Global Security Newswire

Indian authorities plan to continue checking a North Korean cargo ship for any signs that it had carried WMD material, the Press Trust of India reported today (see GSN, Aug. 18).

The freighter MV Mu San was detained after its crew moored in Indian waters without permission and then tried to flee the coast guard (see GSN, Aug. 14). Suspicions arose that the vessel might have been heading to or coming from Myanmar, which has been suspected of developing a nuclear program with aid from North Korea (see GSN, Aug. 18).

So far, the only cargo found on the ship is sugar apparently bound for Iraq. Nonetheless, the coast guard is escorting the ship to the port at Kakinada, where it will be searched by nuclear scientists and security personnel. They will be looking for any signs of biological, chemical, nuclear or radioactive materials, PTI reported.

A North Korean official and the 38 other members of the ship's crew are expected to be questioned (Press Trust of India/Indian Express, Aug. 19).

Meanwhile, Pyongyang lashed out again at South Korea and the United States for conducting a large-scale military exercise that began this week, Agence France-Presse reported.

"Lurking behind them is a dangerous scheme for aggression to mount a pre-emptive nuclear attack on the D.P.R.K. (North Korea) and to conquer it anytime when an opportunity presents itself under the pretext of coping with an event of contingency in the Korean Peninsula," according to a Foreign Ministry spokesman.

The 11-day exercise, Ulchi Freedom Guardian, shows that North Korea made the correct decision to augment its self-defensive deterrent, the spokesman said, using the standard reference for the nation's nuclear arsenal.

Seoul and Washington have said they alerted Pyongyang to the event and that it is not meant to be a provocation (Agence France-Presse I/Yahoo!News, Aug. 19).

The rhetoric came amid signs that North Korea might be prepared to back off its provocations of recent months, which included a second nuclear test and multiple missile launches. The Stalinist state on Aug. 4 released two U.S. journalists who had been sentenced to hard labor, after former U.S. President Bill Clinton met with leader Kim Jong Il. Pyongyang this week also announced heightened re-engagement with the South, including resumption of a tourism program and family reunions.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is expected today to meet in an unofficial capacity with North Korean diplomats. The Santa Fe session is not an indication that U.S.-North Korean talks are set to begin, one official told the New York Times.

Washington participated in six-nation negotiations aimed at shuttering North Korea's nuclear program that went on for years and made some progress, including the halt of operations at the regime's plutonium-producing Yongbyon nuclear complex. However, the effort stalled last year and appeared to have died in the wake of international condemnation of the North's April rocket launch.

Clinton and Kim did not address the North's nuclear program in any serious fashion, nor was there any sign that the regime was ready to give up its atomic efforts, officials said.

The meeting served to at least quiet suspicions that Kim remains seriously ill after reportedly suffering a stroke last year and might be preparing to cede power to his youngest son, the Times reported (Landler/Mazzetti, New York Times, Aug. 19).

Clinton met yesterday with President Barack Obama to discuss the trip, Reuters reported.

"The briefing that my husband and those who traveled with him ... is, you know, extremely helpful, because it gives us a window into what's going on in North Korea," said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The administration's stand on the North remains the same following the trip, she said.

"Our policy is consistent," Clinton said. "We continue to offer to the North Koreans the opportunity to have a dialogue within the six-party talk framework with the United States that we think could offer many benefits to the people of North Korea" (Patricia Zengerle, Reuters I/Yahoo!News, Aug. 18).

Pyongyang plans to send a delegation to Seoul for the funeral of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, Reuters reported.

The visit could serve to strengthen ties between the neighboring states which have been strained since conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office last year.

"There's no doubt a softer atmosphere has been created but the North Koreans will put on stern faces if anyone tries to engage them in political talk at the funeral because they will say their visit is not related to the North-South political reality," said South Korean analyst Yang Moo-jin (Jon Herskovitz, Reuters II/Yahoo!News, Aug. 18).

Top Chinese nuclear negotiator Wu Dawei appears set to conclude his trip to Pyongyang today, AFP reported. The three-day visit, which included talks with North Korean nuclear envoy Kim Kye Gwan, was intended to press North Korea to return to the nuclear talks.

The talks involve China, Japan, Russia, the United States and both Koreas (Agence France-Presse II, Aug. 19).