Chronologies
North Korea - South Korea
Chronology from Jan 2022 to May 2022
: Family of Lee Dae-jun, the South Korean fisheries official shot and incinerated in Northern waters in September 2020, file suit in Seoul Central District Court against the DPRK government. They seek 200 million won ($159,000) in compensation for mental suffering caused to the deceased’s young son and daughter. MND and the Blue House are appealing a separate court order to disclose all information they possess to the family.
: Defector activist group FFNK claims that on April 25-26 it sent 20 large balloons, carrying around 1 million leaflets, across the DMZ into North Korea. Information therein included about Yoon Suk-yeol’s election. Such actions are now illegal; FFNK’s leader Park Sang-hak is on trial for two earlier launches (see Jan. 25 above). MOU says it is investigating, including whether this claimed flight actually happened.
: MOU responds to Kim Jong Un’s parade speech: “North Korea should stop all acts that heighten tensions, including the advancement of its nuclear capabilities, and…return to the negotiating table.”
: Moon urges his successor to work with the US to bring Kim Jong Un’s regime back to talks. Admitting that the North’s ICBM launch in March “crossed a red line” and “may be a sign that [Pyongyang] would end dialogue,” he adds: “I hope North Korea will make a rational choice.”
: Responding to North Korea’s parade, President-elect Yoon’s transition team says his administration will bolster deterrence and strengthen the US-ROK alliance “while simultaneously developing far-superior military technologies and weapons systems.”
: North Korea stages a nocturnal military parade in Pyongyang. Kim Jong Un’s speech emphasizes the need “for further developing the nuclear forces of our state at the fastest possible speed,” including for a possible “unexpected second mission…at a time when a situation we are not desirous of at all is created on this land.” He does not elaborate.
: MOU says it has asked North Korea, via the inter-Korean liaison line, for further information on the previous day’s fire at the KIC.
: KCNA reveals that Moon Jae-in wrote Kim Jong Un a personal letter on April 20. Kim sent a reply on April 21, “appreciat[ing] the pains and effort taken by Moon Jae In for the great cause of the nation until the last days of his term of office.” After further pleasantries, KCNA concludes: “The exchange of the personal letters between the top leaders of the north and the south is an expression of their deep trust.” The Blue House confirms the exchange of letters and their warm tenor. Neither side published the letters in full.
: New MOU nominee Kwon Young-se says resuming Kumgangsan tours is not “a desirable idea in the current situation,” and “won’t be easy as it is subject to sanctions.” He adds that Seoul must “clearly” challenge Pyongyang’s dismantlement of some facilities there. But he also supports humanitarian aid, and opposes any blanket rejection of Moon’s policies.
: MOU reports a fire at a factory in the former Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC), shut since 2016. Spotted around 1400 local time, the blaze is extinguished by 1450.
: Lee Sang-min, a researcher at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses (KIDA), says North Korea might use tactical nuclear arms in a contingency to offset its conventional inferiority. However, US and ROK forces are overwhelmingly stronger.
: In written answers to lawmakers’ questions ahead of his parliamentary confirmation hearing, Yoon’s MND nominee Lee Jong-sup clarifies: “I am not of the position that the Sept. 19 South-North military agreement should be scrapped.” Rather, he plans to verify if the 2018 accord is being faithfully implemented. As to whether ROK defense white papers should characterize North Korea as a ‘main enemy’: “I will decide carefully.”
: MOU says North Korea remains unresponsive to the South’s enquiries about demolition at Mount Kumgang. Citing satellite imagery, Voice of America (VOA) reported that the seven-story floating Haegumgang Hotel has lost half its height, while a golf resort has eight buildings now minus their roofs and outer walls.
: Park Jin, four-term PPP lawmaker nominated to be Yoon’s foreign minister, declares that the new Yoon Suk-yeol administration “will pursue a balanced policy, based on common sense, toward North Korea.” He adds: “ [We] can’t prevent North Korea’s continued provocations only with conciliatory policy…[A] substantial policy change is needed.”
: On Kim Il Sung’s 110th birthday, the ROK government publishes a dossier on the two Koreas’ behind-the-scenes diplomacy prior to their becoming full UN members in 1991. 405,000 pages of diplomatic documents now 30 years old have been declassified.
: Asserting a linkage largely eschewed by Moon Jae-in, MOU nominee Kwon says inter-Korean normalization will be “difficult” as long as Pyongyang continues to build up its nuclear arsenal. He adds: “For sure, (we) will make a request for dialogue.” However, Seoul cannot incessantly dangle “carrots” while continually rebuffed.
: Lee Do-hoon, who served Moon Jae-in as special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs but switched allegiance to Yoon Suk-yeol, warns the incoming government to be cautious about pursuing sanctions relief: a key goal for Moon, though unachieved. He argues: “Once cash flows into the North, denuclearization will be off the table.” On May 9 Yoon appoints Lee as vice foreign minister.
: Yoon Suk-yeol nominates Kwon Young-se, a four-term lawmaker and former Ambassador to China, as his first unification minister. Having been confirmed by the National Assembly, Kwon is sworn in and begins work exactly a month later on May 13.
: In an unprecedented move for a president-elect, Yoon Suk-yeol flies by helicopter to Camp Humphreys, the huge USFK headquarters near Pyeongtaek south of Seoul. Sharing a canteen meal with US and ROK troops, he vows to strengthen deterrence against North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats.
: Unification Minister Lee In-young warns that “April is a time laden with many factors that could lead to the escalation of inter-Korean military tensions.” In strong terms by his standards, he adds: “It is very unfortunate not only for the North but for the future of our nation if (sic) it has chosen nuke (sic) and missiles, disregarding dialogue.”
: In his last regular press conference as unification minister, Lee In-young urges the incoming administration to adopt a “forward-looking” approach to North Korea. A propos the DPRK’s breaking of its ICBM moratorium, and amid signs of preparations for a fresh nuclear test, Lee says: “We must put an end to this right here.”
: Kim Yo Jong repeats her earlier message, only at greater length and naming “So Uk” (Suh Wook), whom she accuses of “abrupt bluffing” and “an irretrievable very big mistake.” She warns: “In case south Korea opts for military confrontation with us, our nuclear combat force will have to inevitably carry out its duty.” Yet she also avers: “We will not fire even a single bullet or shell toward south Korea. It is because we do not regard it as match for our armed forces.” Also, “the north and the south of Korea are of the same nation who should not fight against each other.” She concludes: “I pray that such morbid symptom as feeling threat for no ground would be cured as early as possible.”
: After Kim Yo Jong’s verbal volleys, MOU “clearly points out that North Korea should not cause additional tension on the Korean Peninsula in any case.” It adds that routine daily inter-Korean phone calls are still taking place as normal.
: In her first public comment since Sept., published a day later, Kim Jong Un’s sister Kim Yo Jong castigates South Korea’s defense minister—a “confrontation maniac” and “senseless and scum-like guy”—for “reckless and intemperate rhetoric” about a “preemptive strike” on the DPRK. She concludes: “I will give a serious warning upon authorization. We will reconsider a lot of things concerning south Korea. South Korea should discipline itself if it wants to stave off disaster. I hope I don’t hear him blustering again.” (It is not clear that Suh actually used the word preemptive, though he certainly said strike; see April 1.)
: ROK Defense Minister Suh Wook stresses that South Korean missiles can “accurately and swiftly strike any targets in North Korea.” Earlier the same day, he vows to develop an “advanced, multilayered missile defense system that the North does not possess.”
: Briefing the ROK National Assembly, MND claims publicly that March 24’s ICBM test was indeed a Hwasong -15, not -17. (See March 27, above.)
: “Informed sources” claim that both the ROK and US military reckon the DPRK’s recent ICBM launch was not in fact a Hwasong-17, as officially touted, but rather the slightly smaller Hwasong-15, previously tested in 2017. They speculate that March 16’s failed test really was a Hwasong-17, and Pyongyang could not risk a second failure. On close inspection, KCTV’s video spliced footage from two launches, with different locations, time of day and weather. (That said, two earlier tests on Feb. 27 and March 5, announced as being satellite-related, are thought to have involved elements of the Hwasong-17 system.)
: Ending (as presaged on Jan. 20) its four-year moratorium on ICBM tests, North Korea stages what it celebrates as a successful first launch of the Hwasongpho-17: its largest missile, paraded but not yet known to have flown. Korean Central Television (KCTV) issues a highly untypical movie-style video of the launch.
: In tougher terms than usual, Moon “strongly condemns” the North’s ICBM test as “a serious threat to the Korean Peninsula and beyond,” and “a scrapping on its own (sic) of a moratorium on ICBM tests that…Kim Jong Un promised to the international community.” This is also “a clear violation of UN Security Council resolutions.” Moon calls on Pyongyang to immediately stop actions that raise tensions and return to the dialogue table.
: South Korea responds to North’s ICBM launch with a live-fire missile exercise in the East Sea (Sea of Japan). The JCS warns that “(we) have the ability and posture to precisely strike the origin of the missile launch and command and support facilities at any time.”
: President-elect Yoon’s transition committee TC spokesperson says: “There will be no abolition of the unification ministry.” Rather, MOU will be restored to its “proper function” instead of just taking orders from the Blue House. The TC also denies that Yoon’s Nordpolitik will be hard-line.
: “Informed source” tells Yonhap that MOU has formed a 10-member panel to review secret documents on the first two decades of inter-Korean talks (1971-91), with a view to publishing them. (See also April 15, below.)
: Two days after the KPA fires four rounds from multiple rocket launchers (MRLs) into the West Sea, Yoon Suk-yeol calls this “a clear violation” of Sept. 2018’s inter-Korean military agreement. However ROK MND Suh Wook denies any breach, saying this took place “far north” of the border area covered by the accord. Yoon’s team shoot back that it violated the spirit of the agreement; they accuse Suh of “protecting” the North.
: Belatedly reporting a poll last August by the Korea National Defense University (KNDU), PPP Rep. Kang Dae-sik says that 70.6% of South Koreans believe North Korea will never denuclearize completely. 61.3% regard the DPRK as hostile, while 22.1% consider it a partner for cooperation. Over 80% reckon China would take the North’s side in any crisis on the peninsula. A slightly earlier survey, by the state-run Korean Institute for National Unification (KINU), found 90.7% skeptical about Pyongyang’s will to denuclearize.
: Amid signs that North Korea has begun dismantling South Korean-built and owned facilities at long-shuttered Mount Kumgang resort, as Kim Jong Un first threatened to do in 2019, MOU says it has received no new word from Pyongyang. Its spokesperson adds: “There shouldn’t be unilateral measures by the North that infringe upon our companies’ property rights, and all…issues should be resolved through consultations between the South and the North.”
: In an item headlined “20th ‘presidential’ election held in south Korea,” the DPRK’s Voice of Korea says (this is the full report): “Yun Sok Yol, candidate of the ‘People’s Strength’ (sic), a conservative opposition party, was elected ‘President’ by a small majority at the 20th ‘presidential’ election held in south Korea on March 9.” (Scare quotes and capitalization in original). VOK is for external consumption, so North Koreans are not privy to this news.
: Yoon Suk-yeol narrowly wins South Korea’s presidential election for the PPP, defeating the DP’s Lee Jae-myung by just 0.73% (they poll 16,394,815 and 16,147,738 votes, respectively). Despite the tight margin, Lee swiftly concedes.
: MND says it has sent back a DPRK vessel and its crew of seven, seized yesterday after breaching the NLL. The intruders explained that they accidentally crossed the line due to fog while transporting materials between two islands, and refused to eat until they were repatriated. Alert for provocations around election time, Seoul accepts that this was just a “navigational error and mechanical glitch.”
: DPRK patrol boat breaches the Northern Limit Line (NLL, the de facto maritime border in the Yellow/West Sea), seemingly chasing a stray Northern vessel which has also crossed the line. It retreats aftyer an Southern warship fires three warning shots. The ROK Navy apprehends the other DPRK vessel (story continues on March 9).
: President Moon tells the Korea Army Academy that (in Yonhap’s summary): “Based on strong defense capabilities, South Korea has pushed for peace efforts on the Korean Peninsula and turned North Korea’s nuclear crisis into a mode of dialogue.” He adds that the ROK has the “biggest security burden” in the world: “For now, the top priority is to deter war between the South and North, but from a broader and long-term point of view, the geopolitical situation of the Korean Peninsula itself represents a grave security environment.”
: “Informed sources” tell Yonhapthat the Agency for Defense Development (ADD) today oversaw a successful test at Taean, 100 miles southwest of Seoul, of a long-range surface-to-air missile (L-SAM), being developed to counter DPRK missile threats.
: South Korea’s official Truth and Reconciliation Commission says that the (North) Korean People’s Army (KPA) killed “1,026 Christians and 119 Catholics” in a bid to “eliminate reactionary forces” during its retreat from the South after the allied Incheon landing in Sept. 1950 during the Korean War. (“Christians” here means Protestants; this usage is common in the ROK, which is the most Protestant country in Asia.)
: Song Young-gil, head of South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party (DP) tells visiting UN special rapporteur on DPRK human rights, Tomas Ojea Quintana, that the KIC could reopen if there were conditional sanctions relief and wages were paid in kind. Quintana reportedly says he supports reopening. There is in fact no such prospect, and Pyongyang may have other plans. (Song is running as DP candidate for mayor of Seoul in elections on June 1.)
: Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) says it will increase its support for defectors, including free health checkups, online tutoring and more. 3.4 billion won ($2.85 million) has been budgeted, more than double last year’s 1.5 billion won. The avowed aim is to help defectors “gain complete independence and social integration, not only resettlement.”
: An online survey of 75,524 elementary, middle and high school students, jointly conducted in November-December by MOU and the Ministry of Education (MOE), finds that 25%—up from 19.4% in 2019 and 24.2% in 2020—consider that Korean unification is unnecessary. Reasons cited include the economic burden (29.8%), potential social problems after unification (25%) and political differences (17%).
: MND announces new plans for its Air Defense Missile Command (ADMC). Given North Korea’s escalating missile threat, from April ADMC will get more mid-range surface-to-air missiles (M-SAMs) and BM early-warning radars, and be renamed in English (name to be decided). April will also see the Army Missile Command relaunched (so to say) and expanded as the Army Missile Strategic Command.
: Incheon District Court hands double defector Yoo Tae-joon an 18-month jail sentence for trying to return to North Korea. Having first defected to South Korea in 1998, in 2000 Yoo returned to the North. He then redefected to the South (date not given), but in 2019 attempted to go North again, approaching the DPRK embassy in Hanoi. Rebuffed as a spy, he entered China where he was arrested—and presumably extradited to the ROK.
: FFNK’s Park Sang-hak seeks leave to file suit with the Constitutional Court to determine whether the anti-leafleting law under which he is charged is unconstitutional. Park claims it infringes the ROK’s identity, independence and national dignity. (See also Jan. 25.)
: In a “joint written interview” with Yonhap and seven other international news agencies, President Moon says he is ready for to meet Kim Jong Un again, in any format and without preconditions: “Whether…face-to-face or virtual (sic) does not matter. Whatever method North Korea wants will be acceptable.” But he admits that the imminent Presidential election may make a fresh summit “inappropriate.” Warning that if Pyongyang ends its ICBM testing moratorium the peninsula could return to a “touch-and-go-crisis” as in 2017, Moon mourns the failure of the 2019 Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi: a “small deal” would have been better than no deal. He says a Kim-Biden summit is “just a matter of time,” and reiterates his support for a “peace declaration” despite Pyongyang’s unresponsiveness.
: MOU says the ROK government will provide financial support totaling 57.4 billion won ($48 million) to companies hit by the suspension of North-South exchanges. A mixture of subsidies and loans, this applies to firms which invested in the Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC) and the Mount Kumgang tourist zone. Their actual losses are much larger.
: Ahead of a meeting in Honolulu with his US and Japanese counterparts, Noh Kyu-duk, ROK special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, says he hopes this “will be another opportunity for us to work toward engagement (with Pyongyang).”
: A survey of 2,465 North Korean defectors (rather a small sample) by MOU’s Korea Hana Foundation finds that in 2021 their average monthly wage was 2.27 million won ($1,920). This was 457,000 won below the national average, but the gap is narrowing: it was 599,000 won in 2019 and 520,000 won in 2020.
: ROK government launches a nine-member inter-agency team to help North Korean defectors “suffering from economic and psychological difficulties.” (See also Jan. 6.)
: After Pyongyang’s Jan. 20 warning that its ICBM test moratorium may end, and its launch on Jan. 31 of a Hwasong-12 intermediate range missile (IRBM), an unnamed military official tells Yonhap, South Korea’s quasi-official news agency, that “at this point there isn’t any notable change or activity” in the North suggesting an imminent ICBM test.
: Yonhap reports that on Jan. 26 the UN Security Council (UNSC)’s committee on DPRK sanctions gave the Inter-Korean Economic Cooperation Research Center, a South Korean NGO, a year-long waiver to send 20 thermal imaging cameras to North Korea. These will be used to help stave off COVID-29. This is the first such exemption granted this year.
: MOU says it has delivered Lunar New Year gifts of “daily necessities and other items” to young (aged 24 or under) North Korean defectors who are without families.
: Dismissing a suit brought by former operators of factories in the now defunct Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC), the ROK Constitutional Court rules that then-President Park Geun-hye’s suspension (in effect closure) of the KIC in February 2016, as a riposte to North Korean nuclear and missile tests, was constitutional. This did not violate the claimants’ property rights, even though “fair compensation has not been paid.”
: Seoul Central District Court sentences a businessman, named only as Kim, to four years in jail for violating the National Security Act (NSA). Formerly a member of a pro-North student group, Kim was indicted in 2018 for buying a DPRK-made facial recognition software program in 2007, which he sold in the ROK as his own company’s work. In return he sent Pyongyang $860,000, plus unspecified military secrets. Kim denied the charges, claiming he had Seoul’s permission for his contacts with the North.
: Briefing “dozens of foreign diplomats,” including from the US, China, Japan and Russia, Unification Minister Lee In-young emphasizes that, notwithstanding Pyongyang’s missile launches, “dialogue and cooperation are the only solution for peace on the Korean Peninsula,” and Moon will pursue peace “to the last.” Lee adds that time is on no one’s side.
: ROK prosecutors indict defector-activist Park Sang-hak, head of Fighters for a Free North Korea (FFNK), for two launches of balloons carrying leaflets into North Korea last April. The charge is attempted violation of the revised Development of Inter-Korean Relations Act, as it is unconfirmed whether the balloons reached the DPRK. He also faces a separate indictment on charges of receiving illicit donations during 2015-19. (See also Feb. 15.)
: Yoon Suk-yeol promises, if elected, to normalize joint military exercises with the US. He adds: “North Korea has been upgrading its nuclear capabilities and is making blatant provocations…The [Moon] administration’s Korean Peninsula peace process has completely failed.”
: Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reports that on Jan. 19 a Politburo meeting of the DPRK’s ruling WPK, after decrying US “hostility,” decided “to promptly examine the issue of restarting all temporarily-suspended activities.” This refers to the North’s moratorium since Nov. 2017 on nuclear and ICBM tests.
: Reacting to Pyongyang’s statement, South Korea’s NSC says it will “prepare for the possibility of further deterioration of the situation, while continuing efforts to stabilize the situation on the Korean Peninsula and resume dialogue with North Korea.”
: MOU reports a further sharp drop last year in defector arrivals. Just 63 North Koreans—40 men and 23 women—reached the South in 2021, down from 229 in 2020 and 1,047 in 2019. The ministry attributes this to tightened DPRK-China border controls due to the coronavirus.
: After a further brace of DPRK missile tests, Yoon Suk-yeol doubles down on preemptive strike talk. Posting on Facebook, he writes: “I will secure a preemptive strike capability known as Kill-Chain and build the surveillance and reconnaissance capability needed to monitor all parts of North Korea…Only strong deterrence against the North can guarantee the Republic of Korea’s peace.”
: Shortly after the US sanctions six North Koreans and others involved in the DPRK’s WMD programs, MOU vows to continue to try to provide humanitarian aid to the North “regardless of the political or military situation.” (In the real world, since 2019 Pyongyang has spurned all such efforts by Seoul.)
: After North Korea’s second missile launch in under a week, Yoon Suk-yeol, presidential candidate for the conservative opposition People Power Party (PPP), causes a stir by endorsing a preemptive strike if the North fires a nuclear-armed missile toward Seoul. He accuses Moon of enabling the North to further advance its missile program, by accepting its peace overtures and calling for sanctions to be lifted. Moon’s NSC expresses “strong regret” at the DPRK’s Jan. 11 launch—and several which follow.
: MOU says it is monitoring any potential changes in how North Korea handles COVID-19, such as easing its current strict border controls, after Rodong Sinmun—the main DPRK daily, organ of the ruling Workers’ Party (WPK)—avers that “we need to move to a better advanced, people-oriented epidemic work from one that focused on control measures.”
: Refuting recently publicized research claiming that as many as 771 of the 33,800 North Korean defectors in the South have moved on to third countries as of 2019, MOU insists the true figure for the five years 2016-20 is only 20 (which seems implausibly low.) It confirms, however, that 31 have redefected to the North.
: MOU says it is monitoring potential changes in how North Korea handles COVID-19, such as easing current strict border controls, after Rodong Sinmun—the main DPRK daily, organ of the ruling Workers’ Party (WPK)—avers that “we need to move to a better advanced, people-oriented epidemic work from one that focused on control measures.”
: Refuting recently publicized research claiming that as many as 771 of the 33,800 North Korean defectors in the South have moved on to third countries as of 2019, MOU insists the true figure for the five years 2016-20 is only 20 (which seems implausibly low.) It confirms, however, that as many as 31 have redefected to the North.
: ROK government says that next month it will launch a new inter-agency team, including MOU and the police, to support vulnerable defectors from the North. Last year MOU’s biannual survey found that 1,582 defectors needed help additional to the basic support package that all ex-DPRK arrivals receive. Almost half (47%) spoke of having psychological problems.
: Korea Times profiles Tim Peters, a Seoul-based US activist whose NGO, Helping Hands Korea, has since 1996 helped over 1,000 North Koreans in China to safety in third countries. Despite the pandemic, in 2020 HHK enabled more such evacuations than ever before as hitherto hidden sub-groups, such as the elderly or disabled, came to light.
: ROK government says that next month it will launch a new inter-agency team, including MOU and the police, to support vulnerable defectors from the North. Last year MOU’s biannual survey found that 1,582 defectors needed help additional to the basic support package that all ex-DPRK arrivals receive. Almost half (47%) spoke of having psychological problems. The new team is duly inaugurated on Feb. 7; see below.
: Korea Times profiles Tim Peters, a Seoul-based US activist whose NGO, Helping Hands Korea, has since 1996 helped over 1,000 North Koreans in China to safety in third countries. Despite the pandemic, in 2020 HHK enabled more such evacuations than ever before as hitherto hidden sub-groups, such as the elderly or disabled, came to light.
: After investigating Jan. 1’s redefector border crossing, the ROK JCS report that the man crossed into North Korea despite being caught five times on military surveillance cameras. General Won In-choul, the JCS chairman, admits: “We failed to carry out given duties properly … I apologize for causing concerns to the people.”
: President Moon urges the ROK military to “have a special sense of alert and responsibility.” Calling the “failure of security operations … a grave problem that should not have happened,” he demands a special inspection of front-line units to ensure no repetition.
: ROK JCS reports that North Korea fired an apparent ballistic missile over the East Sea (Sea of Japan). South Korea ’s presidential National Security Council convenes, is briefed, and expresses concern. This is Pyongyang ’s first such launch in 2022; its last was an SLBM in October. Two more missile tests (so far) follow, on Jan. 12 and 14.
: Reacting to Pyongyang’s missile launch, President Moon voices “concerns that tensions could rise and a stalemate of inter-Korean relations could further deepen.” Yet South Korea should not give up on dialogue, and “North Korea also should make efforts in a more earnest manner.”
: After investigating Jan. 1’s redefector border crossing, the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) report that the man crossed into North Korea despite being caught five times on military surveillance cameras. Gen. Won In-choul, JCS chairman, admits: “We failed to carry out given duties properly…I apologize for causing concerns to the people.”
: President Moon urges the ROK military to “have a special sense of alert and responsibility.” Calling the “failure of security operations …a grave problem that should not have happened,” he demands a special inspection of front-line units to ensure no repetition.
: ROK JCS reports that North Korea fired an apparent ballistic missile over the East Sea (Sea of Japan). South Korea’s presidential National Security Council convenes, is briefed, and expresses concern. This is Pyongyang’s first such launch in 2022; its last was an SLBM in October. (Further missile tests follow, making January the most intensive month ever for DPRK missile launches.)
: Reacting to Pyongyang’s missile launch, President Moon voices “concerns that tensions could rise and a stalemate of inter-Korean relations could further deepen.” Yet South Korea should not give up on dialogue, and “North Korea also should make efforts in a more earnest manner.”
: Amid reports that last week’s presumed returnee defector was suffering financial problems in South Korea, MOU insists the man—who worked as a cleaner—had received due resettlement support from the ROK government.
: Amid reports that last week’s presumed returnee defector was suffering financial problems in South Korea, the Ministry of Unification (MOU) insists that the man—who worked as a cleaner—had received due resettlement support from the ROK government.
: In his final New Year’s speech as ROK President, Moon Jae-in says he will pursue an “irreversible path to peace” on the peninsula until his term ends in May: “I will not stop efforts to institutionalize sustainable peace … If we [the two Koreas] resume dialogue and cooperation, the international community will respond … I hope efforts for dialogue will continue in the next administration too.”
: South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) says it has had no response from North Korea to a message it sent on Jan. 2 via the western military communication line, urging the North to protect the border-crosser. Another report clarifies that while Pyongyang did acknowledge receipt of the message, sent twice, it made no comment on the protection request. MND also confirms the man’s identity as being the same person who had arrived by a similar route across the DMZ in November 2020.
: In his final New Year’s speech as South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in says he will pursue an “irreversible path to peace” on the peninsula until his term ends in May: “I will not stop efforts to institutionalize sustainable peace…If we [the two Koreas] resume dialogue and cooperation, the international community will respond…I hope efforts for dialogue will continue in the next administration too.”
: South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) says it has had no response from North Korea to a message it sent on Jan. 2 via the western military communication line, urging the North to protect the border-crosser. Another report clarifies that while Pyongyang did acknowledge receipt of the message, sent twice, it made no comment on the protection request. MND also confirms that this is the same person who arrived by a similar route across the DMZ in November 2020.
: First reports come in that a man has entered North Korea from the South by crossing the DMZ.
: First reports come in that a man has entered North Korea from the South—yes, that way round—by crossing the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).