Getting North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenals is “mission impossible,” former US Defense Secretary William Perry said, underlining that any future negotiators should enter talks with the reclusive regime on this premise. 　 “I truly believe getting North Korea to denuclearize is ‘mission impossible’ and any negotiator given that task is going to fail,” Perry said during a video-linked forum organized by the state-run think tank the Institute for Nationa

The unification ministry on Wednesday welcomed a parliamentary committee's passage of a proposal to ban the flying of propaganda leaflets into North Korea, saying the measure will help protect residents in border regions and ease cross-border tensions. The government and the ruling Democratic Party have been seeking to legislate a ban on the sending of anti-Pyongyang leaflets after North Korea bristled at such activity and even blew up an inter-Korean liaison office in June in anger. Pyongyang

The two fishermen confessed to killing 16 fellow crew members and expressed a desire to defect, but South Korean authorities dismissed their intentions as insincere. It was the first deportation of North Koreans since the 1950-53 Korean War. The lawyers' group, which claims the deportation is a violation of the North Koreans' human rights, started the litigation after the NSO and the NPA dismissed its request for the disclosure of all relevant data, including their written statements and letter

WASHINGTON -- China's failure, if not refusal, to implement UN sanctions aimed at denuclearizing North Korea may be delaying the process, a senior US diplomat said Tuesday. Alex Wong, deputy assistant secretary of state for North Korea, insisted China often "chooses" not to implement the sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council, of which it is a permanent member. "It (China) has the resources to implement its UN sanctions obligations. But again, it chooses not to," Wong

A UN Security Council panel has approved a proposal to extend the exemption period for sanctions on humanitarian assistance to North Korea and streamline procedures to allow easier delivery of aid to the impoverished country, its website showed Tuesday. The North Korea sanctions committee on Monday (US time) adopted a revision to its "Implementation Assistance Notice No. 7" with regard to sanctions on Pyongyang, extending the exemption period from the current six months to nine months

North Korea could try to improve its currently chilled relations with South Korea next year so as to strengthen its leverage in future nuclear negotiations with the United States, a state-run think tank said Tuesday. The Seoul-based Korea Institute for National Unification also said that the May-September period will be a "golden time" to make progress in stalled nuclear talks and inter-Korean ties as the Tokyo Summer Olympics could serve as a platform for resuming talks. The North i

A proposal by the incoming US administration of President-elect Joe Biden to hold working-level talks with North Korea can be a "good starting point" to resume the long-stalled nuclear negotiations, a former US intelligence official said Tuesday. Andrew Kim, who retired as the chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Korea Mission Center in 2018, made the remark during a webinar on the South Korea-US alliance, saying the North appears to be waiting to see what the Biden camp will sa

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un condemned the country’s economic agencies for failing to carry out policies on a “scientific basis,” in a Politburo meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party that he chaired, the North’s state media said Monday.   　 The extended Politburo meeting held Sunday “harshly criticized economic guidance organs for failing to provide scientific guidance” and “failing to overcome subjectivism and formalism in their work,&rdq

The unification ministry said Monday that it is in talks with the World Food Programme (WFP) to redeem the money it sent for a project to provide rice assistance to North Korea after Pyongyang rejected the offer. In June last year, the ministry announced a plan to provide 50,000 tons of rice to North Korea through the WFP and sent the organization around $11.6 million to cover transportation, equipment and monitoring costs. The plan, however, has since been stalled as the North rejected the as

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has held a politburo meeting of the Workers' Party and "harshly criticized" economic agencies for failing to handle policy in a scientific manner, state media reported Monday. The criticism appears aimed at tightening discipline of economic officials ahead of a rare party congress that Kim plans to hold in early January for the first time in four years to unveil a new five-year economic development plan. During the extended politburo meeting held Sunda

North Korea said Sunday it was reinforcing border lockdown to prevent the coronavirus pandemic from spreading into its territory. The regime still claims zero COVID-19 cases. “Every effort is made to keep strong border closures and to ensure everyone stick to antivirus measures and report anything out of ordinary,” the official Korean Central News Agency, said adding it was enforcing tighter controls over the inter-Korean border. Earlier this month, a North Korean man, now in Seoul

North Korea has stepped up virus control measures along the inter-Korean border and at sea, state media said Sunday. The communist country is "firmly establishing a blockade wall in the areas near the border and the Military Demarcation Line and asking workers and residents to keep established system of action and immediately gain control of and respond to even the slightest abnormal situations," the Korean Central News Agency reported. The Korean Central Broadcasting Station also re

North Korea's main newspaper on Saturday reported on military efforts to strengthen the monitoring of coastal areas and the responsibility of front-line health care workers in a stepped-up campaign against the new coronavirus. The Rodong Sinmun published articles highlighting the importance of maintaining a strong push to prevent COVID-19 transmissions, as the virus continues to resurge around the world, including in South Korea. "Surveillance posts deployed along the coastal areas are s

North Korea’s trade with China shrank by over 70 percent this year, with the North shutting down borders with its main trade partner in January in hopes to fend off COVID-19. North Korea’s trade with Russia, on the other hand, gained 15 percent. North Korea’s trade volume with China stood at $530 million in the first nine months of this year, down 73 percent from the same period last year, according to a quarterly report on the two countries’ trade released by the Kore

North Korea has recently ordered its overseas missions not to antagonize the United States amid an ongoing power transition in Washington following the presidential election win by Joe Biden, according to Seoul lawmakers Friday. The Kim Jong-un regime also executed a big shot in the Pyongyang money change market in late October for a sudden exchange rate fluctuation and an official in August for bringing in prohibited goods amid toughened border customs control due to the new coronavirus pandem