IPSE'S AUTHORS LAST 24h
Check all the Authors in the last 24h
IPSEs IN THE LAST 24H
  • Andrei Soldatov
    Andrei Soldatov “The problem is to actually be able to prevent terrorist attacks, you need to have a really good and efficient system of intelligence sharing and intelligence gathering. Trust is needed inside the home agency and with agencies of other countries, as is good coordination. That's where you have problems.” 11 hours ago
  • Dmitry Peskov
    Dmitry Peskov “All war crimes [committed] by the Kyiv regime are thoroughly documented. We were well aware of these crimes. And, of course, we will make sure that those behind these crimes are duly punished.” 11 hours ago
  • Timothy Snyder
    Timothy Snyder “The terrorists' car was stopped near Bryansk, which is in western Russia, and so vaguely near Ukraine, which means that the four Tajiks in a Renault were intending to cross the Ukrainian border, which means that they had Ukrainian backers, which means that it was a Ukrainian operation, which means that the Americans were behind it. The reasoning here leaves something to be desired. And the series of associations rests on no factual basis.” 11 hours ago
  • Vladimir Putin
    Vladimir Putin “We have no aggressive intentions towards these states. The idea that we will attack some other country - Poland, the Baltic States, and the Czechs are also being scared - is complete nonsense. It's just drivel. If they supply F-16s, and they are talking about this and are apparently training pilots, this will not change the situation on the battlefield. And we will destroy the aircraft just as we destroy today tanks, armoured vehicles and other equipment, including multiple rocket launchers. Of course, if they will be used from airfields in third countries, they become for us legitimate targets, wherever they might be located.” 12 hours ago
View All IPSEs inserted in the Last 24h
NEW CONTEXTS IN THE LAST 24H
  • No New Contexts inserted in the last 24 hours
View All New Contexts inserted in the last 24h

North Korea

Page with all the IPSEs stored in the archive related to North Korea.
The IPSEs are presented in chronological order based on when the IPSEs have been pronounced.

“I express serious concern over the US escalating the war situation by providing Ukraine with military hardware for ground offensive. The US is the arch criminal which poses serious threat and challenge to the strategic security of Russia and pushes the regional situation to the present grave phase. I do not doubt that any military hardware the US and the West boast of will be burnt into pieces in the face of the indomitable fighting spirit and might of the heroic Russian army and people. North Korea will always stand in the same trench with Russia.”

author
North Korean politician serving as the Deputy Director of the United Front Department of the Workers' Party of Korea
Read More

“The U.S. intelligence community assesses that KJU [Kim Jong-un] views nuclear weapons as the ultimate deterrent against foreign intervention. KJU declared last year that he would be willing to employ nukes more broadly in wartime, and last September, he stated unequivocally that he would never give up his nukes and the North Korea's status as a nuclear weapons state is irreversible. We must not relax sanctions or reduce joint military exercises just to get North Korea to come to the negotiating table. This is a fool's error. While we hope for diplomacy with North Korea to be successful, we must recognize that hope alone is not a course of action. The quest for dialogue with the North must never be made at the expense of the ability to respond to threats from the North.”

author
Former United States Ambassador to South Korea
Read More

“This year could be a year of crisis with military tension on the Korean peninsula going beyond what it was like in 2017. North Korea's hardline stance … and aggressive weapons development when met with South Korea-US joint exercises and proportional response could raise the tension in a flash, and we cannot rule out what's similar to a regional conflict when the two sides have a misunderstanding of the situation.”

author
Senior researcher at the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification
Read More

“Compared with Kim's previous New Year's remarks, which highlighted the country's economic growth, he emphasized strengthening the military and nuclear weapons this time. A nuclear test is expected soon to back up his message. The prediction that North Korea would push ahead with a nuclear test before the midterms in the United States in November was wrong, perhaps because it ignored the North's politics. If the past is any guide, North Korea conducted nuclear tests on or just prior to politically meaningful days. If the North does not conduct a test in January or February, it could be delayed to July 27, the anniversary of the Korean War armistice signing, which is called 'the Day of Victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War' in North Korea, or later.”

author
Director of the Center for North Korean Studies at the Sejong Institute
Read More

“We can confirm that North Korea has completed an initial arms delivery to Wagner, which paid for that equipment. Last month, North Korea delivered infantry rockets and missiles into Russia for use by Wagner.”

author
Pentagon spokesman
Read More

“South Korea will seek international support and try hard to impose additional sanctions on us. But, with our right to survival and development being threatened, why are we afraid of sanctions … and why would we stop?”

author
North Korean politician serving as the Deputy Director of the United Front Department of the Workers' Party of Korea
Read More

“Pyongyang's claim of testing a solid-fuel motor for longer range ballistic missiles supports its more aggressive, recently declared doctrine of using nuclear weapons if the Kim leadership or strategic assets come under threat. Once deployed, the technology would make North Korea's nuclear forces more versatile, survivable, and dangerous.”

author
Professor at Ewha University in Seoul
Read More

“The current diplomatic impasse is clearly due to North Korea's disinterest in talks with the U.S. and South Korea, which seems in part because North Korea wants to signal that the complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization (CVID) of North Korea is off the negotiation table. But if North Korea's internal and/or external (particularly with respect to China and Russia) environment changes, there could be a window of opportunity that North Korea may want to resume dialogue with the United States and/or South Korea to seek a partial sanctions relief and other things. We should not give up the North's denuclearization because if we do that, this will make North Korea believe that their strategy of nuclear coercion works and could lead the country to make miscalculations and become more aggressive.”

author
Deputy director of the Korea Chair at the Washington-based think tank, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Read More

“My view is that Pyongyang has not yet received any proposal which it sees as meeting its two criteria, which it made clear through North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations in New York in September 2020. They said any proposal for talks must make possible economic modernization and show them respect. The Audacious Initiative proposed by the Yoon Suk-yeol administration offers modernization but does not show the North respect, as it is effectively another form of aid package.”

author
U.K. social entrepreneur who was behind forging a path to help overcome apartheid in South Africa and other peacebuilding efforts in the continent
Read More

“Targeting senior officials inside North Korea responsible for WMD and missile activities and working with South Korea and Japan are important, but it is an inadequate and symbolic response to 60+ missile tests, including 8 ICBM tests. The Biden administration should sanction Pyongyang's revenue and force Kim Jong Un to make difficult decisions about his strategic priorities.”

author
Senior director of Foundation for Defense of Democracies' Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program and a senior fellow at Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Read More

“The U.S. should be mindful that no matter how desperately it may seek to disarm (North Korea), it can never deprive (North Korea) of its right to self-defense and that the more hell-bent it gets on the anti-(North Korea) acts, it will face a more fatal security crisis.”

author
North Korean politician serving as the Deputy Director of the United Front Department of the Workers' Party of Korea
Read More

“They have not sent out vessels with telemetry capabilities to track missiles coming down into the water. And because we have not seen this re-entry capability, some people say North Korea doesn't know how to do it. But I believe they probably can, that their engineers, their scientists are capable. And they've done so many missile tests that even though they haven't had a reentry test, per se, they probably can do it.”

author
Associate fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies
Read More

“Given that South Korea and the United States are conducting a combined air exercise, regarded as the strongest deterrence against the North Korean threats, the missile launch during the ongoing drills indicates the North has strong confidence in its nuclear capability. Since Sept. 25, North Korea has kept firing missiles ― even during China's important party congress. In addition, the North had staged military provocations in consideration of South Korea's domestic situation to some extent, but the missile launch during the South's mourning period of the Itaewon crowd crush, means that it will only focus on gaining recognition as a nuclear weapons state without taking anything into consideration before holding negotiations with the U.S. on the nuclear issue. To this end, North Korea is widely expected to ratchet up tensions further on the peninsula.”

author
Professor of North Korean studies at Ewha Womans University
Read More

“Everybody is holding its breath about this, because another nuclear test would be yet another confirmation of a program which is moving full steam ahead, in a way that is incredibly, incredibly concerning. Further tests, of course, means that they are refining the preparations and the construction of their arsenal. So we are following this very, very closely. We hope it doesn't happen, but indications unfortunately go in another direction.”

author
Chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency
Read More

“Pyongyang's politics of blaming external threats and projecting confidence in military capabilities can motivate greater risk taking. North Korean probing of South Korean perimeter defenses could lead to a serious exchange of fire and unintended escalation.”

author
Professor at Ewha University in Seoul
Read More

“It was unusual that the North announced that it was reacting to a 10-hour long artillery drill. It seems like the shelling was aimed at testing whether Seoul really thinks about breaking the military agreement. If the North dared to ignore the agreement, it can simply arm its soldiers in the Demilitarized Zone. Many South Korean politicians assume that the North is staging the military actions with some great purpose in mind, but there are fair chances that Pyongyang is just responding to Seoul's stance of enhancing extended deterrence with the U.S. If we look into the situation from North Korea's shoes, South Korea's new Yoon government abruptly started to mention extended deterrence. Then, it brought a U.S. aircraft carrier for naval drills, so the North also started to react. And now, South Korea is talking about deploying U.S. nuclear weapons or developing its own warheads. I'm not trying to justify the North's military actions, but it is questionable whether the current spiral of provocation-punishment is helpful in controlling the situation of the Korean Peninsula. The North has become confident about its weapon system. Unlike in the past, there will not be a breather if the two sides keep raising tensions.”

author
Senior researcher at the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification
Read More

“There seems to be no clear purpose for the recent actions. In the past, we used to say there is an equation that the North's provocations are aimed at greater leverage in talks. However, the recent moves are not the case. In the past, the North's strategy and goal was gaining U.S. recognition as a nuclear state and lifting the sanctions that are hampering its trade. However, North Korea is now assumed to have produced many nuclear weapons and there is less attractiveness in gaining such recognition. Rather, the recent moves are assumed to be aimed at gaining international attention for its seventh nuclear test with missile launches and other provocations, and showing its force to the world. Bragging about its nuclear forces seems to be the ultimate purpose of the recent moves.”

author
Research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies
Read More

“North Korea's cruise missiles, air force, and tactical nuclear devices are probably much less capable than propaganda suggests. But it would be a mistake to dismiss North Korea's recent weapons testing spree as bluster or sabre-rattling. Pyongyang's military threats are a chronic and worsening problem for peace and stability in Asia that must not be ignored. Policymakers in Seoul, Tokyo and Washington should not allow domestic politics and other challenges such as Russia's war in Ukraine to prevent them from increasing international coordination on military deterrence and economic sanctions.”

author
Professor at Ewha University in Seoul
Read More

“The country should continue to expand the operational sphere of the nuclear strategic armed forces to resolutely deter any crucial military crisis and war crisis at any time and completely take the initiative in it.”

author
Leader of North Korea
Read More

“Pyongyang has been concerned about military exercises by the U.S., South Korea and Japan, so to strengthen its self-proclaimed deterrent, it is making explicit the nuclear threat behind its recent missile launches. The KCNA report may also be harbinger of a forthcoming nuclear test for the kind of tactical warhead that would arm the units Kim visited in the field.”

author
Professor at Ewha University in Seoul
Read More

“Even the concessions that North Korea would want, I think, are very much unclear at the moment. It's quite possible that the North Koreans are simply… they see the current moment as a great moment of geopolitical realignment in the world with Russia's war against Ukraine, and systemic rivalry between the US and China. And they might have calculated that instead of pursuing negotiations with the United States and trying to revisit that relationship, which they've been trying to revisit for now, really 30 years, their cause is better served by simply doubling down on their relationships with Russia and China.”

author
Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Read More

“The war in Ukraine means that North Korea will be able to test all sorts of weapons ― hypersonic missiles, submarine-launched systems, nuclear weapons and of course ICBMs ― and pay no penalty as Washington is distracted while Russia and China are unwilling to help. The Kim Jong-un regime will certainly test as much as they can during this unique time period, driving Washington and its allies to increase their own military capabilities. That means not only are we in for an arms race in Northeast Asia, but the stage is set for Japan and South Korea to actively consider developing and deploying their own nuclear weapons. We are far beyond a simple arms race at this point.”

author
Senior director of Korean Studies at the Center for the National Interest
Read More

“If Kim Jong Un were to carry out this test during the Communist Party Congress, it would be considered a real slap against China. To the extent that they do it, it would be more around the US elections because, North Korea is more concerned about a US response at this moment.”

author
Beijing-based political analyst
Read More

“If we consider the lessons learned from Hanoi, one possible lesson Kim Jong-un may have taken from the experience is that from his perspective, the United States did not take sufficiently seriously the idea that the North was negotiating from a position of strength. North Korea is asserting that its laws make denuclearization negotiations a non-starter. As a result, it is hard to imagine how the United States and North Korea will be able to frame a diplomatic negotiation process around a set of commonly held objectives. A logical course of action would be to further strengthen the North's military program so that its nuclear capabilities would be regarded as undeniable and irreversible. Once North Korea's Kim believes he has adequately achieved those objectives, he might in principle then be ready to return to diplomatic negotiations with the United States, but from an even stronger position than the North's Kim was in when he met with Trump in Hanoi in February of 2019.”

author
Senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank
Read More

“The aim of the United States is not just to eliminate our nuclear weapons themselves but also ultimately to bring down our regime anytime by forcing (North Korea) to put down nuclear weapons and give up or weaken the power to exercise self-defense.”

author
Leader of North Korea
Read More

“Through unheard of sanctions and blockade(s) … they are trying to lead us but to give up the nuclear weapons of our own accord. But never! Let them impose sanctions for 100, nay 1000 days, or even 10 or 100 years.”

author
Leader of North Korea
Read More

“Even [leaders of] Russia did not see it coming [recognizing the independence of two Russia-backed separatist regions in eastern Ukraine] - and then, the North reportedly offered to send its workers to the region. Over the past 20 years, Russia's diplomatic strategies on North Korea and the Korean Peninsula have not changed much. But I believe it is now on the verge of a big shift. In the short run, there seems little incentive for the North to make such decisions, which have drawn international criticism. But in the long term, what it can gain from Russia, one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, is enormous. North Korea is probably expecting Russia's support at the U.N. … It is very likely that Russia will offer it. I have heard from sources in Russia that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un may visit Russia this year.”

author
Research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification
Read More

“The current (Yoon Suk-yeol) government has this last opportunity for denuclearization. Perhaps, we have already missed it. North Korea perceives the current situation as a new Cold War and has strengthened relations with China and Russia … This means that North Korea's need for U.S. security guarantees and, therefore, reasons for abandoning its nuclear weapons will decrease.”

author
Professor of political science and international relations at Seoul National University
Read More

“It would have been more favourable for his [Yoon Suk-yeol] image to shut his mouth. No one barters its destiny for corn cake. Though he may knock at the door with what large plan in the future as his 'bold plan' does not work, we make it clear that we will not sit face to face with him.”

author
North Korean politician serving as the Deputy Director of the United Front Department of the Workers' Party of Korea
Read More

“Yoon's initiative adds to a long list of failed offers involving South Korean promises to provide economic benefits to North Korea … These were the same assumptions that were behind a succession of failed efforts to jump-start denuclearisation talks. The acuteness of North Korea's economic vulnerability will make the leadership all the more resistant towards South Korean-proposed infrastructure projects.”

author
Senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank
Read More

“People in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea no longer live in a cocoon with no information from the world outside. The current generation of North Koreans has experienced the freedom of enterprise and choice - however restricted - offered by the jangmadang informal markets. They watch TV dramas from China and South Korea and do not accept the propaganda, however harsh their lives might be. The regime fears the confluence of a more informed, less unconditionally loyal population, with greater hardships. When loyalty is replaced by fear and the general population suffers increasing hardships, he said, the situation becomes unsustainable. Change is bound to come. We just don't know when, or in what form it will happen.”

author
Founder and chairman of the Global Peace Foundation
Read More

“I presume that giving front-line artillery units a nuclear mission is a big enough change for North Korea, which has previously concentrated nuclear-armed missiles under the [Korean People's Army] Strategic Rocket Force, that Kim decided to formalise it at CMC [Central Military Commission] meeting.”

author
Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at California’s Middlebury Institute of International Studies
Read More

“A roof has been installed on the annex to the reported Centrifuge Enrichment Facility, so the annex is now externally complete. Near the light water reactor (LWR), we have observed that the new building that had been under construction since April 2021 has been completed, and construction has started on two adjacent buildings. The conduct of a nuclear test would contravene UN Security Council resolutions and would be a cause for serious concern.”

author
Chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency
Read More

“It seemed like the United States wanted to provoke and produce this split in the Security Council, knowing that China and Russia would not support the resolution. Moscow and Beijing appear somewhat tolerant of North Korea's resuming long-range missile launches, but it is far from clear that Pyongyang has Russia's and China's consent, tacit or otherwise, for a nuclear test. Nuclear testing is seen by Beijing, and especially Moscow, as a far more serious matter, compared to missile testing. Nevertheless, Russia sees the Ukraine crisis as a proxy war with the United States, and the war is now bleeding into the situation around North Korea. Even though Moscow and Washington have a real shared interest in the denuclearisation of North Korea, it has now become extremely difficult, if not impossible, for them to collaborate.”

author
Associate professor with Russia’s Far Eastern Federal University
Read More

“I think it was a big mistake for the U.S. to push for what was sure to fail rather than showing unified opposition to North Korea's actions. In the current political environment, the idea that China and Russia could agree with the U.S. on anything would have sent a strong signal to Pyongyang.”

author
Director of the U.S.-based 38 North programme, which monitors North Korea
Read More

“So far, the North has reported one Omicron-related death, it is expected that the North will not accept aid from the outside world, especially the Western world, for a while. However, if the number of Omicron deaths soar, the North will have no option but to request China's assistance first, and then they may consider the Western world's aid if the situation gets out of control for the regime. Potential inter-Korean quarantine cooperation can help the two sides to lower military tensions and resume talks. South Korea may be able to provide a coronavirus-relief package to North Korea through China or other international organizations if it remains reluctant to receive help. Any inter-Korean cooperation in fighting COVID-19 will not be easy, because the South Korean government is now led by hawkish figures, who are describing North Korea's short range ballistic missile launch as a serious provocation.”

author
Director of the Center for North Korean Studies at the Sejong Institute
Read More

“The country has been testing about 1,400 people each week, which is not nearly enough to survey 350,000 people with symptoms. What is more worrisome is the sheer number of symptomatic people. Using a conservative case fatality rate of 1% and assuming the surge is due to an Omicron variant of COVID-19, North Korea can expect 3,500 deaths from this outbreak.”

author
Lecturer on Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School
Read More

“Instead of accepting invitations to dialogue, the Kim regime appears to be preparing a tactical nuclear warhead test. The timing will depend most on when the underground tunnels and modified device technology are ready. A seventh nuclear test would be the first since September 2017 and raise tensions on the Korean Peninsula, increasing dangers of miscalculation and miscommunication between the Kim regime and the incoming Yoon administration.”

author
Professor at Ewha University in Seoul
Read More
arrow