Mixed signals from North Korea

FORUM Staff

The reclusive regime that rules North Korea keeps sending mixed signals to the rest of the world. Analysts say it can be hard to tell whether the isolated nation has any genuine interest in peaceful relations with South Korea and the United States.

This is nothing new, as North Korea has a long and well-documented history of threats, provocations and saber rattling. Recently, however, the mixed signals have been coming in rapid-fire fashion, one after another.

In a move toward progress, North and South Korean officials met for rare, high-level talks in December 2015. Reuters described the talks as “a fresh attempt at dialogue between the rivals, which have all but cut off ties since 2010, when a South Korean navy ship was destroyed by a torpedo that Seoul said was fired from a North Korean submarine.”

These talks, however, failed to produce any significant agreements, leading to a new round of diplomatic worries. “South and North Korea’s failure to produce a breakthrough at their high-level talks is feared to bring their ties to a standstill,” reported South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency.

Relations between the two Koreas have calmed down since a tense military standoff earlier in 2015. “The two countries threatened war against each other last summer over land mine explosions that maimed two South Korean soldiers,” The Associated Press reported.

For more mixed signals from North Korea, consider the following recent developments:

• United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in November 2015 that he had received “positive signs” from North Korea regarding his proposed upcoming visit to the country, Reuters reported. The regime in Pyongyang had canceled an earlier trip by Ban with little notice and no explanation, Reuters said.
• North Korea is making a strong push to increase the number of tourists who visit the country each year,” The Associated Press reported in December 2015. “North Korea’s push for tourists began in 2013, and visitors can now enjoy a surprisingly broad array of options, from helicopter rides over the capital to surfing on the country’s scenic eastern coast.”
• In December 2015, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was reported as boasting that his country had developed a hydrogen bomb, which would be “much more powerful than conventional nuclear weapons,” according to Yonhap. However, U.S. and South Korean officials expressed skepticism about this claim in news reports.
• A North Korea monitoring website, 38 North, reported that satellite photographs from October and November 2015 suggested that North Korea was digging a new tunnel for nuclear tests at a testing site, according to The Associated Press.

• At a huge military parade in October 2015, Kim Jong Un publicly declared that North Korea was “ready to fight any kind of war waged by the U.S. imperialists,” Reuters reported.