Archives North and South Korea - Page 2 of 3 - New Eastern Outlook
08.01.2024 Konstantin Asmolov

This is the second part of the digest on inter-Korean tensions, dedicated to the DPRK actions. See the previous article to learn what the United States and the Republic of Korea did during the same period. Early in the morning on September 2, 2023, “a missile launch exercise was conducted to simulate a tactical nuclear attack to warn enemies of an actual nuclear war danger.” The launch came two days after the US and the ROK completed their 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise…

05.01.2024 Konstantin Asmolov

We would like to bring to your attention the next digest of “moving towards red lines” on the Korean Peninsula. Since the articles should be kept concise, the author has to divide this narrative into two parts: first, with the South, then, with the North in focus. On October 5, 2023, during hearings in the US Senate, a well-known American expert on the countries of the Korean Peninsula from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Victor Cha, proposed to develop and adopt a new policy providing for prevention measures to neutralize the DPRK missile threat…

29.12.2023 Konstantin Asmolov

The final text in the series on the North Korean satellite launch will focus on the military and political response of “the southern side”, which had several aspects. The first aspect is the strengthening of the US strategic forces. An aircraft carrier group including the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and the Los Angeles-class nuclear submarine Santa Fe (SSN-763) arrived in Busan before the launch and visited the Navy base on the Jeju-do island after it. It is alleged, that on October 23, in response to such actions, North Korea launched an unidentified ballistic…

27.12.2023 Konstantin Asmolov

NEO wrote about the possible termination of the inter-Korean military agreement (CMA, Comprehensive Military Agreement ) quite recently, mentioning that its zeroing will take place after the launch of the DPRK satellite. And so it happened. Recall that even before the launch, the Administration of the President of South Korea assumed that the CMA “could be suspended in the event North Korea goes ahead with its planned space rocket launch.” Conservative media…

23.12.2023 Konstantin Asmolov

North Korea’s successful launch of a satellite on November 21 has led to another wave of speculation both about the satellite’s capabilities and about potential military-technological cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang. This is largely due to the syndrome noted more than once, in which anti-Pyongyang propaganda first comes up with certain clichés and then begins to believe in them. The DPRK is seen as an “Evil State” and thus incapable of real success. Any real achievements are therefore dismissed – “the new housing developments were built to distract the population from economic…

11.12.2023 Konstantin Asmolov

The style of North Korean propaganda is peculiar enough that many people cling to it rather than the substance of the messages, preferring to declare them propaganda statements denouncing non-existent enemies. However, over time, what the audience perceived as propaganda fairy tales turned out not to be fairy tales at all. Suffice it to recall the “blowing up statues of leaders by drone” repeatedly quoted by the author. When the North Koreans first announced the disclosure of such plans, most people marvelled at their absurdity: blowing up statues of leaders with drones sent from China…

07.12.2023 Konstantin Asmolov

On November 1, 2018, the Comprehensive Military Agreement (CMA), which was signed on September 19 in Pyongyang by South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo and North Korean Defense Minister No Kwang Chol entered into force. The document’s full title is Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-Aggression, Exchanges, and Cooperation, known as the “Agreement on the Implementation of the Historic Panmunjom Declaration in the Military Domain” or Comprehensive Military Agreement (CMA). On April 27, the document was adopted…

04.12.2023 Konstantin Asmolov

On November 8, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Seoul after the G7 foreign ministers meeting in Tokyo. It was the first visit to Seoul by the US Secretary of State since the Yoon Suk-yeol government took office in May 2022. Blinken last visited Seoul in March 2021 to attend a summit of the two countries’ foreign and defense ministers, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s visit in 2023 came soon after, but we’ll discuss it and its outcome separately…

20.11.2023 Konstantin Asmolov

The Ministry of Reunification declared on November 2, 2023 that it chose to identify family members of South Korean nationals who had been detained in North Korea for a prolonged amount of time as Pyongyang abduction victims. Four family members living in the ROK will receive benefits ranging from 15 million to 20 million won ($11,000 to $15,000) per family. “For a substantial solution to the issue of detainees, abductees and prisoners of war (in North Korea), the government will cooperate with civic groups to continue to draw attention at home and abroad…

25.10.2023 Konstantin Asmolov

The author has frequently come upon the results of politician and businesswoman Yoon Mee-hyang’s actions when investigating…

15.10.2023 Konstantin Asmolov
Travis King

On July 18, 2023, a 23-year-old US Army soldier Travis King defected to North Korea through the demilitarized zone from the South. In the history of the South-North Korean division, there have only been six instances (King was the seventh one) of U.S. soldiers fleeing to North Korea. King was a troublemaking soldier. Let us recall that, on October 8, 2022, King was detained by the South Korean police on the nightclub violence charges. The private was not cooperating with the police officers who demanded his personal data and kicked open their car door. From May 24 to July 10, King was held in a South Korean prison after failing to pay a fine…

08.10.2023 Konstantin Asmolov

On the evening of September 19, 2023, Kim Jong-un’s special train arrived in Pyongyang. Now that the visit is over, it is possible to finally summarize the agreements and answer “frequently asked questions” despite the fact that there was no final statement summarizing the results of the visit, and this was planned from the beginning. Next. On September 12, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “being neighbors, our countries cooperate in sensitive areas, which should not become the subject of any public disclosure