North Korea News Podcast by NK News - North Korea’s sea-to-surface missile launch and ROK spy agency allegations

Episode Date: January 28, 2025

North Korea launched multiple sea-to-surface strategic cruise missiles on Saturday, with leader Kim Jong Un overseeing the first weapons test since Donald Trump assumed the U.S. presidency. NK News Correspondent Joon Ha Park joins the podcast to discuss the launch, as well as a former ROK spy likening President Yoon Suk-yeol’s alleged order to arrest […]

the your T-shirt celebrating DPRK's golden era of aviation in vintage airline chic. Explore the stars with our Nada hoodie, inspired by North Korea's answer to NASA. Or toast to tradition with our Taedonggang beer T-shirt, capturing the essence of North Korea's renowned brew. Each design is a conversation starter. Find yours at shop.nknews.org. Again, that's shop.nknews.org. on the the Hello, listeners and welcome to the NK News podcast. I'm your host, Jack O's Whetslip, and this episode was recorded on Tuesday, the 28th of January, 2025, the first day of the Solal three-day holiday.

And I'm here in the NK News Studio joined by Jun-ha Park. Jun-ha, welcome. Thanks for having me back. Happy Lunar New Year. Happy Lunar New Year. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to all our listeners out there. Okay.

Now, we've got a few stories to get through today. Let's start with the missile. Yeah. So it was a missile launch the Sunday. North Korea, they tested a sea to surface cruise missile. Sea to surface. So is this intended to be sent from above the water or below the water?

I think it's, well, that's not. Or a bit above, maybe. I don't think that's confirmed yet. So the JCS hasn't confirmed and also the KCN. That's the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff. Yeah, so North Korea, they conducted a strategic cruise missile test on January 25th. Kim Jong-un, he personally oversaw the demonstration. Was it probably launched from a platform floating out on the water?

Is that how they do see the surface missile tests? I think so. So the details of the tests, the only things that came out, the missiles was launched from an inland site towards the West Sea. Inland, okay. So in that case, if it were fired from water, it would have to be a platform floating on a lake or a river or something. And just to note, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, they confirmed that it was from Chagang when it was January 14th when they launched another miss previous missile

but the JCS just said that it was from an inland site this time okay and Jagang is very much inland isn't it is one of those provinces in the north of central north near the border with China mm-hmm and apparently the missile that traveled in elliptical and figure-8 patterns over two hours. So people could have seen this thing. And it was covering 1,500 kilometers, around about 932 miles, before striking their targets. And the test, according to KCNA, it aimed to enhance the strategic control

against potential adversaries in response to the evolving security dynamics near the Korean Peninsula Do we know what kind of target it hit or whether that was also? Somewhere near the launch site. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so that's also something that the KCNA did report on The it does look like the target was just a prerequisite target It wasn't really something that deserves any sort of reporting on really something that deserves any sort of reporting on. Kim Jong-un's remarks following the launch,

he emphasized the DPRK's commitment to building military strength to ensure the lasting peace and stability of the peninsula. And one thing to note that this came just a couple days after the Trump inauguration. Right. So I think that the analysis on the North's intentions on the missiles, that's still something

that's left to be decided. However, you know, with Trump saying that Kim was a smart guy and Trump wanted to reach out to Kim Jong-un, I think that's, you know, North Korea is still holding this strength sort of position within that relationship. Okay, so it could have been a message to the United States. So Juno, we don't know if this is a new type of missile or if it's one that's been tested before. Yeah, so the KCNA just described it or the DPRK's missile administration, they only described

it as a sea, so underwater to surface strategic cruise guided weapons. So those weapons being the missiles that were launched on Sunday and these there was no indication of whether it was a new weapon or not. And it didn't name the particular time? No. Okay. Yeah, because that's the the age old question is, A, is this a test that they had to do for technological purposes or B, is it a test that they do to send a message or C, is it a test that they do for technological purposes or B is that a test that they do to send a message or C is that a test that they do for a provocation at this stage we don't really have enough information to know for sure. Okay but to bring it back to what you were saying before that so Donald Trump recently gave an interview

to Fox TV's news's Sean Hannity in which he said that he might actually get in touch with Kim Jong-un again right this is the question we've all been wondering about since Donald Trump was elected last November. Yeah, so Donald Trump, he confirmed his intention to contact Kim Jong-un during his second term despite sort of a collapse of nuclear talks in Hanoi five years ago. Six? Six years ago. Six years ago in February, yes. And he said that when asked by Sean Hannity, he said, I will. He liked me and I got along with him, reflecting on their previous diplomatic talks. And Trump contrasted North Korea with Iran, labeling the latter as a greater concern due to its religious zealots, I quote, while calling Kim Jong-un a smart guy, who is much easier

to negotiate with. Okay. Well, at least he hasn't gone back to the 2017 rhetoric. Um, but so now we have an expression of intent from newly re-inaugurated president Donald Trump to get back in touch. What we don't yet know is whether Kim Jong-un will pick up the phone or answer that tweet or text or telegram or whatever. For sure.

Yeah. That's the, uh, the thing to be... I mean, hopefully in the coming days, KCNA or Roh Dong Shin will say something and it'll give us some sense, but gosh, here's where we are now. We didn't see this coming a few years ago. Okay, anything more to say about that? I think that South Korea's response on the level of sort of, well, you know, not only Trump but also Pete Hexeth has also called North Korea nuclear power. on the level of sort of, well, you know, not only Trump, but also Pete Hexeth has also called

North Korea nuclear power. That's the new Secretary of Defense in the United States. Trump also called North Korea a nuclear state. Right, and that's significant. Why? Well, traditionally, US policy towards North Korea, they've never recognized the country as a nuclear state or nuclear power.

You know, there's always that talk of don't take Trump for what he says literally. But however, when you're looking at the Secretary of Defense and the President of the United States talking about North Korea in a way that diverts away from previous US policy, it does sort of set a tone for how US South Korea relations will go forward. So especially related to inter-Korean relations. And denuclearization. And denuclearization and whether or not it will be an actual goal within the Trump administration and also the current South Korean government and also whether or not there's an incoming

South Korean government within the next couple of months that still remains to be seen. Do we have comment from the South Korean government how they interpret this double use of nuclear state? Yeah, so the South Korean government basically said that we will still go forward with our goal of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula making sure that the United States and the, or Pete Hagseth and Trump, they kind of downplayed the comments that came out of nuclear power and nuclear state respectively. Yeah, I guess if they put it in writing or keep saying it, then maybe it's more than

just a couple of slips of the tongue. We'll see. We'll keep watching that. Okay, thanks, Junho. Now, now we turn a little bit, we bring in a South Korea story, but it's got a North Korean angle to it. This is about the, the martial law attempt of December 3rd. Yeah.

So the Hong Jang-on, the former deputy director of South Korea's national intelligence service, the spy agency, the spy agency, the CIA. Yeah. He testified before a special parliamentary committee that was investigating the causes and the aftermath of the December 3rd martial law. And he alleged that President Yoon Seok-yong, he ordered the arrest of opposition politicians on December 3rd through a phone call late in the evening. Yes, now we've heard these claims before before but this is specifically somebody saying directly I

Heard you in some you'll say names of people he wanted me to arrest. Yeah, so Hong Jang-won he was taking them taking the note down apparently from the phone call aha and Hong he likened Yoon's actions to the tactics of North Korea's Ministry of State Security actions to the tactics of North Korea's Ministry of State Security, which is a secret police force tasked with suppressing sort of dissent in North Korea. And the... That's in in Korea in the Bo-Wi song, formerly the Bo-Wi-Boo. Mm-hmm, yeah. And the... Hello if you're listening out there, Bo-Wi-Boo people. And the arrest orders reportedly targeted opposition figures, including

the main opposition leader, Yi Jemil. Yes, okay, so we have the name of at least one person who was supposed to be arrested. Now, Yun Sogyal, in his own testimony in court, I believe, has specifically denied having targeted any members of the Democratic Party for arrest, right? Yeah, so he's denied any allegations that came towards him, but that was a day before this hearing. Oh, I see

So we haven't heard what he said. Yeah, we have two directly I mean these two testimonies can't both be true, right? One of them must be wrong Yeah, and not only Hong Jang-won, but also the special ops commander the army special ops commander Kwak Jong-geun, he also he the one who spoke first to camera emotionally and quite tearfully after the martial law. That was another person. I think it was the 707th group leader, I think. But the special ops commander general Kwak Jong-geun, he also sort of echoed Hong Jang-won's comments as well, saying that he did receive an order to arrest lawmakers on the scene at the time.

Hong's sort of testifying or testimony is sort of quite the revelation in terms of because he directly denied or he directly rebutted Yoon Seok-yul's comments the day before and also directly rebutted his own chief, the NIS chief, Cho Tae-yong. Yeah. Comments of how he absolutely denied any instructions from Yoon to arrest them. Now, Hong was fired, wasn't he, from the NIS? Yes, he was fired after refusing to comply with Yoon's orders. Right. Yeah, he denied to comply with Yoon's orders. Sure, so he refused an order.

Okay, so to come back to the North Korea angle here, so he was, I guess, told these people are anti-state forces, they're pro-North Koreans, you've got to round them up. And he sort of flipped the script a little bit by saying that by doing this, Yoon Sang-yeol is actually, you know, emulating the North Korean government in ordering people to be rounded up. Yeah, so... In something like a purge.

So Yoon's direct, apparently that night. And I quote, right. Cause he called home on the phone. Yeah. And home was also questioning as to why he was the person that was being called to first place, why not the director? And he testified that you and his direct call later that night. And I quote, he instructed him to arrest them all and clean everything up.

And he initially thought that the targets were domestic spies instead of lawmakers. So he didn't know at first who he was being told to round up. Yep. Okay. He thought I'm going to arrest some actual pro-North Korean spies, some agents, some sleeper cells here. Okay. Yeah.

And I think Hong Jang-won, he also kind of testified at his shock at Yoon's order. He was saying that the only country that does this is, or he mentioned that it was a country, but he was referring to Pyongyang. And he said that the only system that does this is the North Korea's Ministry of State Security. And he asked the lawmaker, imagine if Defense Counterintelligence Command investigators and NIS agents burst in while you were watching TV with your family and handcuffed you and threw you into a bunker. And he was quite adamant about saying how it resembled North Korean tactics.

Yeah, gosh, okay. Now lastly, I want to just focus on one little point of interest at the United Front Department up in North Korea, which is a department of the Korean Workers' Party, which was for many years, perhaps even decades, responsible for basically dealing with South Korea and South Korean organizations. So it's kind of like the equivalent of the Ministry of Unification here in South Korea. Now, ever since Kim Jong-un made his speech at the end of 2023 saying, no longer interested in peaceful unification, the question has been what will happen to the United Front Department? And our colleague Martin Weiser has written a very interesting

article and he's found that apparently it still exists but it's taken on new tasks. Tell us about that. Yeah, so initially South Korea's unification ministry, they argued that the United Front Department, the UFD, was downgraded. And as you just mentioned, it reflected or they argued that it reflected Kim Jong-un's sort of rejection of inter-Korean unification as policy goal. But evidence from state media analyzed by Martin, it suggests that the UFD has been restructured, not demoted with a refocused sort of mandate

that likely excludes South Korean affairs, but continues to work with overseas Koreans and other groups and- So Koreans in Japan, Koreans in America. So Ri Sung-Kwan's sort of former foreign minister. Yeah. His rank challenge claims that sort of North Korea demoted the United Front Department, um, to a lower ranked entity, the Bureau number 10.

But of course, as I just mentioned, the evidence states suggest that it has been restructured. So Ri Sung-Kwan, he's, he's the head of the United Front. So he's a department director and his seating position at party plenaries indicate that his rank remains consistent with the department level leadership of the UFD. Right, right. And Martin kind of made an analogy or likened it to a similar organization in the People's Republic of China that deals with what? Chinese

diaspora and religious groups and political parties. Yeah. So China's United Front Work Department. That was what Martin was referring to. And he suggested that the UFDs or North Korea's UFDs broader mandate includes sort of rallying the diverse groups under the Workers' Party of Korea's policies and moving forward while the UFD South Korean Affairs Section may have been dissolved or speculated to have been dissolved, the department appears to retain quite a few responsibilities over religious groups, overseas Koreans and smaller political parties within North Korea. So it's got new tasks. Now I think the UFD was also initially responsible for all those

Korean language websites targeting Korean diaspora and stuff like that. Those websites have been down for over a year now, so I wonder if they're going to start up new channels of communications with the Koreans outside Korea. Yeah, and that's an interesting point, but I think that still remains to be seen. Is it clear who or which department or bureau or office in the North Korean government is now directly responsible for dealing with South Korea?

No, you're shaking his head here. It shows that I think again that North Korea, things are in a state of flux when it comes to inter-Korean relations and unification. They were slow, for example, in reporting on the martial law thing. They haven't really written any Rudong Shinmun editorials on that. So we can sense that North Korea has really been struggling to keep up with this new line that Kim Jong-un announced back in December 2023, that unification is all over the cards. Very interesting. Any final thoughts there, Jun-ho? Yeah, I think that, you know, going forward, I think with the whole revelations of the

martial law and also the Trump administration that's sort of settling in, I think we need to expect quite a number of busier days. Yes, we have lots to keep us busy, even during the three-year Lunar New Year period. So, happy Solal, everyone, and see you again next week. Thanks, Junho. Thank you. Looking to stay informed about South Korea's fast-evolving political business and cultural landscape?

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