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(February 21, 1999 ~ May 22, 1999) |
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February 22 Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi meets with visiting Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, expressing his expectation that Japan and Russia can seal a peace treaty by 2000. SK fishing vessels resume operation in Japan's EEZ, following a month-long suspension. Under the new SK-Japan fisheries accord, which was fully implemented February 6, SK must reduce its total fishing catches in Japan's EEZ from 220,000 tons per year to 149,000 tons this year, while Japan is required to cut its total catches from 110,000 tons to 93,700 tons, the Korea Herald reports. 23 Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov makes it clear that it is not currently possible to make a final decision concerning the South Kurils and to sign a peace treaty on that basis before the end of year 2000, when he visits Tokyo. 24 SK President Kim Dae-jung proposed resolving all outstanding political, security and economic issues with NK simultaneously in what he called a "package deal". 25 About 200 NK defectors inaugurate an interest group, the Association of North Korean Defectors. Hwang Jang-yop, a former secretary of the leading NK Worker's Party, has joined the association as honorary president. The association, headed by Kim Duk-hong, an aide to Hwang, plans to promote a campaign to donate daily necessities to NK defectors in PRC and Russia. SK President Kim Dae-jung grants a large-scale special amnesty and releases some 8,000 prisoners on February 25 to mark the one-year anniversary of his presidential inauguration, including 17 long-term political prisoners convicted of spying for NK. Justice Minister Park Sang-cheon indicates the government may allow NK nationals to return home in exchange for about 300 SK POWs captured during the 1950-53 Korean War and believed to still be held in NK. 26 NK officials are taking a World Bank-funded UNDP training program. This is the first joint North Korea-IBRD program, and the IBRD will participate in NK development program on humanitarian grounds, World Bank President James Wolfensohn announces. Japan decided on February 25 that it will deter NK from launching another ballistic missile by announcing the fact, should the government detect a probability of a NK missile launch, the Yomiuri Shimbun reports. 27 The Hyundai Group's tourism project to Mt. Kumgang on NK east coast will likely to expand to Mt. Paekdu and Chilbo in the near future, the Korea Herald reports. US special envoy Charles Kartman and NK Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Gye-gwan open a fifth round of talks in New York on an underground site at Kumchang-ri. |
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March 1 US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright meets PRC Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan and Premier Zhu Rongji. NK denies a SK report that it has lost millions of people to famine over the last four years. KCNA said that the NK Central Statistics Bureau and the United Nations Population Fund concluded in 1993 that the nation's population was 21,213,000, adding that its population would expand to 23 million by 2000. 2 SK President Kim Dae-jung expresses a strong wish to hold summit talks with NK in an interview with KBS, adding his government is ready to donate NK free fertilizer in time for rice transplanting this Spring, in an attempt to induce NK to join negotiations. 3 ARF meeting is held in Bangkok for 3 days conference. It is the second of a two-part series of meetings of the Confidence-Building Measures Group that began in Honolulu on November 4-6, 1998. US CIA counterproliferation official John Lauder told the House Intelligence Committee that the threat of biological warfare and terrorism is rising. He added that about a dozen nations, including NK, are developing or already possess offensive biological weapons, the Associated Press reports. 5 A Japanese Diet member of the LIberal Democratic Party, Masaaki Nakayama, and the president of Chosun Shinbo, the organ of the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, Kim Won-taek, fly to Pyongyang. A NK foreign ministry spokesman blasts a 1999 human rights report by the US State Department, critical of human rights abuses in NK. NK deployed Rodong missiles with a range of 620 miles near the border of the PRC, Japan's Sankei newspaper reports. The paper said that a total of about 30 Rodong missiles have been deployed in several unidentified sites in NK. PRC President Jiang Zemin and former US Defense Secretary William Perry meet. 8 NK held elections for new people's assemblies under the central government's direct control to restructure local governing offices in line with last September's constitutional revision. A total of 29,442 were elected, and 99.9 percent of eligible voters took part in the elections, with 100 percent casting "aye" votes for the recommended candidates, the NK Central Election Guidance Committee announces. Since 1990, the rate of civilian defectors from NK has risen to 94 percent with 338, and that of soldiers has dropped to 6 percent with 22 laborers accounted for 146 (24 percent) of the civilian defectors before 1990. Since then, the rate has rise to 52 percent with 186, indicating that the North's worsening economy drove them to escape to the South, the MOU announces. William Perry, the US policy coordinator on NK, arrives in Seoul. 9 Russia will deliver a total of $16.53 million in armored vehicles and ground-to-air missiles to SK as part of their in-kind payment for an economic cooperation fund provided by the SK government 1993, the Chosun Ilbo reports. The NIS announces that NK is believed to be holding 685 SK citizens who were either kidnapped or taken as POW. The NIS also states about 231 SK prisoners of war are being held in mining areas, including Hambuk province. It adds that NK has kidnapped 3,756 SK citizens, most of them fishermen, of whom 3,302 returned home, while 454 are still being held in NK. UN Command and NK holds a generals' level meeting at Panmunjom to discuss preparedness for Y2K computer problems. William Perry arrives Japan. 10 The US ambassador to SK, Steven W. Bosworth, states that the US is seriously considering lifting sanctions on NK, adding his opinion does not mean a change of US policy, the JoongAng Ilbo reports. 12 KCNA denies that its weapons systems could be at risk of malfunctioning due to the millennium bug.Kim Sun-kil, SK minister of maritime affairs and fisheries, meets with his Japanese counterpart, Shoichi Nakagawa, in Tokyo to help resolve the deadlocked fisheries talks. Thailand Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan delivers an official protest to the NK Embassy over the attempted abduction of NK diplomat Hong Sun-kyong and demands the immediate release of Hong's son. The Social Science College of Seoul National University (SNU) announces that it had decided to invite two NK scholars to attend the Second Conference of Social Science on May 6 and 7th. It is the first time that SNU officially applied for a scholarly exchange with NK scientists. 15 A MOFAT official said that SK is considering establishing a fund to help NK's development within the IBRD and ADB, the JoongAng Ilbo reports. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin flies into Pyong-yang. 16 NK and the US sign an accord in New York on a US inspection of a suspicious northern underground site in Kumchang-ri. 17 NK and Russia initial in Pyong-yang a treaty of friendship, good-neighborliness and cooperation. 18 The US House of Representatives passes a bill committing the US to deploy a missile defense system. The bill is approved by a vote of 317-105. 20 NK Vice Minister of Physical Culture and Sports said at the IOC headquarters that holding World Cup games in Pyongyang is "politically and realistically" difficult. SK President Kim Dae-jung and Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi hold summit talks in Seoul. 22 The first Russian-Korean Forum holds at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry. The US announces 200,000 tons of new food aid to NK. The WFP will receive 100,000 tons of US corn and corn soya blend worth $35 million, while US private aid groups will deliver the remaining 100,000 tons as part of a food-for-work project. The latter shipment, part of a pilot potato-growing aid program, marks the first time Washington has given direct bilateral aid to NK. 23 NK hands over to Thai authorities Hong Won-myong, the son of former NK diplomat Hong Sun-kyong. 24 A SK official said NK has at least four missile factories and 10 missile launch sites, and NK exported 250 missiles worth $580 million to countries including Iran and the United Arab Emirates between 1987 and 1992, the Yonhap News Agency reports. SK Unification Minister Kang In-duk announces that his ministry will strive to create a favorable environment for the reopening of inter-Korean dialogue in the second half of this year. 25 NK has at least four missile factories and is building additional bases to add to the 10 it already has, quoting a SK official, the Yonhap News Agency reports. 26 Japanese government officially confirms that the boats encroaching into its territorial waters were NK spy vessels. 29 Former US President Jimmy Carter visits for the first time Taipei since he broke off official US-Taiwan relations on January 1, 1979. KNRC sents 5,000 tons of fertilizer worth 1.6 billion won (about US$1.3 million) to NK. The shipment is the first since the KNRC had promised March 18 to donate up to 100,000 tons of fertilizer to NK. NK and the US hold a fourth round of missile talks in Pyongyang lasting two days. The THAAD antimissile missile failed for the sixth time to hit its target in a test, the Associated Press reports. 30 A white paper on unification is released by the SK government. According to the paper, SK and NK are connected by 29 direct phone lines and 14 lines wired through a third country. The number of those who visited NK last year, exclude Mt. Kumgang tourists, stood at 3,317, up from the 1,015 in 1997. Nearly 40,000 SK citizens have toured Mt. Kumgang since the tourism deal was reached in November 1998. 31 NK is expected to send hundreds of leading officials overseas to learn about market economics this year, SK Unification Minister Kang In-duk says. Last year, Pyongyang sent 110 ranking officials to Western countries to learn about capitalism, and this year, they plan to dispatch more officials to George Washington University in US, Shanghai and Australia, he adds. |
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April 2 NK is currently in the process of relocating some 2 million residents in Pyongyang and provincial cities to rural areas, NIS announces. Under the project, about 1 million of Pyongyang's 3.61 million residents will be forcibly moved to rural areas by 2003, and 1 million in provincial cities will also be relocated by 2001. KEPCO president Chang Young-sik announces that it wants to go forward with its plan to install a 100,000kw power plant in Pyongyang. 5 KCNA announces that US technical experts visited Pyongyang from Wednesday through Saturday last week to discuss technical matters related to a planned inspection of the underground construction. 7 The SPA of NK approves a new budget, totaled 20.38 billion won ($9.39 billion based on the official exchange rate of 2.17 won to the US dollar), which is less than half of its budget of 1994. 8 The visiting PRC Premier Zhu Rongji meets US President Bill Clinton at the White House. 9 The KCNA states that it would continue exporting its missiles unless it received compensation from the US. 11 Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes announces that India tested an intermediate-range Agni II missile that traveled more than 1,250 miles in 11 minutes. The first Egyptian President to visit SK, Mohamed Hosni Mubarak, committed himself to working as an impartial mediator between the two Koreas to promote peace and security on the Korean peninsula in a summit with SK President Kim Dae-jung, the Korea Times reports. The NIS issued that NK has refined 50 tons of opium and 5 tons of morphine and heroin. These narcotics are being smuggled into SK via fishing vessels, the Chosun Ilbo reports. 12 NK is seeking to normalize diplomatic ties with the Philippines in the hope of joining the ARF. The Philippines is the only ASEAN member nation with which NK has no diplomatic relations. The Russian Navy Pacific Commander visits the Japanese Defense Agency as a part of Japan-Russia defense exchanges. 13 The SK Defense Ministry an-nounces that SK is considering accepting submarines from Russia as payment for Russia's $1.7 billion debt. 14 Pakistan test-fires a new Ghauri II ballistic missile, which has a range of 1,240 miles and can carry a payload of 2,200 pounds of either conventional or nuclear explosives. 15 NK has earned $1.5 million since opening its flight information region to international airlines a year ago. A total of 2,154 aircraft used the NK airspace between April 23 last year and the end of March this year, the Korea Times reports. 19 An official at the Ministry of National Defense confirmed the protest by the US government over its possible violation of the letter of understanding prohibiting SK from developing missiles with a range exceeding 180km, and said that SK stresses the missile flew only 50 km, and therefore did not violate any US-SK agreement. Rodong Sinmun blasts the US, saying it is likely to attack NK next, after attacking Yugoslavia. It points to recent joint military exercises conducted by the US and SK as evidence for a US scheme to provoke a war of aggression. The SK Minister of Unification, Kang In-duk, announces that economic cooperation between NK and SK is showing signs of recovery. The trade between SK and NK as of the end of February this year was $35.24 million, a 65.4 percent increase over the same period last year, while last year's total trade was $221.94 million dollars, down 28 percent from the year before. 20 The Secretary General of Japan¤£ Liberal Democratic Party, Yoshiro Mori, proposed to a senior US official that Japan and Russia be allowed to participate in the four-party peace talks in a meeting at the LDP headquarters in Tokyo, a Kyodo news reports. The USS Kitty Hawk, an aircraft carrier operating in the Pacific Ocean, was ordered to the Persian Gulf on April 3 to allow the USS Theodore Roosevelt to join the NATO airstrikes on Yugoslavia, the Associated Press reports. 21 Japanese Defense Agency spokesman Kazuji Tanaka says that Japan and SK will hold a joint naval exercise in August as a first step in increasing bilateral military cooperation, the Associated Press reports. 22 The SK government is preparing for the National Assembly's formal approval on the 3,500 billion won (US$3.22 billion) allotment in the NK light-water reactor project, the JoongAng Ilbo reports. 25 Lim Dong-won, senior foreign affairs aide to SK President Kim Dae-jung, Kato Liojo, general chief of the Japanese Department of Foreign Affairs, and William Perry held a top-level policy cooperation meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii from April 23- 25. 26 SK President Kim Dae-jung tells an eight-member Russian delegation led by Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov that SK would welcome any role that Russia could play in promoting peace on the Korean peninsula. 27 Czech pianist Hana Dvorakova played a recital at Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone. The concert was organized by the Swedish, Swiss and Polish Delegations to the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission and the Czech Embassy. David Morton, the WFP representative in Pyongyang, announces that NK distributed the last of the fall harvest with early April's monthly food ration of 3 1/2 pounds of grain, adding that most NK citizens can now expect little food until the first crops are harvested in June. The fifth plenary session of the four-party talks, chaired by the US, finished its four- day session in Geneva. Delegations of the four parties, NK, PRC, SK, and US also held the two subcommittees - tension reduction on the Korean peninsula and the establishment of a peace regime - for two days. The lower house of Japan's Diet passes a bill package for implementing the New Japan-US Defense Guidelines. 29 Japanese Prime Minister begins his six-day trip to the US. 30 The CFK reveals that NK has shown a noticeable rise in training and in the amount of communication exchanged from these bases, and so the possibility of NK attacking by sea has increased. However, CFK also reports that this year's winter training, conducted from December 1998 to March 1999, was half the size of last year's, due to lack of fuel, reductions in food provisions, and increase in the number of soldiers involved in rebuilding the economy. 31 The Hyundai Maritime Shipping's 4,400-ton freighter "Hyundai Duke" collides with the NK cement carrier "Manpok" in international waters 500 miles from Sri Lanka. |
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May 1 Former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans flies into Pyongyang to discuss the NK food shortage and other bilateral issues of concern for four days. 2 The SK Ministry of Justice announces that it plans to allow ethnic Koreans in the PRC and Russia with longterm resident visas to freely enter and exit SK for the duration of their visa. 3 NK's most famous restaurant, Okryu-kwan, opens a branch in Seoul to serve its famous cold buckwheat noodle, "naengmyon." It is the first NK business in SK. 4 Japanese Foreign Ministry announces that Japan has signed a contract to lend $1 billion to the KEDO. Li Peng, chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee of China meets with a Japanese delegation from the Dietmen's League for Japan-China Friendship, led by Director-General Machimura Nobutaka. SK Defense Ministry announces that the SK and Japan have established three hot lines to share information in the event of a military emergency on the Korean peninsula. SK government reaffirmed that it has no plans to join the TMD program, the Korea Herald reports. The report also shows skepticism that the TMD plan cannot effectively intercept a barrage of NK's short-range missiles flying into Seoul. 5 US President Bill Clinton suggested his reluctance about visiting Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi's six-party talks, the Sankei Shimbun reports. The KCTU announces that it has agreed with NK General Federation of Korean Trade Unions to hold a soccer match on August 10 in Pyongyang and another one a year later in Seoul. 6 PRC Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao calls on the US to exclude Taiwan from a planned TMD system, the Associated Press reports. The US recently held an exercise of Noncombatant Evacuation Operations to evacuate US civilians in case of a crisis on the Korean peninsula, the Associated Press reports. 7 SK President Kim Dae-jung, in a recent interview with the Le Monde, urged Japan to compensate NK for its past colonial rule of Korea to smooth the way for talks to normalize relations, the Korea Herald reports. It was first time that an SK President had publicly and directly called on Japan to make compensation to NK. 8 UN Security Council holds an emergency meeting to discuss the NATO bombing of the PRC Embassy. 9 Chinese students broke into the US embassy compound in Beijing on the second day of nationwide protests over NATO's bombing of the PRC embassy. 10 A shipment of 100 kilograms of philopon apparently produced in NK has been seized by a joint team of SK and Japanese investigators at an SK port, the Korea Herald reports. NK made its famine figures public for the first time, showing that the mortality rate in NK had risen from 6.8 per 1,000 people in 1995 to 9.3 per 1,000 in 1998, NK Food Damage Rehabilitation Committee acting director Jun In-chen announces. 11 NK and the PRC reportedly agreed on the establishment of a NK Consulate General in Hong Kong this year to commemorate the 50th anniversary of NK-PRC diplomatic relations, the Korea Times reports. Tun Myat, director of resources for the WFP, said that the worst of the NK famine may have passed, adding that food aid is getting to those who need it and that NK is now producing alternative foods to prevent "mega-deaths," the Associated Press reports. 13 NK has been frequently affected by warm, dry winds from the west in this year. The east coast cities of Chongjin, Wonsan, and Hamhung have had no rain at all for the past three or four months, KCNA announces. SK Foreign Affairs-Trade Minister Hong Soon-young starts a five-day trip to the US to consult with US officials on how to convey a comprehensive package of initiatives to NK. 14 Six US soldiers killed during the Korean War were discovered by a joint US-NK search team return. 18 A 15-member team of US nuclear experts begins the inspection of the underground construction site at Kumchang-ri in NK. 19 Hyundai plans to send its economic cooperation team to NK and to hold final negotiations on building a roofing tile factory around Mt. Kumkang, the JoongAng Ilbo reports. US Air Force deployed 12 F-15E aircraft to SK to step up its defense readiness on the Korean peninsula, in light of the US aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk's redeployment due to the Kosovo crisis, the Korea Times reports. 21 Russia is going to resume supplying crude oil to NK this year after having stopped shipments for the past four years, the JoongAng Ilbo reports. |
| ADB | Asia Development Bank |
| ARF | ASEAN Regional Forum |
| CFK | Combined Forces Korea |
| CIA | Central Intelligence Agency |
| EEZ | exclusive economic zone |
| IBRD | International Bank for Reconstruction and Devel-opment |
| IOC | International Olympic Com-mittee |
| KCNA | (North) Korean Central News Agency |
| KCTU | (South) Korean Confedera-tion of Trade Unions |
| KEDO | Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization |
| KEPCO | Korean Electric Power Cor-poration |
| KNRC | (South) Korean National Red Cross |
| KOTRA | Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency |
| MOFAT | Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of South Korea |
| MOU | Ministry of Unification of South Korea |
| NIS | National Intelligence Service of SK |
| NK | North Korea |
| POW | non-governmental organizations |
| PRC | National Reconciliation Council of NK |
| SK | South Korea |
| SPA | Supreme People's Assembly of NK |
| THAAD | Theater High Altitude Area Defense |
| TMD | Theater Missile Defense |
| UNDP | United Nations Development Programme |
| WFP | World Food Programme |