NAPSNet Daily Report Wednesday, April 27, 2005

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NAPSNet Daily Report Wednesday, April 27, 2005

NAPSNet Daily Report Wednesday, April 27, 2005

I. United States

II. CanKor

Preceding NAPSNet Report

I. United States

1. US on DPRK Nuclear Talks

Reuters (“U.S. SAYS FATE OF NORTH KOREA NUCLEAR TALKS IN DOUBT”, 2005-04-27) reported that the top US diplomat on the DPRK nuclear crisis said on that the fate of six-party talks on the issue was in doubt, signaling a limit to Washington’s patience. US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill arrived in Tokyo from Beijing as part of a whirlwind tour of the region aimed at finding a way to bring the DPRK back into talks on its nuclear programs. “The future of talks is very much uncertain at this point,” Hill told reporters as he left his hotel in Beijing. “We continue to have a North Korean regime that is very ambivalent about whether it wants to find a negotiated settlement to this,” said the US point man on the DPRK, who was also in Seoul prior to Beijing.

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2. ROK on DPRK Nuclear Talks

Joongang Ilbo (“BAN TELLS NORTH NO CONCESSIONS WILL BE MADE”, 2005-04-27) reported that ROK Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said yesterday that the DPRK should not expect more concessions before it makes a decision to return or not to the six-party talks, organized to end the DPRK nuclear crisis. “We have explained well enough to the North through the previous three rounds of talks what sort of inducements we can offer,” Mr. Ban said. “Under the current situation, with the talks halted, to put additional inducements forward through the media or public statements is inappropriate.”

(return to top) The Associated Press (“S. KOREA URGES N. KOREA TO NEGOTIATE”, 2005-04-27) reported that the ROK urged the DPRK to return to six-nation disarmament talks to ensure that its future remains bright. “We once again urge North Korea to quickly return to the six-party talks for the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia, and also for the North’s own bright future,” Ban said. (return to top)

3. ROK on DPRK Nuclear Test

Yonhap news (“NO SIGNS N KOREA PREPARING TO CONDUCT NUCLEAR TEST – SOUTH OFFICIAL”, 2005-04-27) reported that the ROK’s national security adviser said there have been no signs of the DPRK preparing to conduct a nuclear weapons test. Concerns surfaced recently that the DPRK might test an atomic bomb to prove its possession of nuclear weapons to the outside world. However, Seoul’s National Security Adviser Kwon Jin-ho has dismissed such concerns as unfounded. “So far, no unusual moves have been detected,” he told CBS radio, a local Christian broadcaster. “Such talk stems from misgivings or apprehensions in a corner of the US. We don’t need to take it seriously.”

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4. US-ROK Summit

Donga Ilbo (“SEOUL SUGGESTS ROK-US SUMMIT TALKS NEXT MONTH”, 2005-04-27) reported that the ROK government is reported to have officially asked Washington to hold ROK-US summit talks around June in the US during the visit of Christopher Hill, US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs to Seoul. Some diplomatic sources in the US said, “The offer for Hill was formally accepted by the US State Department. It is known that the White House and the State Department would continue to have a discussion with the Korean government,” he said.

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5. Sino-ROK on DPRK Nuclear Issue

Interfax (“S. KOREAN, CHINESE LEADERS TO DISCUSS N. KOREA IN MOSCOW”, 2005-04-27) reported that ROK President Roh Moo Hyun and his PRC counterpart Hu Jintao will meet in Moscow on May 9 to discuss the dispute surrounding the DPRK’s nuclear program, the press secretary for the ROK government said in Seoul on Wednesday. The two leaders agreed to hold a 30-minute meeting after the celebrations in Moscow marking the 60th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, the press secretary said. The agenda for their meeting will involve ways to resume the six- nation talks aimed at resolving the controversy surrounding the DPRK’s nuclear program.

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6. PRC on UNSC Sanctions on the DPRK

Chosun Ilbo (“CHINA RAPS SECURITY COUNCIL THREAT TO N.KOREA”, 2005-04-27) reported that the PRC’s UN Ambassador said Tuesday any US efforts to slap sanctions on the DPRK through the UN Security Council would “destroy” six-party nuclear disarmament talks. Wang Guangya told reporters a US attempt at a Security Council resolution “would destroy the whole process” to resolve the DPRK nuclear dispute and “push a solution to this issue even farther away.”

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7. Inter-Korean Relations

Korea Times (“INTER-KOREAN RELATIONS THAWING, BUT SLOWLY”, 2005-04-27) reported that while the Korean Peninsula remains under the dark cloud of the DPRK’s nuclear weapons program, inter-Korean relations seem to be thawing with the advent of spring. Officials, however, say it will take more time to “melt the ice” of a long winter. The ROK’s Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan and Kim Yong-nam, the North’s No. 2 leader of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly, met Saturday and agreed that dialogue and meetings between authorities of the two Koreas should be restarted. However, experts say, it may take some more time for the two Koreas to advance contacts to the previous level as the DPRK is putting most of its energy into their uphill struggle with the Americans over the nuclear dispute.

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8. DPRK on KEDO MOU

Yonhap (“DPRK REAFFIRMS COMMITMENT TO MOU WITH KEDO”, 2005-04-27) reported that the DPRK reaffirmed its commitment to honor a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed last year with a US-led international consortium for a suspended project to build two nuclear reactors in the DPRK, officials said. The DPRK’s move will keep alive the MOU, which calls for, among other things, the safety of about 120 ROK personnel handling the preservation and maintenance of the reactor site in the DPRK’s remote northeastern coastal village of Kumho.

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9. DPRK Economics

Asia Pulse (“N. KOREAN BANK OFFERS FUND MANAGEMENT SERVICES”, 2005-04-27) reported that the DPRK offers fund management services at its bank in Pyongyang, according to a DPRK monthly magazine, a move apparently designed to help raise capital for the country’s nascent economic reforms. Hwaryo Bank, a DPRK-PRC joint venture established in 1997, offers its fund management services to customers — North Koreans abroad, foreign nationals and Chinese in the DPRK — and invests the capitals in high-profit vehicles, the “Trade of Choson” said in its January edition.

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10. Norway-DPRK Relations

Chosun Ilbo (“NORWAY TURNS DOWN N.KOREAN REQUEST FOR HELP”, 2005-04-27) reported that Norway has rejected a request to help the DPRK with long-term development because of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. The Norwegian Embassy in the ROK and Norway’s state-run radio station NRK said a delegation led by Deputy Foreign Minister Vidar Helgesen visited the DPRK from Saturday to Tuesday to discuss the DPRK’s nuclear program with its Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun. Pyongyang asked Oslo to help it with long-term development, but the Scandinavian country refused citing the nuclear arms program.

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11. UNDP Work in the DPRK

Yonhap news (“UNDP EXTENDS RIVER PROJECT IN N. KOREA, CHINA BY A DECADE: MEDIA”, 2005-04-27) reported that a UN organization has decided to extend by 10 years the length of a development project on a river that runs through the DPRK, PRC and Russia, a PRC newspaper reported on its Web site Wednesday. “With enthusiastic efforts from the PRC’s Jilin provincial government, the UN organization recently decided to extend the development project until 2015,” the Heilongjiang News, a local newspaper for ethnic Koreans in the PRC, reported on its Web site, www.hljshinmun.com.

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12. UN Aid Office Closed in the DPRK

Agence France Presse (“UN SAYS NO PROGRESS IN N. KOREA TALKS OVER CLOSING OF AID OFFICE”, 2005-04-27) reported that the United Nations is still in talks with the DPRK over its decision to close an important UN aid office in Pyongyang this August, the UN’s top emergency relief official told AFP on Tuesday. Jan Egeland said there are concerns about a severe crisis in the impoverished state, where the World Food Programme (WFP) last month warned 6.5 million people could face a food shortage. “They have told us they will not close down the office but that we cannot send any international staff, which is effectively the same thing,” said Egeland, who heads the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

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13. DPRK Buddhist Temple Repairs

Yonhap news (“LOCAL BUDDHIST ORDER TO HELP REPAIR N. KOREAN TEMPLE”, 2005-04-27) reported that the ROK Buddhist order of Cheontae will help their counterparts in the impoverished DPRK to repair dilapidated temples there, the local Buddhist group said Wednesday. The Cheontae Order recently agreed at a Beijing meeting with the DPRK’s Buddhists Federation to provide roofing tiles to mend some 60 Buddhist temples in the DPRK, it said.

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14. Film on Life in the DPRK

Reuters (“FILMMAKER SHOWS SHOCK OF NORMALITY IN NORTH KOREA”, 2005-04-27) reported that a new documentary made in the DPRK offers a glimpse of daily life in a reclusive state so shuttered to outsiders that even foreign diplomats have taken tips from the film. Director Daniel Gordon’s film “A State of Mind” shows a mother cooking, children playing and families picnicking. For Americans who see the DPRK simply as a dictatorship and a possible nuclear threat, a little normality may be shocking, Gordon said in New York, where the film had its North American premier last week at the Tribeca Film Festival. “The American people can get their first actual insight into their daily lives and not into the goose-stepping soldiers in a parade,” the 32-year-old British filmmaker told Reuters.

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15. US NPT Review

Financial Times (“US NUCLEAR POLICY SET TO DRAW FIRE AT TREATY REVIEW”, 2005-04-27) reported that “While claiming to be protecting the world from proliferation threats in Iraq, Libya, Iran and North Korea, American leaders not only have abandoned existing treaty restraints but also have asserted plans to test and develop new weapons,” former US president Jimmy Carter wrote last month. One concern is the nuclear “bunker buster”. President George W. Bush has asked Congress for money to study the feasibility of such a bomb, aimed at destroying targets that rogue regimes bury deep underground. Opponents concede that the bunker buster would not legally contravene the NPT. But they say it runs counter to the 13 steps, which include calls for “a diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies”.

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16. IAEA Chief Officer

Agence France Presse (“UN NUCLEAR CHIEF ELBARADEI SEEKS A THIRD TERM”, 2005-04-27) reported that UN atomic energy chief Mohamed ElBaradei, who is seeking a third term in office despite US opposition, is a seasoned diplomat at the heart of international controversies such as whether Iran is secretly making atomic weapons. As director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), he leads the global effort to uncover nuclear threats to world peace, a task that involves juggling often competing national interests. ElBaradei also earned the ire of Washington for using his position to question US intelligence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction under now deposed dictator Saddam Hussein.

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17. Cross Strait Relations

Washington Post (“NATIONALIST RETURNS TO CHINESE MAINLAND”, 2005-04-27) reported that the head of Taiwan’s Nationalist Party came to the PRC for history-making talks with Communist Party officials Tuesday. “We’re finally taking a historic step forward,” Lien said in brief remarks when he arrived. “Let us work hand in hand to achieve the goals of peace and stability.” The Nationalist Party and the PRC government appeared eager to lay aside past conflicts and get along even while disagreeing over the self-governing island’s permanent status. Each side was showing flexibility as a way to undermine the elected Taiwanese leader, President Chen Shui-bian, and discourage the island’s 23 million inhabitants from supporting his confrontational style in pushing toward independence.

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18. US on Cross Strait Relations

Agence France Presse (“US URGES CHINA TO REACH OUT TO TAIWAN LEADER”, 2005-04-27) reported that the White House urged Beijing to find “new ways to reach out” to Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian, who favors independence from the mainland. Asked about visits by Taiwan opposition leaders to the PRC, spokesman Scott McClellan replied: “We welcome dialogue between Beijing and Taiwan — major figures in Taiwan — because we believe that diplomacy is the only way to resolve the cross-strait issue.” “But we hope that this is the start of Beijing finding new ways to reach out to president Chen and his cabinet, because in the long term, a solution can only be found if Beijing negotiates with the duly elected leadership in Taiwan,” McClellan told reporters.

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19. PRC on Sino-Japanese Relations

The New York Times (“STATE-RUN CHINESE PAPER LASHES ANTI-JAPAN PROTESTS AS ‘EVIL PLOT'”, 2005-04-27) reported that a top PRC state-run newspaper said in a staff editorial this week that the wave of popular protests against Japan were part of an “evil plot” with “ulterior motives,” suggesting that at least some elements of the PRC leadership now wish to portray the demonstrations as a conspiracy to undermine the Communist Party. The editorial, published in The Liberation Daily of Shanghai on Monday, used the most strident language to date in an escalating campaign against the anti-Japan protests, which officials had previously done relatively little to stop – and some say had even encouraged – for three weeks to mid-April. Officials are clearly concerned that the protests, if left unchecked, could evolve into a direct challenge to the party.

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20. PRC on Yasukuni Shrine Issue

Agence France Presse (“CHINA, JAPAN HAVE “GENTLEMEN’S AGREEMENT” OVER WAR SHRINE: CHINA ENVOY”, 2005-04-27) reported that Japan and the PRC reached “a gentlemen’s agreement” 20 years ago that top Japanese leaders would not visit a war shrine that is at the center of a bitter row between them, the PRC’s ambassador here said. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has infuriated nations invaded by Japan in the past by paying a pilgrimage each year to the Yasukuni shrine. Ambassador Wang Yi said the PRC and Japan agreed after a 1985 visit to the shrine by then prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone that top Japanese leaders would not pay their respects at the shrine. In return the PRC agreed to not condemn pilgrimages there by lesser-ranking figures, Wang said in a speech at the headquarters of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

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II. CanKor

21. CanKor # 204

CANADA-KOREA ELECTRONIC INFORMATION SERVICE (“DPRK REJECTS UN HUMAN RIGHTS RESOLUTION”, 2005-04-27) February is the month when the US State Department releases its annual reports on human rights violations worldwide. We reproduce here the introduction to its report on the DPRK, published by the US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour. This is followed by a reaction from the DPRK, in turn denouncing the USA as “a crude violator of human rights and a strangler of freedom and democracy.” www.cankor.ca

(return to top) CANADA-KOREA ELECTRONIC INFORMATION SERVICE (“DPRK DENOUNCES US REPORT ON HUMAN RIGHTS”, 2005-04-27) In April the UN Commission on Human Rights issues a resolution on the situation of human rights in the DPRK. We reproduce excerpts of a UN press release that gives the gist of the resolution’s wording, names all countries voting for, against and abstaining, and summarizes interventions by representatives of the USA, Japan, the DPRK, China and Cuba. The ROK representative explains why his country would once again abstains from the vote. A statement by the DPRK Foreign Ministry rejects the resolution as politically motivated slander, accusing Britain and Japan of joining US “moves to stifle the DPRK.” www.cankor.ca (return to top) CANADA-KOREA ELECTRONIC INFORMATION SERVICE (“ACTIVISTS CRITICIZE ROK’S STANCE ON DPRK HUMAN RIGHTS”, 2005-04-27) The ROK’s decision to abstain from voting on the resolution for the third year in a row is sharply criticized by human rights activists and opposition politicians. Spokesmen for the Foreign Ministry and President Roh Moo-hyun’s Uri Party reply that the best way to improve human rights in the DPRK is to help bring about economic transformation. www.cankor.ca (return to top) CANADA-KOREA ELECTRONIC INFORMATION SERVICE (“UN COMMISSION ADOPTS TEXT ON DPRK HUMAN RIGHTS”, 2005-04-27) In February and April DPR Koreans celebrate the birthdays of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il and Great Leader Kim Il Sung respectively. During the past three years, these months have served to focus on another aspect of life in the DPRK. Two international events now regularly focus on the human rights performance of the DPRK government. This week, CanKor presents a full-edition FOCUS on human rights denunciations and counter-denunciations. www.cankor.ca (return to top)