... "monster missile" - a Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile, weighing up to 110 tons and with a diameter of 2.5 meters. Prior to that, in January of the same year, a hypersonic missile was tested. With the launch of these missiles, the DPRK withdrew from the moratorium it announced in the spring of 2018 on the launch of ballistic missiles with a range of more than 5,000 km, as well as nuclear tests.
The launches have clearly demonstrated that the DPRK has finally become a nuclear power ...
... Although the official export of the DPRK has decreased by almost 90%, all possible routes are used, such as transshipment of cargo on the high seas, or even direct illegal deliveries. According to the calculations of the relevant US departments, the DPRK exported a total of 930 thousand tons of coal in at least 127 shipments in the first four months of 2019 alone [
2
]. Illegal exports of other goods and transferring fishing rights still persist. The DPRK continues to import luxury goods in violation of the sanctions regime.
It ...
Settling the nuclear problem of the Korean Peninsula is a new and unique task of global significance
The tensions that have surrounded the Korean Peninsula in recent years are among the principal threats to international security. The world once again started discussing the possibility of a nuclear war when Pyongyang violated the resolutions of the UN Security Council by holding another, sixth nuclear test and launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles in 2017, and when U.S. President Donald...
... transactions with the individuals under the sanctions, a ban on investments, visa restrictions, sanctions on company executives, etc.
A report on any encroachment in the November midterm elections should be due by mid-December. Taking into account the accusations already made against Russian citizens of interfering with the midterm elections, as well as the possibility of a broad interpretation of any actions by Russian government and non-governmental agencies, the December report will most likely include ...
US and North Korea have called the Summit a historic success, but it was also a compulsion in light of lack of alternatives
The world is talking of this Summit as a historic moment with hopes that it will bring peace to Korean Peninsula. Reading between the lines, beyond the niceties and magnificent optics displayed, some realities do emerge, which will indicate that it is beginning of a great gamble by both sides. This issue had crossed the limit of being a bilateral one and it impacts other stakeholders...
There are many obstacles for the meeting, and we have to wait for what the DPRK will say and how the US will behave before and in course of the negotiations
Chung Eui-yong, Head of the National Security Office under the president of South Korea, said, while speaking to reporters in Washington, that president Trump had expressed ...
US Antipathy to Inter-Korean Rapprochement and Russia’s Role in Conflict Prevention
Thanks to the “New Year’s” initiatives of Kim Jong-un – to which South Korean Moon Jae-in responded for his own reasons – significant progress was made in the inter-Korean dialogue at the highest level during the recent Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang (the possibility of an inter-Korean summit is even on the table), although the main achievements thus far have been in terms of good PR rather than concrete agreements...
Kim Jong-un played a brilliant diplomatic gambit, breaking out of a seemingly hopeless dead-end
2018 started with a sensation in Asia – a “New Year’s gift,” if we are to use the words of Ri Son-Gwon, head of North Korea’s delegation at the inter-Korean talks held on January 9, 2018 in the South Korean segment of the demilitarized zone in Panmunjom.
In his traditional New Year’s speech, supreme leader of North Korea Kim Jong-un proposed that an inter-Korean dialogue be launched. The proposal was...
Nuclear deterrence is the only reason why the world did not plunge into a nuclear conflict during the Cold War and is not sliding down that path now as we are living through a new Cold War which is even worse than the previous one. This view was stated at the Valdai Club by Sergei Karaganov, Dean of the School of World Economics and International Affairs at the National Research University—Higher School of Economics.
Nuclear deterrence is the only reason why the world did not plunge into a nuclear...
... and ballistic missile programmes.
For decades, these programmes had their ups and downs, increased their speed and slowed down. But the overall course of the North Korean leadership remained the same, as did the international community’s outright refusal to acknowledge North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. The arrival of the Donald Trump administration, with his harsh rhetoric and tendency to flex his country’s military muscles, has only triggered the crisis to move a latent confrontation to an escalation....
