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Diplomacy

What Diplomacy? Here Are 36 Countries The US Has Bullied This Week

It’s been a busy few days for American diplomacy, with three dozen nations ending up at the receiving end of threats, ultimatums and sanctions this week alone. And it’s only Friday. Mexico is the latest target, slapped with 5 percent tariffs on each and every export, gradually increasing to 25 percent until it stops the flow of Latin American migrants into the US, thus fulfilling one of President Donald Trump’s election promises. Most of those migrants aren’t even from Mexico.

Memo To Donald Trump: It’s Time To End-Run Your Advisers On North Korea

The United States and North Korea are once again locked in a diplomatic standoff over denuclearization and the normalization of U.S.-North Korean relations, which has unfortunately brought to a screeching halt the very promising start North and South Korea have made on building peace and security on the Korean Peninsula. You are in this pickle because in Hanoi you decided to take the misguided, deal-killing advice to go big with Kim Jong-un, instead of following your own instincts to strike a smaller, but still important, deal that could have been reached with some hard bargaining.

What Really Happened In Hanoi?

While the western media has written off last weekend’s summit in Hanoi as a failure, the talks did help to burnish Kim Jong-un’s reputation as a sincere statesman committed to peacefully resolving the nuclear issue. This is a significant development for the simple reason that Kim needs to continue to build popular support for his cause if he hopes to prevail in the long-term. In that regard, the lifting of sanctions is not nearly as important as Kim’s broader goal of ending Washington’s military occupation of the Korean peninsula and reunifying the country. In order to achieve those objectives, Kim will need the support of his allies in Moscow and Beijing as well as that of the Korean people.

Meet Juan Guaido’s First Ambassador, Fake Twitter Diplomat Slammed By Costa Rica For ‘Unacceptable Entry’

While tweeting that she had taken charge of Venezuela’s Embassy in Costa Rica on February 20, Maria Faría demonstrated that she was more familiar with the conventions of social media than those dictating international diplomacy. “In fulfillment of the diplomatic functions, assigned by President Juan Guaido”, tweeted Faría, referring to the US-appointed leader of Venezuela’s parallel coup government, “we assume control of the administrative headquarters of the Embassy of Venezuela in San Jose”. The surprise announcement came early Wednesday morning from inside the Embassy, leading many to wonder how Faría...

Kim Jong Un Annual Address Opens Door To Successful Negotiations With US

In his January 1st New Year’s speech, Kim Jong Un was almost relentlessly positive in discussing DPRK-US relations, a topic that took up an unusually large portion of the entire address. Rather than reprise the complaints about the negotiations with the US that had been the focus of numerous Pyongyang commentaries in recent months—almost all of them aimed at the external audience and not replayed on domestic media—Kim instead recounted his upbeat personal experience and almost unalloyed expectations as a result of the June 2018 Singapore summit. By doing so, he has deliberately left himself and President Trump maximum space for conducting negotiations leading up to a second summit...

North And South Korea Continue To Move Toward Peace And Integration, Despite US

North and South Korea held high-level talks at Panmunjom on October 15 and adopted a joint statement on implementing the Pyongyang Joint Declaration signed at the inter-Korean summit on September 19, 2018. They discussed a timetable for the inter-Korean road and railway project and agreed to break ground to connect the North and South Korean roads and railways in “late November or early December.” The accelerated timetable may reflect both sides’ desire to break ground prior to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s expected return to Seoul before the year’s end. Before the groundbreaking, the two sides agreed to conduct joint surveys of the northern stretch of the Gyeongui line “in late October” and the East Sea line “in early November.”

Diplomatic Deadlock: Can U.S.-North Korea Diplomacy Survive Maximum Pressure?

South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s meeting with North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un on September 18-20 culminated in the signing of the Pyongyang Declaration, which marked a significant advance towards peace and heralded a welcome warming in relations. Since that time, however, contradictions within the Trump administration’s North Korea policy threaten to forestall further progress and test the patience of its South Korean ally. Among the measures outlined in the Pyongyang Declaration, the two sides agreed to “expand the cessation of military hostility in regions of confrontation such as the DMZ,” with the goal of removing the danger of war “across the entire Korean Peninsula.”

Koreas Agreed To Disarm Border Village

Pyongyang, North Korea — North and South Korea have agreed to disarm a jointly controlled border village, starting with the removal of landmines. A joint statement signed by the countries’ military chiefs on Wednesday said the Koreas will aim to remove the mines in the Joint Security Area (JSA) in the truce village of Panmunjom within October and also remove guard posts from the area. The statement said the Koreas agreed to jointly verify the results of such steps and also allow tourists and observers to move freely within the JSA. 

US Ambassador Says ‘Too early’ To End The Korean War, Moon-Kim To Meet Again

The two Koreas also restored their military communication line on August 15 to ease military tension. On the same day as the announcement of the inter-Korean summit, U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris commented that it is “too early” to move toward the declaration of a formal end to the Korean War. “With regard to the end of war declaration, I think it’s in the early days. Yet, it’s too early for that even as we seek improvement in relations between the North and the South and between the North and the United States,” he said in a question-and-answer session after a lecture on the South Korea-U.S. alliance in Seoul.

Two Koreas Agree On 3rd Moon-Kim Summit To Be Held In September

Leaders of the two Koreas will have their third summit in North Korea's capital next month, representatives of the two countries said in a joint press statement Monday. "South Korea and North Korea agreed to hold the summit in September in Pyongyang," the statement said, although the exact date was not mentioned. The agreement was made during a ministerial-level meeting at the request of North Korea held on the North's side of Panmunjeom within the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). "During the meeting, the two Koreas discussed issues that need to be actively dealt with. They also talked on how to implement follow-up measures to the Panmunjeom Declaration," said the statement. In a media briefing, Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon, who led the South's delegation, said the North reaffirmed its commitment for permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula and explained its denuclearization measures.

“Officials” Attempt To Sabotage Further North Korea Talks

The result of the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore was a "freeze for freeze" deal. North Korea stopped its nuclear and missile testing while the U.S. stopped the large maneuvers it regularity held with South Korea's army. Both sides agreed to further talks. North Korea made some aspirational statements about denuclearization which have the same time frame as similar aspirational statements made by the U.S. in Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). There is no time frame to reach a certain state. There is no commitment towards declaring nuclear sites nor is there a commitment to stop the production of nuclear stuff. Trump declaration that there is "no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea" is correct in the sense that there is certainly no North Korean intent to launch a nuclear attack.

BAP Calls On The United States To Meet North Korean Efforts To Move Toward A Diplomatic Solution

MAY 16, 2018—The United States has no one to blame but itself for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) canceling a meeting that was scheduled for Wednesday with the Republic of Korea (RoK) as part of the peace process. Arrogantly stretched to capacity while fighting illegal wars on multiple fronts, the United States has further weakened its already anemic moral position. Meanwhile, the international community has expressed outrage over the latest manifestations of U.S. gangsterism: Pulling out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement with Iran and five other nations, attacking Syria the day before a weapons inspection, and its complicity in the Israeli massacre of more than 50 Palestinians on Monday, the day before the 70th anniversary of the Nakba.

Three Suicides In One Night — Guantanamo Prison Commander Nominated As US Ambassador To South Korea

Why nominate to be the US Ambassador to South Korea a military general officer who was in charge of notorious Guantanamo prison when on June 9, 2006 at a secret facility on the prison grounds, three prisoners ended up dead? And how did three prisoners -- Mani Shaman Turki al-Habardi Al-Utaybi, Salah Ali Abdullah Ahmed al-Salami and Yasser Talal Al Zahrani -- end up dead? US military said the three prisoners committed suicide -- all in the same way -- by hanging themselves while handcuffed after stuffing socks in their mouths. In Scott Horton's extensive article in Harpers' magazine "The Guantanamo 'Suicides' A Camp Delta Sergeant Blows the Whistle," that every member of the Senate Foreign Relations committee should read and ask Admiral Harris about, Horton writes...

The Two Koreas Talk: On The Path To Peace

Following a two-day meeting with North Korean officials in Pyongyang, South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s special envoy returned to Seoul on March 6. The special envoy had dinner with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on March 5 and a follow-up meeting the next day with North Korea’s high-level officials including Kim Yong-chol, the vice chairman of the Korean Workers Party (KWP) Central Committee. Upon their return to Seoul, the South Korean delegation gave an announcement to the press that summarized the result of the meeting. According to this announcement, the North and South made a major breakthrough in the inter-Korean talks by agreeing to hold a summit as soon as late April of this year. The following is a translation of the full press announcement by the South Korean special envoy to Pyongyang on the results of their meeting

North and South Korea Discuss Olympic Cooperation

On January 9, high-level officials from North and South Korea met to discuss the North’s participation in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea in February. The inter-Korean meeting was held in the village of Panmunjom at the border of the divided Korean Peninsula. On January 1, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un expressed hope for reconciliation with South Korea in his New Year address. The next day, South Korean President Moon Jae-in proposed high-level talks with North Korea ahead of the Olympics. Ri Son-gwon of North Korea and Cho Myong-gyon of South Korea — the lead representatives of their respective states’ reunification committees — led the talks. The two sides came to an agreement about North Korea’s delegation to the Pyeongchang Olympics.

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Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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