system in preparation of a possible opening of transit between the countries and the confirmation of guard posts being disabled along the border, per the Korea Herald.
If, as some suspected, the Trump / Kim summit was a propaganda move instead of an earnest attempt at denuclearization by the North Koreans, it appears to have reaped significant benefits for the North Korean regime.
