Spring aggravation at Kim Jong-un
Since April 1, when humorous rumors about a North Korean rocket attack on an American military base located in South Korea, and even a nuclear strike, caused by an aircraft of the US Air Force that invaded the airspace of peaceful North Korea, were launched on the Internet exchange of unilateral statements of North Korea, the United States, South Korea, Japan, China and other countries, including Russia. However, Kim Jong-un, the leader of the North Korean labor people, as if he did not hear the voice of the world community.
At about the same time as April Fool's morning rumors of twelve missiles fired at the American military base, the North Korean newspaper Nodon Sinmun announced the world about the new goals of the young leader.
In the case of the start of full-scale hostilities on the Korean Peninsula, wrote a newspaper located in the territory of Japan, the US base will be considered as targets for rocket attacks from the DPRK. The Central Press Body of the Workers' Party of Korea clarified: we are talking about the Misawa Air Force Base in Aomori Prefecture (684 km north of Tokyo), the US Navy Yokosuka Base in Kanagawa Prefecture (65 km south of Tokyo) and US military facilities in the southern Japanese prefecture Okinawa.
The words of the leader were also quoted. According to Kim Jong-un, the DPRK "is not going to use nuclear weapon as a commodity for the purchase of American dollars or a bargaining chip for economic aid. " (Of course, with a bit of irony in brackets, Kim Jong-un will use nuclear weapons for its intended purpose - to destroy the imperialist bases).
In principle, Comrade Kim does exactly what he promised to the masters of the imperialists in March. 30 of the DPRK officially announced that the state of “neither war nor peace” ended on the Korean Peninsula. "Relations with South Korea from that moment entered into a state of war," said the North Korean government in this regard. Kim Jong-un said that the strategic line of the Labor Party of Korea would be to simultaneously carry out both economic reconstruction and the development of military nuclear programs.
Obviously, the Americans and South Koreans reacted particularly keenly to such plans of Kim Jong-un.
USA right there threw F-22 «Raptor» fighters to South Korea. The aircraft redeployed from the American airbase Kadena in Japan to the Osan base in South Korea.
A statement was made by John Kerry - the US Secretary of State, who not so long ago replaced Hillary Clinton, but already fully mastered the basic principles of her rhetoric. At a press conference about North Korea, he told the world community that the United States would do everything necessary to protect itself and its allies - South Korea and Japan - from the nuclear threat from the DPRK. The press conference was held after the meeting of Kerry with South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Bye-See, who arrived in Washington on a special visit.
“We are fully prepared and able to do this, and I think that the DPRK understands this,” - said head of American diplomacy, recalling that the United States recently decided to strengthen its missile defense system. In addition, the Pentagon reported that two destroyers were sent to the shores of the Korean Peninsula, equipped with Aegis anti-aircraft missile systems, not to mention the F-22 fighter jets and that the US-South Korean maneuvers were engaged in strategic bombers B-2 and B-52.
Kerry’s speech was also related to the fact that on April X, NUMX, Pyongyang announced its decision to resume operation of all nuclear facilities in Yongbyon. Mr. Kerry said that Washington considers such actions by North Korea to be provocative.
The secretary of state confirmed that "the United States will not accept the DPRK as a nuclear power" and will seek to abandon its military nuclear program in accordance with the resolutions of the UN Security Council. According to him, both the United States and South Korea are convinced that "the Korean Peninsula should be a nuclear-free zone of the world." “And we agreed that improving relations between the North and the South will ultimately help us achieve this goal,” said Kerry.
The head of the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in turn, noted that the United States and the Republic of Korea decided to "further strengthen" the general potential of "deterring nuclear and conventional provocations from North Korea." The Minister noted the progress made in advancing the plan of “active deterrence” prepared by the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Korea and allowing the country's armed forces to launch preventive strikes against North Korea while identifying signs of a nuclear missile attack.
The theme was continued by White House spokesman Jay Carney. At a press conference, when the possible resumption of the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon was discussed, he said: “It's no secret that China has a potential impact on North Korea. We have already called for and again urge China to try to influence the DPRK. In addition, we call on Russia. ”
A spokesman for the White House called North Korea’s statement “further evidence” that Pyongyang “is violating its international obligations.” “We, of course, are taking the steps necessary to ... protect the United States,” said D. Carney.
Against the "nuclearization" were China and Japan.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hong Lei сказалthat China is in favor of the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Yoshihide Suga, Chief Secretary of the Cabinet of Ministers of Japan, agreed with him: “This is a provocative step that contradicts the resolutions of the UN Security Council and the agreements reached during the six-party talks. We are deeply concerned about the actions of Pyongyang. ”
Director of Korean Programs at the Institute of Economics, RAS, Professor George Toloraya считаетthat the action on the alleged launch of a nuclear reactor "lies in line with the actions that the DPRK has taken in recent weeks and months, and this is actually a continuation of the PR campaign of Kim Jong-un, which he unleashed to frighten and frighten the West."
The scientist notes that the plan of the DPRK is advertised intentionally: “When Koreans want to do something in secret, then the outside world will know about it when the matter is already finished ...”
According to Lucy Williamson, a BBC correspondent in Seoul, previously used the DPRK to use the nuclear reactor in Yongbyon as a lever for influencing the West.
The nuclear complex involves two ways to create nuclear weapons: it includes a uranium enrichment facility and a nuclear reactor, the spent fuel of which can be turned into weapons-grade plutonium. A restart of the reactor would open up several possibilities for Kim Jong-un: would provide a nuclear program with the material and would attract serious attention of the world community.
In 2007, the Yongbyon reactor, which served as a source of plutonium for the North Korean military nuclear program, was shut down as part of a deal that provided for disarmament in exchange for humanitarian aid.
Kim Jong-un, I suppose, and now wants food. But only against him are sanctions, included in March over the February nuclear underground test (an explosion of about 7 kilotons).
Interesting here is another thing. For several years, the DPRK has repeatedly offered the White House to surrender the fuel rods in Yongbyon in exchange for compensation. She can be said to have been refused. About this in the journal "Foreign Policy" says a former US State Department employee Joel Whit, who dealt with the problems of nuclear disarmament, and now works as a senior researcher at one of the research centers at Columbia University (New York).
At least eight thousand fuel rods are located in Yongbyon. The plutonium contained in these fuel assemblies is sufficient to manufacture eight nuclear warheads, says Mr. Whit, who visited the complex more than once.
The readiness to exchange fuel rods for economic aid for the first time after Obama came to power, officials of the DPRK MFA reported at a meeting with US non-governmental organization employees in November 2010. Pyongyang "wanted to get more than the rods cost, but that was clearly his initial (negotiation) position," the Whit newspaper quotes "Sight". Then, he points out, the initiative was reiterated by the North Korean side in consultations with US representatives in Berlin in May 2011 of the year and in Pyongyang. “Each time, data on the North Korean proposal was regularly passed to the Obama administration at briefings at the White House, at the US Department of State, the Department of Defense and intelligence agencies,” Mr. Whit said.
The American authorities "paid due attention to the North Korean initiative," which, by the way, was also aware of Seoul. But neither the United States nor the Republic of Kazakhstan "did not take advantage of this favorable opportunity," which would be "the first step towards the final decommissioning of the center" in Yongbyon, says Whit. And by August 2012, he says, the position of the DPRK has changed.
According to the forecasts of Joel Whit and the former director of the nuclear laboratory at Los Alamos, Siegfried Hecker, who also visited Yongbyon, Pyongyang will need at least six months to resume operation of the reactor. So much time may be required for the simultaneous restoration of the cooling system of the reactor, which was liquidated several years ago, and for carrying out the necessary modification of the fuel rods.
As for Russia's reaction to the stormy April movement, the Russian Foreign Ministry believes that the chance to resume negotiations on the North Korean nuclear issue should not be missed. “The main thing now is to prevent a military force scenario on the peninsula”, - сказал Ambassador at large of the Russian Foreign Ministry Grigory Logvinov.
“We believe that there is still a chance to resume the six-party talks. As long as the slightest chance persists, it should be used, ”he said. According to him, the main thing now is to stop any rhetoric that stirs up tension. “It is necessary to keep the situation within the political framework. It is unacceptable to try to solve their narrow military-political tasks using the situation in the region, ”comrade Logvinov noted.
According to him, Moscow is confident that any of the parties will not consciously go to unleash hostilities. “However,” noted Logvinov, “in the present tense atmosphere, there is a great danger of involuntary local collisions that could cause a collapse of the situation. The main thing is that the war of nerves does not escalate into a hot war. ”
In the meantime, Kim Jong-un continued his work on global intimidation - in particular, South Korean intimidation.
Since 3 in April, North Korea has banned entry from South Korea to specialists in the joint Kaeson frontier industrial zone. More than a hundred factories work there, where over fifty thousand North Koreans and several hundred South Korean specialists work. This is the last pass for the passage to the zone every day. Western analysts writethat Kaeshn is one of the main sources of income for the DPRK, and the situation there is a kind of barometer of relations between the two Koreas.
Next, in the morning 4 April, South Korea recorded on the territory of the DPRK, moving to the east coast of the object, which was received by observers of the medium-range ballistic missile "Musudan". As one of the sources of the South Korean news agency Renhap stated, it is not clear whether North Korea is going to launch a rocket, or its actions are a "show of force."
The range of the Musudan missile is probably about three thousand kilometers, which covers the territories of South Korea, Japan, and the American territories on the Pacific island of Guam.
However, this unconfirmed information may be from the same category as the incident that took place on Wednesday night last week. That night, the troops of South Korea in the region bordering the DPRK for a few hours were given in increased combat readiness. The South Korean border guard on duty released a grenade into an “unidentified object”, as if moving in the border zone. The “object”, as it seemed to this warrior, was wandering near the barbed wire fence - the demilitarized zone, which represents fortified mined strip of land 4 km wide and 248 km long. From the north, along the DMZ, according to Seoul, is concentrated up to 70% of the forces and facilities of the Korean Peoples Army. After this "incident" the combat readiness of the troops in the district has been promoted to the level of “Chindoge-1” (this level is introduced when there is a threat of an armed invasion from the territory of the DPRK). Then the military conducted reconnaissance of the territories adjacent to the border post. The alarm was lifted in 09.20. No signs of the threat of invasion of the DPRK were found. The fact that the border guard was punished or, on the contrary, encouraged for vigilance, is not reported.
One thing is clear in the Korean question: there is a war of nerves. Against the background of the spring aggravation of Kim Jong-un and at the same time against the background of the economic crisis in the United States, when the budget is sequestered for 85 billions of dollars (and this is only the beginning), the humanitarian assistance of the DPRK, while simultaneously authorizing Iran, would look strange. As a result, nerves, like constricted strings on a guitar, burst one after another. The slightest misstep or military mistake is enough for a war to break out between the two Koreas, and there and not far from nuclear explosions, already ground-based. By the way, Kim Jong-un said that he wouldn’t hit first, but the South Koreans, supported by the United States, rested on a preventive strike - a favorite strategic device of the Pentagon.
At about the same time as April Fool's morning rumors of twelve missiles fired at the American military base, the North Korean newspaper Nodon Sinmun announced the world about the new goals of the young leader.
In the case of the start of full-scale hostilities on the Korean Peninsula, wrote a newspaper located in the territory of Japan, the US base will be considered as targets for rocket attacks from the DPRK. The Central Press Body of the Workers' Party of Korea clarified: we are talking about the Misawa Air Force Base in Aomori Prefecture (684 km north of Tokyo), the US Navy Yokosuka Base in Kanagawa Prefecture (65 km south of Tokyo) and US military facilities in the southern Japanese prefecture Okinawa.
The words of the leader were also quoted. According to Kim Jong-un, the DPRK "is not going to use nuclear weapon as a commodity for the purchase of American dollars or a bargaining chip for economic aid. " (Of course, with a bit of irony in brackets, Kim Jong-un will use nuclear weapons for its intended purpose - to destroy the imperialist bases).
In principle, Comrade Kim does exactly what he promised to the masters of the imperialists in March. 30 of the DPRK officially announced that the state of “neither war nor peace” ended on the Korean Peninsula. "Relations with South Korea from that moment entered into a state of war," said the North Korean government in this regard. Kim Jong-un said that the strategic line of the Labor Party of Korea would be to simultaneously carry out both economic reconstruction and the development of military nuclear programs.
Obviously, the Americans and South Koreans reacted particularly keenly to such plans of Kim Jong-un.
USA right there threw F-22 «Raptor» fighters to South Korea. The aircraft redeployed from the American airbase Kadena in Japan to the Osan base in South Korea.
A statement was made by John Kerry - the US Secretary of State, who not so long ago replaced Hillary Clinton, but already fully mastered the basic principles of her rhetoric. At a press conference about North Korea, he told the world community that the United States would do everything necessary to protect itself and its allies - South Korea and Japan - from the nuclear threat from the DPRK. The press conference was held after the meeting of Kerry with South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Bye-See, who arrived in Washington on a special visit.
“We are fully prepared and able to do this, and I think that the DPRK understands this,” - said head of American diplomacy, recalling that the United States recently decided to strengthen its missile defense system. In addition, the Pentagon reported that two destroyers were sent to the shores of the Korean Peninsula, equipped with Aegis anti-aircraft missile systems, not to mention the F-22 fighter jets and that the US-South Korean maneuvers were engaged in strategic bombers B-2 and B-52.
Kerry’s speech was also related to the fact that on April X, NUMX, Pyongyang announced its decision to resume operation of all nuclear facilities in Yongbyon. Mr. Kerry said that Washington considers such actions by North Korea to be provocative.
The secretary of state confirmed that "the United States will not accept the DPRK as a nuclear power" and will seek to abandon its military nuclear program in accordance with the resolutions of the UN Security Council. According to him, both the United States and South Korea are convinced that "the Korean Peninsula should be a nuclear-free zone of the world." “And we agreed that improving relations between the North and the South will ultimately help us achieve this goal,” said Kerry.
The head of the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in turn, noted that the United States and the Republic of Korea decided to "further strengthen" the general potential of "deterring nuclear and conventional provocations from North Korea." The Minister noted the progress made in advancing the plan of “active deterrence” prepared by the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Korea and allowing the country's armed forces to launch preventive strikes against North Korea while identifying signs of a nuclear missile attack.
The theme was continued by White House spokesman Jay Carney. At a press conference, when the possible resumption of the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon was discussed, he said: “It's no secret that China has a potential impact on North Korea. We have already called for and again urge China to try to influence the DPRK. In addition, we call on Russia. ”
A spokesman for the White House called North Korea’s statement “further evidence” that Pyongyang “is violating its international obligations.” “We, of course, are taking the steps necessary to ... protect the United States,” said D. Carney.
Against the "nuclearization" were China and Japan.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hong Lei сказалthat China is in favor of the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Yoshihide Suga, Chief Secretary of the Cabinet of Ministers of Japan, agreed with him: “This is a provocative step that contradicts the resolutions of the UN Security Council and the agreements reached during the six-party talks. We are deeply concerned about the actions of Pyongyang. ”
Director of Korean Programs at the Institute of Economics, RAS, Professor George Toloraya считаетthat the action on the alleged launch of a nuclear reactor "lies in line with the actions that the DPRK has taken in recent weeks and months, and this is actually a continuation of the PR campaign of Kim Jong-un, which he unleashed to frighten and frighten the West."
The scientist notes that the plan of the DPRK is advertised intentionally: “When Koreans want to do something in secret, then the outside world will know about it when the matter is already finished ...”
According to Lucy Williamson, a BBC correspondent in Seoul, previously used the DPRK to use the nuclear reactor in Yongbyon as a lever for influencing the West.
The nuclear complex involves two ways to create nuclear weapons: it includes a uranium enrichment facility and a nuclear reactor, the spent fuel of which can be turned into weapons-grade plutonium. A restart of the reactor would open up several possibilities for Kim Jong-un: would provide a nuclear program with the material and would attract serious attention of the world community.
In 2007, the Yongbyon reactor, which served as a source of plutonium for the North Korean military nuclear program, was shut down as part of a deal that provided for disarmament in exchange for humanitarian aid.
Kim Jong-un, I suppose, and now wants food. But only against him are sanctions, included in March over the February nuclear underground test (an explosion of about 7 kilotons).
Interesting here is another thing. For several years, the DPRK has repeatedly offered the White House to surrender the fuel rods in Yongbyon in exchange for compensation. She can be said to have been refused. About this in the journal "Foreign Policy" says a former US State Department employee Joel Whit, who dealt with the problems of nuclear disarmament, and now works as a senior researcher at one of the research centers at Columbia University (New York).
At least eight thousand fuel rods are located in Yongbyon. The plutonium contained in these fuel assemblies is sufficient to manufacture eight nuclear warheads, says Mr. Whit, who visited the complex more than once.
The readiness to exchange fuel rods for economic aid for the first time after Obama came to power, officials of the DPRK MFA reported at a meeting with US non-governmental organization employees in November 2010. Pyongyang "wanted to get more than the rods cost, but that was clearly his initial (negotiation) position," the Whit newspaper quotes "Sight". Then, he points out, the initiative was reiterated by the North Korean side in consultations with US representatives in Berlin in May 2011 of the year and in Pyongyang. “Each time, data on the North Korean proposal was regularly passed to the Obama administration at briefings at the White House, at the US Department of State, the Department of Defense and intelligence agencies,” Mr. Whit said.
The American authorities "paid due attention to the North Korean initiative," which, by the way, was also aware of Seoul. But neither the United States nor the Republic of Kazakhstan "did not take advantage of this favorable opportunity," which would be "the first step towards the final decommissioning of the center" in Yongbyon, says Whit. And by August 2012, he says, the position of the DPRK has changed.
According to the forecasts of Joel Whit and the former director of the nuclear laboratory at Los Alamos, Siegfried Hecker, who also visited Yongbyon, Pyongyang will need at least six months to resume operation of the reactor. So much time may be required for the simultaneous restoration of the cooling system of the reactor, which was liquidated several years ago, and for carrying out the necessary modification of the fuel rods.
As for Russia's reaction to the stormy April movement, the Russian Foreign Ministry believes that the chance to resume negotiations on the North Korean nuclear issue should not be missed. “The main thing now is to prevent a military force scenario on the peninsula”, - сказал Ambassador at large of the Russian Foreign Ministry Grigory Logvinov.
“We believe that there is still a chance to resume the six-party talks. As long as the slightest chance persists, it should be used, ”he said. According to him, the main thing now is to stop any rhetoric that stirs up tension. “It is necessary to keep the situation within the political framework. It is unacceptable to try to solve their narrow military-political tasks using the situation in the region, ”comrade Logvinov noted.
According to him, Moscow is confident that any of the parties will not consciously go to unleash hostilities. “However,” noted Logvinov, “in the present tense atmosphere, there is a great danger of involuntary local collisions that could cause a collapse of the situation. The main thing is that the war of nerves does not escalate into a hot war. ”
In the meantime, Kim Jong-un continued his work on global intimidation - in particular, South Korean intimidation.
Since 3 in April, North Korea has banned entry from South Korea to specialists in the joint Kaeson frontier industrial zone. More than a hundred factories work there, where over fifty thousand North Koreans and several hundred South Korean specialists work. This is the last pass for the passage to the zone every day. Western analysts writethat Kaeshn is one of the main sources of income for the DPRK, and the situation there is a kind of barometer of relations between the two Koreas.
Next, in the morning 4 April, South Korea recorded on the territory of the DPRK, moving to the east coast of the object, which was received by observers of the medium-range ballistic missile "Musudan". As one of the sources of the South Korean news agency Renhap stated, it is not clear whether North Korea is going to launch a rocket, or its actions are a "show of force."
The range of the Musudan missile is probably about three thousand kilometers, which covers the territories of South Korea, Japan, and the American territories on the Pacific island of Guam.
However, this unconfirmed information may be from the same category as the incident that took place on Wednesday night last week. That night, the troops of South Korea in the region bordering the DPRK for a few hours were given in increased combat readiness. The South Korean border guard on duty released a grenade into an “unidentified object”, as if moving in the border zone. The “object”, as it seemed to this warrior, was wandering near the barbed wire fence - the demilitarized zone, which represents fortified mined strip of land 4 km wide and 248 km long. From the north, along the DMZ, according to Seoul, is concentrated up to 70% of the forces and facilities of the Korean Peoples Army. After this "incident" the combat readiness of the troops in the district has been promoted to the level of “Chindoge-1” (this level is introduced when there is a threat of an armed invasion from the territory of the DPRK). Then the military conducted reconnaissance of the territories adjacent to the border post. The alarm was lifted in 09.20. No signs of the threat of invasion of the DPRK were found. The fact that the border guard was punished or, on the contrary, encouraged for vigilance, is not reported.
One thing is clear in the Korean question: there is a war of nerves. Against the background of the spring aggravation of Kim Jong-un and at the same time against the background of the economic crisis in the United States, when the budget is sequestered for 85 billions of dollars (and this is only the beginning), the humanitarian assistance of the DPRK, while simultaneously authorizing Iran, would look strange. As a result, nerves, like constricted strings on a guitar, burst one after another. The slightest misstep or military mistake is enough for a war to break out between the two Koreas, and there and not far from nuclear explosions, already ground-based. By the way, Kim Jong-un said that he wouldn’t hit first, but the South Koreans, supported by the United States, rested on a preventive strike - a favorite strategic device of the Pentagon.
Observed and commented on Oleg Chuvakin
- especially for topwar.ru
- especially for topwar.ru
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