I. United States

1. Inter-Korean Dialogue on Nuclear Talks

British Broadcasting Corporation (“KOREAS TO CONTINUE TWO-WAY TALKS”, None) reported that inter-Korean nuclear talks have been extended for an extra day. The decision was announced after a brief meeting on Wednesday between the two sides, after the talks’ scheduled conclusion on Tuesday.

(return to top) Chosun Ilbo (“KOREAS AGREE MINISTERIAL TALKS BUT STALL OVER NUKES”, None) reported that the DPRK and ROK on Wednesday agreed to hold a fresh round of ministerial talks in Seoul in June, but negotiators failed to reach consensus on including the DPRK nuclear dispute. (return to top) Joongang Ilbo (“NORTH, SOUTH WRANGLE AT ENGAGEMENT TALKS”, None) reported that on the second day of inter-Korean talks in Kaesong, representatives from Seoul and Pyongyang struggled to find common ground as negotiators argued over the specifics of fertilizer aid from the ROK and a planned visit next month by an ROK delegation to the DPRK. The two sides planned to end the meeting around 4 p.m. and to issue a statement, but the talks bogged down over almost all issues. (return to top) Donga Ilbo (“NORTH AND SOUTH FAIL TO AGREE ON SIX-PARTY TALKS, FERTILIZER AID, AND MINISTERIAL LEVEL MEETING”, None) reported that on the second day of the inter-Korean vice-ministerial meeting in the DPRK district of Kaesong, the ROK and the DPRK agreed that the ROK delegation would participate in a celebration for the fifth anniversary of the inter-Korean summit talks held in June 15, 2000. Overseas private groups from the two Korea’s are planning to hold the event next month in Pyongyang. However, they failed to agree on the DPRK’s return to the six-party talks, Seoul’s fertilizer aid to Pyongyang and the timing of another round of inter-Korean ministerial-level talks. (return to top)

2. ROK on Incentive Package to the DPRK

Korea Times (“SEOUL’S OFFER WILL SATISFY BOTH U.S., N. KOREA”, None) reported that the ROK has been drawing up a new proposal that can satisfy both the DPRK and the US so the multilateral talks, once resumed, could see “substantial progress,” Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday. Ban maintained that Seoul will have the new proposal contain “more common grounds” between the US and the DPRK so they could find “sufficient room” to find a compromise to end the standoff. Asked if the US or the PRC were also preparing new proposals for the upcoming talks, Ban said “a variety of elastic proposals” would be discussed at the bargaining table.

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3. ROK-US Relations

Chosun Ilbo (“SEMINAR FINDS NOT ALL IS WELL IN KOREA-U.S. ALLIANCE”, None) reported that concerns about the future of the ROK-US alliance surfaced Tuesday during a seminar in Washington on “Prospects for U.S. Policy toward the Korean Peninsula – in the Second Bush Administration.” The seminar was sponsored by the Chosun Ilbo and the US Center for Strategic & International Studies.

(return to top) Chosun Ilbo (“HILL CONFIDENT SOUTH KOREA WILL STICK TO U.S. ALLIANCE”, None) reported that US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Hill said President Roh Moo-hyun’s plans for the ROK to recast itself as a balancer in Northeast Asia will in the long run take a backseat to the country’s need for a powerful friend in the US. In an article on differences in thinking between the US and the ROK on the DPRK nuclear dispute, the paper said Hill looked annoyed at talk of Roh’s “balancer role” and insisted Seoul would stick to its alliance with Washington. (return to top)

4. EU Parliament on Visit to DPRK

Yonhap News (“EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT DELEGATION TO VISIT PYONGYANG IN JULY”, None) reported that a delegation from the European Parliament will leave for Pyongyang in July to discuss issues such as the stalled six-party talks, human rights conditions in the country and its trade with Europe. Dorian Prince, ambassador of the European Commission in Seoul, said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency that the European delegation will ask that Pyongyang give up its nuclear weapons in exchange for a “security guarantee” from Washington.

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5. US on PRC role in DPRK Nuclear Issue

Globe and Mail (“U.S. MISREADING CHINA’S STAND ON NORTH KOREA”, None) reported that Washington is perceiving the PRC as a key obstacle to its strategy of applying pressure on Pyongyang. Beijing has voiced its opposition to US suggestions it take decisive action, including cutting off fuel and food deliveries, to force the DPRK to return to the six-party talks. Analysts say the US administration is misreading the Chinese mood, failing to understand that Beijing is willing to accept a nuclear Korean peninsula and risk Washington’s wrath over the conflict, rather than bow to US pressure tactics against its ally.

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6. Experts on DPRK Nuclear History

Voice of America News (“DOCUMENTS DETAIL NORTH KOREA’S DECADES-LONG EFFORT TO OBTAIN NUCLEAR WEAPONS”, None) reported that the Woodrow Wilson International Center is releasing English translations of former Cold War archives that, scholars say, show that DPRK has wanted nuclear weapons for decades. The coordinator of the Wilson Center’s Korea Initiative project, Kathryn Weathersby said that the documents she has seen give a good historical perspective on the DPRK’s pre-occupation with its own security. “This is then the background – the sense of vulnerability, the sense of a need to protect themselves, the sense of an inability to rely on anyone else for their own protection,” she added. Wilson Center public policy scholar James Goodby, former senior U.S. diplomat who specialized in non-proliferation issues, says he believes Pyongyang’s concerns for its own security need to be taken into consideration if the stalled six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear crisis are to succeed. “(…)The likelihood is that [the DPRK] would be more impressed in something that led, for example, to a peace treaty as opposed to the current armistice agreement, impressed by something that would create opportunities for him to continue with the economic reforms that he has already begun in a rather desultory way,” said Mr. Goodby.

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7. Experts on US Military Capability

United Press International (“EXPERTS SAYS U.S. NEEDS BOOST-PHASE DEFENSE”, None) reported that, according to Richard Garwin, IBM Fellow Emeritus at the Watson Research Center in Youngtown Heights in New York, the US needs a boost-phase missile defense system against the DPRK. He stated that the current system of ground-based interceptors in Alaska and elsewhere is unlikely to be able to intercept any DPRK intercontinental ballistic missile in mid-flight. He suggested that a system of rockets located on cargo vessels within range of DPRK, and others deployed with Russian cooperation in silos in the Russian Far East, would be more effective.

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8. Japan Protests DPR Korean Ferry

Reuters (“NORTH KOREAN FERRY MET WITH PROTESTS”, None) reported that the Mangyongbong-92 ferry, a key link between the DPRK and the outside world, was met with protests as it arrived at the northern Japan port of Niigata on Wednesday for the first time this year. In 2004, cash totalling about $25 million (13.7 million pounds) was carried from Japan to the DPRK on board ships, mainly the Mangyongbong-92, according to Japan’s Ministry of Finance. Japanese investigators believe the ship was previously used to smuggle drugs and missile parts.

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9. Inter-Korean Relations

Korea Times (“INCHON SEEKS ROAD TO KAESONG”, None) reported that Inchon Mayor Ahn Sang-soo is seeking to visit the DPRK late this month to propose the construction of a road between the port city and an inter-Korean industrial complex located just north of the military border. The mayor’s proposal would link Inchon, the ROK’s main logistics hub, with the Kaesong Industrial Complex, a fledgling inter-Korean business venture that began churning out products late last year. The mayor’s visit would also pave the way for other exchanges between the city government and Pyongyang. Ahn has yet to receive approval for the trip from the Unification Ministry, which is required by law.

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10. Kim Dae-Jung Lecture on DPRK in Japan

Korea Times (“KIM DAE-JUNG TO GIVE LECTURE IN JAPAN”, None) reported that former President Kim Dae-jung will visit Japan to deliver a speech on the DPRK nuclear standoff and other Northeast Asian security issues at an international symposium Monday. The Nobel Peace prize laureate will fly out Sunday to attend the Tokyo University-hosted forum on “Co-existence on the Korean Peninsula and Regional Cooperation in Northeast Asia,” aides to the former president said. Kim is likely to reiterate his call for direct discussions between the DPRK and the US to resolve the dispute over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programs, they said.

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11. DPRK Food Shortage

Agence France Presse (“NORTH KOREA FOOD CRISIS WORSENS AS WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME STOCKS RUN OUT”, None) reported that already severe food shortages in the DPRK are escalating to crisis levels as WFP supplies to the DPRK are running out. “The situation is very serious, we don’t have enough food,” Gerald Bourke, spokesman for the WFP in Beijing told AFP, “We are now scraping the bottom of the barrel.” Due to the lack of large donations since October, the WFP has been forced to halt various food supplies to large numbers of the 6.5 million beneficiaries in the DPRK classed as most vulnerable, he said.

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12. Anniversary of Kwangju Massacre

Reuters (“SOUTH KOREANS MARK 25 YEARS SINCE KWANGJU UPRISING”, None) reported that Wednesday marks the anniversary of a bloody anti-military uprising which claimed between 150 to 200 casualties, and more than 4,000 wounded and detained. On May 18, 1980, ROK’s military rulers arrested opposition activists, including Kim Dae-jung, a dissident who later became president and won a Nobel Peace Prize for a landmark summit in 2000 with DPRK leader Kim Jong-il. “May 18 represents the history of our victory. Even the merciless military dictatorship could not curb the passion for democracy of Kwangju’s citizens,” President Roh said. “South Koreans will not forget Kwangju laid the very foundation for our democracy.” In the surge of economic and democratic development since the 1980s — taking the country from agrarian backwater to Asia’s third-largest economy — many people have tended to overlook what became known as the Kwangju uprising or Kwangju massacre.

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13. PRC-EU Relations

Xinhua News (“CHINA, EU DISCUSS STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP”, None) reported that the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), China’s top think tank, and the British Foreign Policy Center held a symposium on Wednesday to discuss the strategic partnership between the PRC and the EU with a global perspective. More than 100 governmental officials and experts discussed PRC-EU cooperation in banking and international finance, energy and raw materials, anti-terror and nuclear nonproliferation, technology transfer and other fields.

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