North Korea’s Kim Jong Un Blames South for ‘Distrust,’ Calls

SEOUL-North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un indicated in a New Year speech that he remains committed to a military confrontation with other nations while continuing to try to boost the economy through state management.

Kim Yang Gon, who was a secretary of the Workers’ Party and the head of its United Front Department, the unit that handles ties with South Korea, was Kim Jong Un’s “closest comrade, a solid revolutionary partner”, the KCNA news agency said.

The chilling promise from the portly leader came as he addressed his country during a 30-minute broadcast on North Korean television, his fourth speech since becoming leader in 2011 after his father Kim Jong-il died.

Kim has issued similar calls in his three previous New Year addresses and, as on those occasions, Friday’s speech offered little in terms of specific policy for achieving his economic objectives. Mr. Jang had been considered North Korea’s No. 2 official, and was responsible for handling North Korea’s relationship with Beijing.

He also added that Pyongyang was prepared to engage in dialogue with “anyone who truly wants national reconciliation, unity, peace and reunification”.

Kim, who enters his fifth year in power this year, could also seek to placate the military by reinstating demoted officials, according to a report by the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul.

Parsing natural deaths from a forced demise amongst the senior leadership of North Korea is always hard, particularly nowadays given Kim Jong-un’s extensive purging.

During those meetings, North Korean representatives insisted on discussing only the resumption of the Kumgangsan tourist venture, a special region in North Korea for South Korean tourists, which has been a cash cow for the regime. “South Korea should honor the spirit of the inter-Korean agreement in August”.

Speeches by a North Korean leader used to be rare.

Mr Kim said raising living standards was his top priority and avoided any explicit reference to the country’s nuclear weapons programme. “If you look at the North Korean history, we can see that a surprising large number of their high level North Korean officials have died in auto crashes”, Lankov said. His message was instead conveyed in the form of an editorial in North Korea’s major newspapers. Defectors and academics have reported some modest experiments in agricultural and industrial reform, but Mr. Kim’s speech gave no indication the state was willing to step back further from tight political controls on economic activity.