Han Kang: Innovative South Korean Author Wins The 2024 Nobel Prize For Literature

Han Kang

BY JENNI RAMONE

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF

POST COLONIAL AND GLOBAL

LITERATURES, NOTTINGHAM TRENT

UNIVERSITY

It’s often the case that when poets write novels, they deliver arrestingly vivid and nimble prose. Han Kang’s The Vegetarian (2007) is a case in point, and it is no doubt the work that was most influential in the Swedish Academy’s decision to award her the Nobel prize in literature 2024. The committee stated that Kang was awarded the prestigious prize because her “poetic and experimental style” has made her “an innovator in contemporary prose”.

Han Kang is the first South Korean writer to be awarded the Nobel prize in literature, and in its history of 121 winners over 117 years, only the 18th woman to be awarded the prize. She was born in 1970 in Gwangju and has also been awarded the International Booker Prize (in 2016), as well as several other high profile national and international awards, including the Prix Médicis Etranger in 2023 for her novel Impossible Goodbyes.

The Vegetarian is Han Kang’s best-read work. Published in 2007, and translated into English for publication in the UK in 2015 and the US in 2016, its title was apt, as it coincided with a sudden upsurge in people turning to vegetarianism and veganism, particularly in the UK.

While the novel is not a manifesto for vegetarianism, it does contemplate the impact of becoming vegetarian when everyone around you eats meat. It conveys protagonist Yeong-hye’s struggle to maintain bodily agency in response to her husband’s disgust at her decision (he sees it as disobedience), her brother-in-law’s erotic fascination with it and her father’s violent acts, force-feeding her pork.

The Vegetarian offers an extended insight into patriarchal control of the female body, and has been described as an anti-capitalist and ecofeminist revolt.

The novel has a three-part structure and both the narrative perspective and voice shifts in each section. Yeong-hye is never a first-person narrator in the story of her own body and the decisions she makes about it. This noticeable lack of voice seems to have been relevant to the Nobel prize. The committee stated that their decision was motivated by the author’s commitment to conveying “invisible sets of rules” and “the fragility of human life” through her “unique awareness of the connections between body and soul”.

Han Kang’s poetry and short stories are just as innovative and important as her novels, though they are less well known, and their themes more obscure. Her poetry often explores places (walking on the city street), juxtaposed with objects (streetlamps, candles, mirrors) and the fragmented human body (a hand reaching out, fingertips, frozen cheeks, tongues, eyelids).

The English translation of her latest novel, We Do Not Part, will be published in February next year. We Do Not Part is perhaps more obscure and complex that The Vegetarian, at least in subject matter. It is the story of a woman named Kyungha, who travels to her friend Inseon’s rural house to care for a pet bird after Inseon is hospitalised after a wood-chopping accident. Trapped by a snowstorm, she uncovers letters from the 1948-49 Jeju massacre, where around 1,000 people were killed.

Reactions to Kang’s win

There has been wide praise for this year’s winner. The Washington Post celebrates the award as offering potential for other Korean writers. The Guardian, meanwhile, acknowledges Kang’s accolades and expands on the committee’s reasons for awarding the prize: her empathy, unique awareness, experimental style, and “metaphorically charged prose”.

The prize for literature is often controversial. Online communities debate the validity of winners and make accusations about the politics of choices. Some commentators are upset if the author is too obscure, as was the case with Norwegian Jon Fosse, who won in 2023. They are equally upset if the prize is awarded to a figure who is too mainstream, as was the case when Bob Dylan won in 2016.

The local specificity of Kang’s writing, bringing Korean history and places to a global audience, and the precision of her prose, means that her work is innovative and arresting in both form and content. A worthy winner.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

Korean Government To Sign K-Rice Belt MOUs With 7 African Countries

PULSE NEWS KOREA

The South Korean government is set to pursue a project of building a Korean rice belt in Africa, known as the K-Rice Belt, under which Korea’s rice farming experience will be shared with and rice varieties supplied to seven African countries.

By 2027, Korean rice varieties will be harvested in Africa that is more than three times the size of Yeouido, the financial district in Seoul. The K-Rice Belt is one of Yoon Suk Yeol administration’s main agricultural tasks aimed at offering official development assistance (ODA).

According to the government on Monday, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs will sign memoranda of understanding (MOUs) in July on developing the K-Rice Belt with seven countries, including Senegal, Gambia, Guinea and Ghana of West Africa, Cameroon of Central Africa, and Uganda and Kenya of East Africa.

These seven countries mostly rely on imports of their staple rice due to insufficient local production. Once the MOUs are signed, Korea will be able to transfer its rice cultivation technologies and supply rice seeds to the countries. “The seven countries are highly interested in the K-Rice Belt project,” said an unnamed official from the agricultural ministry.

The ministry, in collaboration with the Rural Development Administration (RDA), plans to plant high-yielding rice in an area of 300 hectares in the seven countries and produce 2,040 tons of rice this year. Tongilbyeo, ISRIZ-6 and ISRIZ-7 are Korea’s high-yielding rice varieties with higher yield potential. ISRIZ-6 and 7 can produce 5-6 tons of rice per hectare every year, more than twice as high in productivity compared with African varieties with a yield of 1.5-3 tons per hectare.

The experiment in Guinea last year, in fact, attested to the much higher rice yield of Korea’s Tongilbyeo compared with local varieties. The yield per hectare of local varieties was a mere 0.8-1.5 tons while that of Tongilbyeo was 2.7 tons.

The goal of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Rural Development Administration is to produce and distribute 11,140 tons of rice in a total area of 986 hectares in 2027. The ministry sees that the annual production of high-yielding rice will be at least 10,000 tons after 2027, a level sufficient to feed 30 million people annually.

The ministry and the Korea Rural Community Corp. plan to secure suitable land for rice production in each country and build infrastructure such as irrigation, drainage facilities and tractor paths if necessary. Additionally, experts from the RDA will be sent to the countries to train local experts as seed supply alone is insufficient to guarantee success in rice production. The plan also includes building storage facilities for pesticides, fertilizers, agricultural machinery and seeds.

Human Rights Group Locates North Korean Execution Sites

In this Feb. 26, 2019, file photo, South Korean protesters and North Korean defectors hold portraits of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a rally urging the United States to discuss North Korean human rights issues in the upcoming summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un near the U.S. embassy in Seoul, South Korea. The Seoul-based human rights group Transitional Justice Working Group said Tuesday, June 11, 2019, it has carried out research to identify hundreds of sites where witnesses claim North Korea has carried out public executions as it continues to aggressively use the death penalty to intimidate its citizens. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)


BY KIM TONG-HYUNG

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (AP) — A human rights group said Tuesday it has identified hundreds of spots where witnesses claim North Korea carried out public executions and extrajudicial state killings as part of an arbitrary and aggressive use of the death penalty that is meant to intimidate its citizens.

The Seoul-based Transitional Justice Working Group said its research was based on interviews with 610 North Korean defectors who helped locate the sites with satellite imagery.

The group didn’t reveal the exact locations of the 323 sites because it’s worried that North Korea will tamper with them, but said 267 of them were located in two northeastern provinces near the border with China, the area where most of the defectors who participated in the study came from.

North Korea’s public executions tend to happen near rivers, in fields and on hills, and also at marketplaces and school grounds — places where residents and family members of those sentenced are often forced to attend the killings, the report said. The group also said it documented 25 sites where the dead were allegedly disposed of by the state and also found official locations that may have documents or other evidence related to the killings.

The Associated Press could not independently verify the report, and the group acknowledged that its findings weren’t definite because it doesn’t have direct access to North Korea and cannot visit the sites defectors told it about. Heeseok Shim, one of the report’s authors, also said interviews with defectors suggest that public executions in North Korea are becoming less frequent, although it’s unclear whether that’s because more people are being executed in secret.

The Transitional Justice Working Group is a nongovernment organization founded by human rights advocates and researchers from South Korea and four other countries. The group said the new report was made possible by funding from the Washington-based National Endowment for Democracy, which is funded by the U.S. Congress.

North Korea didn’t immediately respond to the report, but the nation bristles at outside criticism of its human rights record and claims negative assessments are part of U.S.-led pressure campaigns meant to tarnish the image of its leadership and destroy the country’s political system. In a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council in May, North Korea said it “consistently maintains the principle of ensuring scientific accuracy, objectivity and impartiality, as well as protecting human rights in dealing with criminal cases.”

A 2014 United Nations report on North Korea’s human rights conditions, however, said state authorities carry out executions, “with or without trial, publicly or secretly,” in response to political and other crimes that are often not among the most serious offenses. While public executions were more common in the 1990s, North Korea continues to carry them out for the purpose of instilling fear in the general population, the report said.

The new report said its findings show arbitrary executions and extrajudicial killings under state custody have continued under the rule of young leader Kim Jong Un despite international criticism over how North Korea supposedly applies the death penalty without due judicial process.

Almost all of the state killings documented in the report were public executions by firing squad. Public executions are almost always preceded by brief “trials” on the spot where charges are announced and sentences are issued without legal counsel for the accused, the report said. Bodies of people killed by state agents are not typically returned to the family and are often dumped in mountainous areas, buried in the ground without markers, or thrown into a gorge or ravine, it said.

The rights group said the information it gathered will be crucial if a political transition in North Korea allows for the identification of victims, the return of remains to families and investigations into human rights abuses committed by the government.

The group released an earlier report in 2017 based on a smaller number of interviews. It said the new report is better sourced.

AP Exclusive: Adoptee Deported By US Sues S. Korea, Agency

In this Jan. 2, 2019, photo, South Korean adoptee Adam Crapser speaks during an interview in Seoul, South Korea. Crasper was deported from the U.S. four decades after his adoption by American parents is suing the Seoul government and a private adoption agency over what he calls gross negligence. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

BY KIM TONG-HYUNG

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (AP) — Adam Crapser lives in limbo, a stranger in South Korea, the country of his birth.

Forcibly separated from his wife, children and friends in America, he is isolated by language and culture, left alone to navigate this sprawling city he’s been expelled to four decades after being sent to adoptive parents in Michigan at age 3.

Crapser was abused and abandoned by two different sets of adoptive parents in the United States; then he was deported after run-ins with the law because none of his guardians filed citizenship papers for him. He told The Associated Press in an interview that he has struggled in South Korea with intense anxiety and depression, even as he searches for answers about why his life has become defined by displacement.

That search has led him to file a landmark lawsuit against South Korea’s government and a private adoption agency, the Seoul-based Holt Children’s Services, over what Crapser calls gross negligence regarding the way he and thousands of other Korean children were sent to the United States and other Western nations without accounting for their future citizenship.

The 200 million won ($177,000) civil suit, which was described exclusively to the AP ahead of its filing Thursday by Crapser’s lawyers in a Seoul court, exposes a dark side of South Korean adoptions, which exploded as a business during the 1970s and ’80s when many children were carelessly and unnecessarily removed from their families.

The country was then at the height of a so-called “child export” frenzy pushed by military dictatorships that focused on economic growth and reducing the number of mouths to feed. There was no stringent oversight of adoption agencies, which were infamous for aggressive child-gathering activities and fraudulent paperwork as they competed to send more children abroad at faster speeds.

Crapser’s case also highlights the shaky legal status of possibly thousands of South Korean adoptees in the United States whose parents may have failed to get them citizenship, potentially leaving them vulnerable to deportation if they acquire a criminal record in a country that’s becoming increasingly aggressive about going after undocumented immigrants.

Crapser, who was named Shin Seong-hyeok by his Korean mother, is one of five adoptees who the Seoul government confirms now live in South Korea after being deported from the United States. Several of the deportees have reportedly dealt with mental health issues and served jail time in South Korea for assault and other crimes.

Activists say the South Korean government has done a poor job tracking deported adoptees and that the real number is almost certainly larger. Officials wouldn’t provide details about the other deportees.

In South Korea, human rights lawsuits against the government can drag on for years and are rarely successful because the burden of proof in non-criminal cases is entirely on the plaintiffs, who often lack information and resources. Even if Crapser wins, the payout will likely be significantly smaller than what was demanded, considering past cases, according to Soh Rami, one of his lawyers.

Crapser said the amount of money is less important than forcing officials from Holt and the government into a courtroom to face questions of accountability. He said the government and Holt are responsible for failing to follow through on his adoption and ensuring that his American parents naturalized him. Because he wasn’t a citizen, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials ordered him deported in November 2016 over criminal convictions, including unlawful possession of a firearm and assault.

His lawsuit also attempts to hold Holt and the government accountable for supposedly fraudulent paperwork over his adoption status. Most South Korean adoptees, including Crapser, were documented as abandoned, even in cases where they had known parents or were simply lost, which made them easily adoptable under U.S. laws. He also seeks to hold the government responsible for allowing foreigners to adopt babies without actually visiting South Korea, which Crapser blames for screening failures that led to his adoption by abusive parents.

The lawsuit cites the government as responsible for allowing adoptions to be controlled by profit-driven agencies that ran on fees collected from foreign parents. It wasn’t until 2013 that South Korea required international adoptions of Korean children to go through local family courts.

“It’s a daily struggle to survive and to continue to want to push forward and want some justice and want some accountability and want some answers,” Crapser, now 43, told AP. “For everything to fall apart and for everything to happen the way it has, most people wouldn’t be alive here to talk.”

Kim Ho Hyun, Holt’s president, said the agency followed the laws and procedures of the time and that it was mainly the responsibility of U.S. parents and institutions to ensure that adoptees obtained citizenship. Seong Chang-hyeon, an official from South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare, said the government is trying to improve welfare services for deported adoptees while also consulting with Washington over possible U.S. legal changes that could prevent adoptee deportations.

The U.S. State Department referred questions to the Department of Homeland Security, which couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Currently living in a cramped one-bedroom apartment in Seoul, Crapser said the deportation has seriously strained his marriage and he often sinks into dark moods over his inability to be actively involved in the lives of his children.

He described the difficulties of being stuck in a country where he doesn’t speak the language, including dismissive treatment at public offices and monthly visits to a psychiatrist who can’t really speak English. While he talked fondly about meeting with his Korean mother every few months, he also expressed frustration over what he sees as a social stigma against adoptees here. He has eight more years before he’s eligible to return to the United States.

About 200,000 South Koreans were adopted overseas during the past six decades, the majority to American couples. More than 4,000 Korean children were sent abroad in 1979, the year Crapser arrived in the United States.

Agency board members with ties to the military dictators of the day were less worried about child welfare than maintaining a business that brought in as much as $20 million a year by some estimates, critics say.

Reached on the telephone, Crapser’s birth mother, Kwon Pil-ju, sobbed and said she felt like she had “horribly sinned” against her son. She said she was single, disabled and desperately poor, and that she finally decided to give her children away because of fears that they’d starve. They also have problems communicating — he can’t speak Korean, she can’t speak English, and they don’t always have someone who could interpret.

Crapser said he “definitely didn’t win the lottery” when it came to his American parents. He and a sister were sent to what he says was an abusive couple in Michigan in 1979. Seven years later, the couple abandoned Crapser, then 10, and his sister, and he ended up with Thomas and Dolly Crapser, who he said would sometimes slam their children’s heads against walls, strike them with kitchen utensils and burn them with heated objects. Repeated calls to the Crapser home went unanswered.

In 1991, the couple was arrested on charges of physical child abuse, sexual abuse and rape. They were reportedly convicted in 1992 on multiple counts of criminal mistreatment and assault. Kicked out of his parents’ house after an argument, Crapser pleaded guilty to burglary after he said he later broke into the home to retrieve a Korean-language Bible and a stuffed dog that came with him from a Korean orphanage. He was later convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm and assault.

Crapser thought he had turned a corner, opening a barber shop and an upholstery business and starting a family, when he was served his deportation paperwork in 2015 after a green card application triggered a background check.

“It’s heartbreaking. A lot of the depression that I deal with, a lot of the hopelessness that I feel at times is attributed to the separation from my family that I created and not being able to be actually involved in their life every day like I was,” he said.

Follow Kim Tong-hyung at www.twitter.com/@KimTongHyung

S. Korea Walks Back On Possibly Lifting Sanctions On North

South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon speaks at the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Oct. 11, 2018. South Korea has walked back on a proposal to lift some of its unilateral sanctions against North Korea following President Donald Trump’s blunt response. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

BY KIM TONG-HYUNG

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (AP) — South Korea on Thursday walked back on a proposal to lift some of its unilateral sanctions against North Korea following U.S. President Donald Trump’s blunt retort that Seoul could “do nothing” without Washington’s approval.

Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha had said on Wednesday that Seoul was considering lifting measures applied after a deadly attack in 2010 that killed 46 South Korean sailors. She cited the intent to create more diplomatic momentum for talks over North Korea’s nuclear program.

South Korean conservatives reacted with anger as well, and Kang’s ministry downplayed her comments later, saying in a statement that the government has yet to start a “full-fledged” review of sanctions, meaning no decision was imminent.

Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon told a parliamentary audit on Thursday there has been no serious consideration given to lifting the sanctions and that doing so would be hard unless North Korea acknowledges responsibility for the 2010 attack. North Korea has fiercely denied it sank the Cheonan warship.

Liberal South Korean President Moon Jae-in hopes that progress in nuclear diplomacy will allow him to advance his ambitious plans for engagement with North Korea, including joint economic projects and reconnecting inter-Korean roads and railways. These projects have been held back by the sanctions against North Korea.

While arguing that improved inter-Korean relations could possibly facilitate progress in larger nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea, Cho said Seoul isn’t ready yet to campaign for reduced pressure against its rival.

“At the current stage, I think it’s a little early for us to call for the lifting or easing of the U.N. sanctions,” Cho said.

Trump’s response when he was asked about Kang’s comments implied friction between the allies over the pace of inter-Korean engagement amid concerns in Washington that North Korea is lagging behind in its supposed promise to denuclearize.

“They won’t do that without our approval,” Trump said of the comments. “They do nothing without our approval.”

Trump has encouraged U.S. allies to maintain sanctions on North Korea until it denuclearizes as part of what his administration has termed a campaign of “maximum pressure” against leader Kim Jong Un’s government.

Moon has mostly stayed firm on sanctions despite actively engaging with North Korea and floating the possibility of huge investments and joint economic projects in return for the North’s relinquishment of its nuclear weapons.

A move by South Korea to lift some of its sanctions would have little immediate effect since U.S.-led international sanctions remain in place. But it’s clear Seoul is preparing to restart joint economic projects if the nuclear negotiations between the United States and North Korea begin yielding results.

In the 2010 sanctions, South Korea effectively shut down all cross-border economic cooperation except for a jointly run factory park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong and banned North Korea from using shipping lanes in South Korean territory. The Kaesong factory park was shuttered in 2016 in response to a North Korean nuclear test and long-range rocket launch.

During Moon’s visit to North Korea last month, he and Kim agreed to normalize operations at the Kaesong factory park and resume joint tours to North Korea when possible, voicing optimism that international sanctions could end and allow such projects.

The North and South also announced measures to reduce conventional military threats, such as creating buffer zones along their land and sea boundaries and a no-fly zone above the border. The North also said it would dismantle its main nuclear facility in Nyongbyon if the United States takes unspecified corresponding measures.

Washington, however, has insisted that efforts to improve relations between the Koreas should move in tandem with efforts to denuclearize the North.

Kang said Wednesday that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had expressed displeasure about the Koreas’ military agreement. Kang was not specific but her comments are likely to fuel speculation Washington wasn’t fully on board before Seoul signed the agreement.

Despite three summits with Moon and one with Trump this year, Kim has yet to provide a convincing sign that he’s ready to deal away his nuclear weapons.

Despite the current mood of detente and negotiation between the Koreas, the removal of sanctions would be a difficult decision for Seoul’s government.

South Koreans are deeply divided along ideological lines and many people still harbor deep anger over North Korea’s 1950 attack that started the Korean War. There has been occasional bloodshed ever since — the 2010 attack on the warship was followed months later by North Korean shelling of a South Korean border island that killed four and gutted homes.

Kang pointed out that many parts of South Korea’s 2010 sanctions now duplicate United Nations sanctions that were considerably strengthened after 2016 when the North began accelerating its nuclear and missile tests. She also described Seoul’s unilateral sanctions as a key obstacle to restarting South Korean tourism to the North’s Diamond Mountain resort, which was suspended in 2008 following the shooting death of a South Korean woman there.

But the removal of such sanctions wouldn’t be enough to get the tours back on, said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Dongguk University and a policy adviser to Moon. While U.N. sanctions against North Korea don’t ban tourism, they do place restrictions on bulk cash transfers, he said. Still, the lifting of the 2010 sanctions could offer at least some tangible benefits to the North.

“For North Korea, the most meaningful result from the lifting of the May 24 measures would be that its ships will be able to travel through Jeju Strait again,” said Koh, referring to waters between South Korea’s mainland and the southern island of Jeju. “This will allow them to save time and fuel.”

AP Explains: Removal Of Mines From Korean Demilitarized Zone

In this Aug. 1, 2010 file photo, South Korean Army soldiers search for landmines near the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas in Yeoncheon, north of Seoul, South Korea. North and South Korea began removing mines at two sites inside their heavily fortified border Monday, Oct. 1, 2018, as part of their recent deals to ease decades-long military tensions.(Lim Byung-shick/Yonhap via AP, File)

BY HYUNG-JIN KIM

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (AP) — South Korea has begun removing mines at two sites inside its heavily fortified border with North Korea, which is expected to do the same as part of their recent deals to ease decades-long military tensions. They will likely end up pulling out a very small portion of an estimated 2 million mines littered inside and near the 248-kilometer (155-mile) -long, 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) -wide Demilitarized Zone. But it would be the rivals’ first joint demining work in more than a decade and comes amid international diplomacy aimed at ridding North Korea of its nuclear weapons.

A look at the mine clearing:

THE SITES

The mine removal starting Monday took place at the Koreas’ Joint Security Area in their shared border village of Panmunjom and another front-line area where the two countries plan their first joint searches for the remains of soldiers killed during the 1950-53 Korean War.

Panmunjom, where an armistice was signed in 1953 to end the Korean War, is the most famous DMZ site. Rival soldiers face each other only feet away from each other, and it has been the scene of bloodshed and violence, including the 1976 ax-killing of two American troops. But it’s also a venue for talks such as two of the three inter-Korean summit meetings so far this year, and its mystique makes it a popular tourist destination.

Under deals signed by their defense chiefs on the sidelines of a September summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, the demining of the Joint Security Area is part of a broader step to “disarm” the zone and turn it to a “place for peace and unity.”

The other area to be demined is around the so-called “Arrow Head Hill,” where some of the war’s heaviest fighting took place over a strategically important hilltop position.

Seoul’s Defense Ministry said the remains of about 300 South Korean, French and U.S. soldiers are believed to be in the area. The remains of a large number of Chinese and North Korean soldiers are also likely there.

During the war, an outnumbered French battalion belonging to the American-led U.N. Command repelled a series of Chinese attacks in the area in October 1952, months before a South Korean army division also turned back similar Chinese assaults.

THE MINES

Experts believe the South Korean and U.S. militaries have planted about 1-1.2 million mines south of the DMZ while North Korea has put about 800,000-1 million mines on its side. It’s not known how many mines are at Panmunjom and Arrow Head Hill, but military commentator Lee Illwoo said the Koreas would be able to clear tens of thousands at most.

Experts believe both Koreas poorly managed their mines and don’t know exactly how many they planted and in what specific places. It’s not unusual for wooden North Korean mine boxes to wash down a swollen river in summer, causing deadly incidents in South Korea. Many South Korean mines are also believed to have been dislodged due to flooding or landslides.

At Panmunjom, the Koreas are to spend 20 days clearing mines before withdrawing troops, weapons and guard posts in the area over the next five days. They eventually plan to have 35 unarmed personnel from each side guard the village and let tourists freely cross ankle-high concrete slabs that mark the border there.

In the case of Arrow Head Hill, they aim to remove the mines by the end of November. After building a cross-border road and forming a joint excavation team, the Koreas are to launch a seven-month effort to locate remains in April next year.

THE RAMIFICATIONS

Monday’s mine clearing is the first of its kind since the Koreas worked together to remove mines and explosives at a few border areas to accommodate now-stalled economic and transportation projects during a previous era of rapprochement in the 2000s. Other deals reached by the defense chiefs include withdrawing front-line guard posts and establishing buffer zones along the land, sea and aerial boundaries where live-fire drills and military flights would be banned.

“It’s the start of peace,” said Kim Ki-ho, head of the private Korea Mine Clearance Research Institute. “We have to remove those mines, though we are not taking out all the mines at the DMZ.”

Lee, the commentator, played down the significance of the mine removal, saying that “North Korea’s military threats won’t disappear even though we get rid of a small number of front-line mines.”

The complete removal of all the DMZ mines could be a dilemma for both Koreas. South Korea would find itself more vulnerable to North Korean infiltration and assault via land routes, while North Korea would worry about front-line soldiers and residents escaping to the South more easily, Lee said. Most North Korean refugees living in the South have fled via the less guarded border with China.

In recent years, South Korea has unilaterally removed thousands of mines annually from the DMZ as part of efforts to improve the lives and safety of civilians near the border area. Seoul’s Defense Ministry told lawmakers in 2015 that at that rate, it would take about 200 years to remove all the mines on the southern side of the DMZ and nearby front-line areas.

If the de-mining effort is sustained and successful, it would be seen as progress in the international campaign to ban mines, said Kim Jae-yeop, a professor of defense strategy at South Korea’s Hannam University.

The United States and South Korea are among the highest-profile countries that have refused to sign the Ottawa Convention banning the use of mines in war, which came into effect in 1999, chiefly because mines are heavily used in the DMZ.

Associated Press writer Kim Tong-hyung contributed to this report.

South Korea Begins Removing Mines, Expects North To Do Same

In this on Sunday, Sept. 30, 2018 photo, military guard posts of North Korea, right top, and South Korea, left bottom, are seen in Paju, at the border with North Korea, South Korea. Seoul on Monday, Oct. 1, 2018, says South Korea has begun clearing mines from two sites inside the heavily fortified border with North Korea under a package of tension-reduction deal between the rivals. (Kim Do-hoon/Yonhap via AP)

BY HYUNG-JIN KIM

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (AP) — South Korea began clearing mines from two sites inside the heavily fortified border with North Korea on Monday under tension-reducing agreements reached this year. Seoul says North Korea is expected to do the same.

The development comes amid renewed international diplomacy on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program after weeks of stalemated negotiations. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is to visit Pyongyang this month to try to set up a second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

South Korean troops entered the Demilitarized Zone on Monday morning to remove mines around the border village of Panmunjom and another frontline area where the rivals plan their first joint searches with North Korea for soldiers during the 1950-53 Korean War, according to Seoul’s Defense Ministry.

The South Korean troops will try to focus on taking out mines on the southern parts of Panmunjom’s Joint Security Area and the so-called “Arrow Head Hill,” where one of the fiercest battles during the Korean War happened. Seoul officials believe the remains of about 300 South Korean and U.N. forces are in the Arrow Head Hill and likely many Chinese and North Korean remains too.

South Korean Defense Ministry officials said they couldn’t immediately confirm whether North Korea also began demining on the northern parts of the two sites. But they said they expected the North to abide by the tension-easing deals their defense chiefs struck on the sidelines of their leaders’ summit last month in Pyongyang.

Aiming to reduce conventional military threats, the Koreas’ defense chiefs also agreed to withdraw 11 frontline guard posts by December and set up buffer zones along their land and sea boundaries and a no-fly zone above the borderline to prevent accidental armed clashes.

About 2 million mines are believed to be peppered inside the Koreas’ 248-kilometer (155-mile)-long Demilitarized Zone that was originally created as a buffer zone at the end of the Korean War. The DMZ is the world’s most heavily fortified border that is also guarded by hundreds of thousands of combat troops, barbed wire fences and tank traps on both sides.

Many experts say the fate of inter-Korean deals can be affected by how nuclear negotiations would go between the United States and North Korea. Past rapprochement efforts were often stalled after an international standoff over the North’s nuclear ambitions intensified.

After provocative tests of three intercontinental ballistic missiles and a powerful nuclear weapon last year, North Korea entered talks with the United States and South Korea earlier this year, saying it’s willing to deal away its expanding nuclear arsenal. Kim Jong Un has subsequently held a series of summits with U.S., South Korean and Chinese leaders and taken some steps like dismantling his nuclear-testing site.

Nuclear diplomacy later came to a standstill amid disputes over how genuine North Korea is about its disarmament pledge. But Trump, Pompeo and other U.S. officials have recently reported progress in the denuclearization discussions with the North. Pompeo is to make his third trip to North Korea soon for talks.

Book On Trump Raises Worries In South Korea About Alliance

In this September 7, 2017, file photo, U.S. missile defense system called Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, are seen at a golf course in Seongju, South Korea. To South Koreans, Bob Woodward’s new book about the Trump presidency paints a bizarre but familiar picture of an unconventional U.S. leader who thinks little of a decades-long alliance that South Koreans describe as a “bond of blood.” (Kim Jun-beom/Yonhap via AP, File)

BY KIM TONG-HYUNG & HYUNG-JIN KIM

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (AP) — Donald Trump had to be tricked out of killing a U.S.-South Korean trade deal? He threatened to move a U.S. missile defense system from South Korea to Oregon? He ordered a plan for a pre-emptive attack on North Korea?

These supposed moves by Trump, detailed in journalist Bob Woodward’s new book, will cause bafflement and worry among government officials in Seoul. But, for many South Koreans, they just add more pieces of evidence to an established picture of an erratic U.S. leader who thinks little of an alliance forged in the turmoil of the Korean War and often described here as a “bond of blood.”

“South Koreans have already seen Trump’s childish behavior many times,” an editorial writer for the conservative Chosun Ilbo, South Korea’s most-read newspaper, wrote in a column Friday about Woodward’s book, comparing the president to a “rugby ball that could bounce anywhere” if not watched by others.

South Korea, before Trump, had become used to regular, glowing declarations from U.S. leaders of both political parties about the eternal strength of their alliance. The country, after all, is a global success story, rising from the poverty and destruction of the war into Asia’s fourth-biggest economy; it’s a regional bulwark of democratic, capitalist values and a leader in culture, trade and good works.
“South Koreans have already seen Trump’s childish behavior many times.”

So long before Woodward’s book, South Koreans were shocked at Trump’s open complaints about the costs of maintaining the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea as protection against North Korean attack; at his decision, after his June summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, to abruptly shelve major U.S. military exercises with South Korea; at his claim that the “horrible” U.S. free trade pact with South Korea destroyed U.S. industry and his insistence that Seoul renegotiate.

When asked by The Associated Press whether he has ever seen a U.S. president who was so openly dismissive of the U.S.-South Korean alliance, Kim Sung-han, a former South Korean deputy foreign minister, said, “No.”

“He’s the first and hopefully the last exception,” said Kim, whose last posting in the South Korean Foreign Ministry was in 2013 and who has never met Trump. “He doesn’t approach alliances with a strategic mindset, but only evaluates their transactional value. He constantly questions whether the United States needs any alliance. He thinks that if a partner wants to keep an alliance, it should pay 100 percent of the costs.”

Many of the most explosive excerpts from the soon-to-be published book, “Fear: Trump in the White House,” deal with the Koreas.

Trump reportedly ordered a plan to pre-emptively attack the North; he suggested that a U.S. missile defense system in the South meant to guard against North Korean attack should be moved to Portland, Oregon; and a former Trump economic official allegedly swiped papers from Trump’s desk so he wouldn’t sign an order killing the free trade agreement between the countries.
“(Trump is) the first and hopefully the last exception.”

In a statement provided to The Associated Press, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said it has been following the reports, but that it would be inappropriate to comment about a book that hasn’t been published yet. It refused to say whether it considers any of the stories true. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy couldn’t immediately comment on the trade deal allegations.

“South Korea and the United States have been maintaining close communication and consultation on major issues such as the North Korean nuclear problem, security, economy and trade,” the Foreign Ministry said.

In spite of the behavior described in Woodward’s book, Trump’s administration has avoided policy moves that would have created major repercussions with South Korea.

The United States and South Korea plan to sign a renegotiated free trade deal during the U.N. General Assembly in New York later this month. The missile defense system — the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD) — remains in Seongju, South Korea. Washington and Seoul have so far cooperated in diplomatic efforts in the nuclear standoff with North Korea.

Still, experts say that Trump’s attitude doesn’t bode well for South Korea.

It’s possible that the alliance will end up looking much different depending on the outcome of nuclear diplomacy among Washington, Pyongyang and Seoul. Experts say Kim Jong Un, who initiated the diplomacy after a stream of nuclear and missile tests last year, sees a rare opportunity in a U.S. president who seems eager to prove his deal-making skills and thinks less of the traditional alliance with Seoul than his predecessors did.

North Korea has been demanding the United States agree to a declaration to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War, which some see as a precursor for pushing for the withdrawal of U.S. troops in South Korea.

“Trump will continuously cause trouble and the alliance can be persistently shaken,” said Choi Kang, vice president of Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies. Choi said South Korean government officials will be anxious about the descriptions in Woodward’s book, which he says show the United States as “dysfunctional.”

“I have never seen a situation like this,” Choi said.

Most experts say the alliance will probably survive the Trump presidency. South Korea, along with Japan, has served a crucial role in protecting U.S. interests in the region, a role that both Seoul and Washington may need more of in the future to check a rising China, said Lee Daewoo, an analyst at South Korea’s Sejong Institute.

Kim, the former diplomat, said South Korea’s government should make stronger efforts to show the value of the U.S.-South Korean alliance to the American public.

“Whether there’s two years left or six years left, that’s more than enough time for (the Trump administration) to cause serious damage to relations with South Korea,” Kim said. “Efforts to persuade the U.S. public are crucial, because if Trump is afraid of anything, it’s American voters.”

AP Explains: The History Of Korean Family Reunions

South Koreans leave for North Korea to take part in family reunions with their North Korean family members at the customs, immigration and quarantine (CIQ) office, in Goseong, South Korea, Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. About 200 South Koreans and their family members prepared to cross into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven’t seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War. (Korea Pool/Yonhap via AP)

BY HYUNG-JIN KIM

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (AP) — For the first time in three years, elderly North and South Korean relatives separated during the chaos of the 1950-53 Korean War gathered Monday at the North’s scenic Diamond Mountain, where they’ll embrace their loved ones after decades apart. Here are several things to know about the reunions, which will only last a few days and will likely be the last time these people see each other:

KOREAN DIVISION

Once a single country, North and South Korea were divided into a U.S.-backed, capitalistic South and a Soviet-supported, socialist North at the end of World War II in 1945. After the Korean War, the world’s most heavily militarized border formally divided the Korean Peninsula, separating millions. These days, most separated families have no word on whether their long-lost relatives are still alive because their governments bar their citizens from visiting each other across the border or even exchanging phone calls, letters and email.

ON-AND-OFF REUNIONS

The two Koreas have occasionally allowed separated family members to reunite when the rivals’ ties have been good. Before this week’s reunions, about 23,500 Koreans attended reunions, some 19,800 in person and the others by video, since 2000. The latest reunions stem from rapprochement agreements that the leaders of the Koreas struck during a landmark summit in April. South Korea wants reunions to take place regularly, but North Korea often uses them as a bargaining chip in negotiations. Experts say the North worries that too many reunions would enlighten its citizens about the economically affluent South, and eventually weaken Pyongyang’s grip on power. Some experts say warming inter-Korean relations could suffer a setback if the North refuses to accept a U.S.-led call for complete nuclear disarmament, and that is expected to figure into another inter-Korean summit set for next month in Pyongyang.

TIME IS RUNNING OUT

In South Korea, more than half of the 132,600 people who applied for reunions — including some of those who got to see their relatives — have died. More than 85 percent of the surviving applicants are in their 70s or older. Those who haven’t had a chance are desperate to reunite with their relatives before they die. In the past, some South Koreans have died or become too ill to travel just days before reunions began. On Monday morning, many of the South Korean participants were in wheelchairs or helped by family members or support staff as they arrived at a Seoul-run front-line immigration office.

HIGH EMOTIONS

The reunions often see parents and children, brothers and sisters and others reunited after decades. They often sob, hug and ask each other about their lives. Many struggle to immediately recognize the deeply wrinkled, silver-haired relatives who they last saw as infants, teenagers or young men and women. They are typically given three days to meet before parting again. When they say goodbye to each other, they often stand on tiptoes to get a final look at their relatives as they board buses and extend their hands through windows. None of the past participants have been given a second chance to reunite with relatives from the other side.

Brief Korean Reunions Bring Tears For Separated Families

South Koreans leave for North Korea to take part in family reunions with their North Korean family members at the customs, immigration and quarantine (CIQ) office in Goseong, South Korea, Monday, Aug. 20, 2018. About 200 South Koreans and their family members prepared to cross into North Korea on Monday for heart-wrenching meetings with relatives most haven’t seen since they were separated by the turmoil of the Korean War. (Korea Pool/Yonhap via AP)

BY HYUNG-JIN KIM & KIM TONG-HYUNG

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (AP) — The 92-year-old South Korean woman wept and stroked the wrinkled cheeks of her 71-year-old North Korean son on Monday, their first meeting since they were driven apart during the turmoil of the 1950-53 Korean War.

“How many children do you have? Do you have a son?” Lee Keum-seom asked her son Ri Sang Chol during their long-awaited encounter at the North’s Diamond Mountain resort.

The emotional reunion came after dozens of elderly South Koreans crossed the heavily fortified border into North Korea to meet temporarily with their relatives. The weeklong event, the first of its kind in nearly three years, was arranged as the rival Koreas boost reconciliation efforts amid a diplomatic push to resolve a standoff over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

Hugging the woman he’d last seen when he was 4, Ri showed his mother a photo of her late husband, who had stayed behind in North Korea with him after being separated from his wife while fleeing south. “Mother, this is how my father looked,” Ri said.

Before leaving for North Korea, Lee said she wanted to ask her son “how he grew up without his mom and how his father raised him.”

Most of the participants in the reunions are in their 70s or older and are eager to see their loved ones once more before they die. Most have had no word on whether their relatives are still alive because they are not allowed to visit each other across the border or even exchange letters, phone calls or email.

About 90 elderly South Koreans, accompanied by their family members, will have three days of meetings with their North Korean relatives before returning to the South on Wednesday. A separate round of reunions from Friday to Sunday will involve more than 300 other South Koreans, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry.

During Monday’s meeting, many elderly Koreans held each other’s hands and wiped away tears with handkerchiefs while asking how their relatives had lived. They showed photos of family members who couldn’t come to their meetings.

Han Shin-ja, a 99-year-old South Korean woman, was at a loss for words after she reunited with her two North Korean daughters, both in their early 70s. Not knowing their separation would be permanent, she left them behind in the North during the war while fleeing south with her third and youngest daughter.

She could only say “Ah” and “When I fled ...” before choking up with tears.

Kim Sun Ok, an 81-year-old North Korean woman, said she found that she and her 88-year-old brother from South Korea resembled each other a great deal. “Brother, it would be really good if Korean unification comes. Let’s live together even at least one minute after unification before we die,” the woman said tearfully.

Before this week’s reunions, nearly 20,000 people had participated in 20 rounds of face-to-face reunions since 2000. Another 3,700 exchanged video messages with their North Korean relatives. None have had a second chance to see or talk with their relatives.

During the three years since the reunions were last held, North Korea tested three nuclear weapons and multiple missiles that demonstrated they potentially could strike the continental United States.

North Korea has shifted to diplomacy in recent months. Leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a son of North Korean war refugees, agreed to resume the reunions during the first of their two summits this year in April.

South Korea sees the separated families as the largest humanitarian issue created by the war, which killed and injured millions and cemented the division of the Korean Peninsula into the North and South. The Unification Ministry estimates there are currently about 600,000 to 700,000 South Koreans with immediate or extended relatives in North Korea. More than 75,000 of the 132,000 South Koreans who have applied to participate in reunions have died, according to a ministry record.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Monday reiterated that time is running out to expand the reunion program, saying it would be a “shameful thing” for both Koreas to see many elderly people dying without even finding out whether their loved ones are still alive.

Moon attended a 2004 reunion to meet his aunt. “As a separated family member, I deeply share their sorrow and pitifulness,” he said during a meeting with his aides.

North Korea is reluctant to accept calls for more reunions. Analysts say it sees the reunions as an important bargaining chip and believes more reunions would give its people a better awareness of the outside world. While South Korea uses a computerized lottery to pick participants for the reunions, North Korea is believed to choose based on loyalty to its authoritarian leadership.

AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s Hyped Claims On Economy, N Korea, Vets

In this July 27, 2018, photo, President Donald Trump speaks about the economy at the White House in Washington.(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

BY HOPE YEN, JOSH BOAK AND CHRISTOPHER RUGABER

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump received positive economic news this past week and twisted it out of proportion. That impulse ran through days of rhetoric as he hailed the success of a veterans program that hasn’t started and saw progress with North Korea that isn’t evident to his top diplomat.

A week in review:

ECONOMY AND TRADE

TRUMP: “We’ve accomplished an economic turnaround of historic proportions.” — remarks Friday on a new economic report.

THE FACTS: That doesn’t square with the record. Trump didn’t inherit a fixer-upper economy.

The U.S. economy just entered its 10th year of growth, a recovery that began under President Barack Obama, who inherited the Great Recession. The data show that the falling unemployment rate and gains in home values reflect the duration of the recovery, rather than any major changes made since 2017 by the Trump administration.

While Trump praised the 4.1 percent annual growth rate in the second quarter, it exceeded that level four times during the Obama presidency. But quarterly figures are volatile and strength in one quarter can be reversed in the next. While Obama never achieved the 3 percent annual growth that Trump hopes to see, he came close. The economy grew 2.9 percent in 2015.

The economy faces two significant structural drags that could keep growth closer to 2 percent than 3 percent: an aging population, which means fewer people are working and more are retired, and weak productivity growth, which means that those who are working aren’t increasing their output as quickly as in the past.

Both of those factors are largely beyond Trump’s control.

TRUMP: “One of the biggest wins in the report, and it is, indeed a big one, is that the trade deficit — very dear to my heart because we’ve been ripped off by the world — has dropped.” — remarks Friday.

THE FACTS: Trump is correct that a lower trade deficit helped growth in the April-June quarter, but it’s not necessarily for a positive reason.

The president has floated plans to impose import taxes on hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign goods, which has led to the risk of retaliatory tariffs by foreign companies on U.S. goods.

This threat of an escalating trade war has led many companies to increase their levels of trade before any tariffs hit, causing the temporary boost in exports being celebrated by Trump.

Richard Moody, chief economist at Regions Financial, said the result is that the gains from trade in the second quarter will not be repeated.

TRUMP: “We’re having the best economy we’ve ever had in the history of our country.” — remarks Thursday in Granite City, Illinois.

THE FACTS: This is not the best the U.S. economy has ever been.

The unemployment rate is near a 40-year low and growth is solid, but by many measures the current economy trails other periods in U.S. history. Average hourly pay, before adjusting for inflation, is rising at about a 2.5 percent annual rate, below the 4 percent level reached in the late 1990s when the unemployment rate was as low as it is now.

Pay was growing even faster in the late 1960s, when the jobless rate remained below 4 percent for nearly four years. And economic growth topped 4 percent for three full years from 1998 through 2000, an annual rate it hasn’t touched since.

TRUMP: “The Canadians, you have a totally closed market ... they have a 375 percent tax on dairy products, other than that it’s wonderful to deal. And we have a very big deficit with Canada, a trade deficit.” — remarks Thursday in Peosta, Iowa.

THE FACTS: No, it’s not closed. Because of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Canada’s market is almost totally open to the United States. Each country has a few products that are still largely protected, such as dairy in Canada and sugar in the United States.

Trump also repeated his claim that the U.S. has a trade deficit with Canada, but that is true only in goods. When services are included, such as insurance, tourism, and engineering, the U.S. had a $2.8 billion surplus with Canada last year.

NORTH KOREA

TRUMP: “We’re also pursuing the denuclearization of North Korea and a new future of prosperity, security, and peace on the Korean Peninsula and all of Asia. New images, just today, show that North Korea has begun the process of dismantling a key missile site. And we appreciate that. We had a fantastic meeting with Chairman Kim, and it seems to be going very well.” — remarks Tuesday to Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City, Missouri.

THE FACTS: Trump’s assessment that his administration’s plan to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons is “going very well” is not fully shared by his own secretary of state, Mike Pompeo. In fact, Pompeo acknowledged this past week that the North is still producing fissile material for nuclear weapons.

Trump made his remarks after the North Korea-focused 38 North website released recent satellite imagery that seems to show dismantlement underway at Sohae.

But Pompeo sounded a note of caution. He said that while such a step would be in line with the pledges that Kim made to Trump at the June 12 summit in Singapore, it would have to be confirmed by international inspectors.

Analysts say dismantling a few facilities at the site alone won’t realistically reduce North Korea’s military capability or represent a material step toward denuclearization.

Indeed, at a Senate hearing Wednesday, Pompeo acknowledged that North Korea continues to produce fuel for nuclear weapons despite Kim’s pledge to denuclearize. Pompeo said there was “an awful long way to go” before North Korea could no longer be viewed as a nuclear threat.

AMAZON AND MANUFACTURING

TRUMP: “The Amazon Washington Post has gone crazy against me ever since they lost the Internet Tax Case in the U.S. Supreme Court two months ago. Next up is the U.S. Post Office which they use, at a fraction of real cost, as their ‘delivery boy’ for a BIG percentage of their packages...” — tweet Monday.

THE FACTS: He’s wrong to suggest that the U.S. Postal Service delivers packages for Amazon below cost. Federal regulators in fact have reviewed the Amazon contract with the Postal Service each year and determined it to be profitable.

Trump is upset with Amazon because its founder, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post, which Trump has labeled “fake news” after the newspaper reported unfavorable developments during his campaign and presidency.

While the Postal Service has lost money for 11 years, package delivery, a bright spot, is not the reason.

Boosted by e-commerce, the Postal Service has enjoyed double-digit increases in revenue from delivering packages, but that hasn’t been enough to offset pension and health care costs as well as declines in first-class letters and marketing mail. Together, letters and marketing mail make up more than two-thirds of postal revenue.

Amazon sends packages via the post office, FedEx, UPS and other services, and has taken steps toward becoming more self-reliant in shipping.

TRUMP: “On the South Lawn, you have the space capsule. And every part is made right here, in America.” — remarks Monday at Made in America event.

THE FACTS: Trump neglects to mention a key detail: NASA’s Orion crew capsule, one of the star products at the White House event celebrating U.S. manufacturing, will ride through space thanks to Europe.

With its four solar-array wings, the European Service Module supplies propulsion, power and the essentials of life for the capsule’s space travels and marks a departure for NASA.

“For the first time,” the agency says, “NASA will use a European-built system as a critical element to power an American spacecraft.” Airbus, Boeing’s prime competitor in commercial air travel, leads an array of European companies that made the service module.

MILITARY AND VETERANS

TRUMP: “Veterans’ unemployment has fallen to the lowest level in almost 18 years. ... And I’ll guarantee, within a month or two months, that 18 will be even a much higher number.” — remarks Tuesday at VFW convention.

THE FACTS: This boast is based on outdated numbers.

The veterans’ unemployment rate was 3.3 percent in June, a low rate historically, but that is still above the 2.7 percent rate in October, which was the lowest in nearly 17 years.

Veterans’ unemployment has fallen mostly for the same reasons that joblessness has fallen for everyone else: strong hiring and steady economic growth for the past eight years.

The vets’ unemployment rate peaked at 9.9 percent in January 2011, then fell by more than half to 4.5 percent by the time Trump was inaugurated in January 2017. Since then, it has fallen an additional 1.2 percentage points.

Trump won’t be able to get to a higher number than 18 years, as he promises to do, because the data only go back to 2000.

TRUMP: “We passed Veterans Choice, the biggest thing ever. ... It has got to be the biggest improvement you can have. So now if you can’t get the treatment you need in a timely manner, people used to wait two weeks, three weeks, eight weeks, they couldn’t get to a doctor. You will have the right to see a private doctor immediately, and we will pay for it.” — remarks Tuesday.

THE FACTS: The care provided under the Choice program is not as immediate as Trump suggests, nor is it likely to be the “biggest thing” ever. Currently only veterans who endure waits of at least 30 days for an appointment at a VA facility are eligible to receive care immediately from private doctors at government expense, a standard that the VA is frequently unable to meet.

Under a newly expanded Choice program that will take at least a year to implement, veterans will still have to meet certain criteria before they can see a private physician.

A recent report by the Government Accountability Office found that despite the Choice program’s guarantee of providing an appointment within 30 days, veterans waited an average of 51 to 64 days.

TRUMP: “We’re greatly expanding telehealth and walk-in clinics so our veterans can get anywhere, at any time, they can get what they need, they can learn about the problem and they don’t necessarily have to drive long distances and wait. It’s been a very big success.”

THE FACTS: A new benefit that would give the nation’s veterans access to commercially run walk-in clinics is not a success at all, because it hasn’t started.

It won’t begin for another year and the care won’t always be freely provided “anywhere, at any time.” Only veterans who have used VA health care services in the previous two years would be able to get care at the private walk-in clinics. After two visits, veterans could be subject to higher co-payments charged by the VA.

Associated Press writers Cal Woodward and Seth Borenstein contributed to this report.

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Remains Said To Be US War Dead Repatriated From North Korea

US Army soldiers salute to vehicles transporting the remains of 55 U.S. soldiers who were killed in the Korean War at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, Friday, July 27, 2018. (Kim Hong-Ji/Pool Photo via AP)

US Army soldiers salute as vehicles carry remains believed to be from American servicemen killed during the 1950-53 Korean War after arrived from North Korea, at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, Friday, July 27, 2018. The U.N. Command says the 55 cases of war remains retrieved from North Korea will be honored at a ceremony next Wednesday at a base in South Korea. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon. Pool)

BY AHN YOUNG-JOON, KIM TONG-HYUNG AND LOLITA BALDOR

PYEONGTAEK, SOUTH KOREA (AP) — North Korea on Friday returned the remains of what are believed to be U.S. servicemen killed during the Korean War, the White House said, with a U.S military plane making a rare trip into North Korea to retrieve 55 cases of remains.

The handover follows through on a promise North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made to President Donald Trump when the leaders met in June and is the first tangible result from the much-hyped summit. Trump welcomed the repatriation and thanked Kim in a tweet.

The United Nations Command said 55 cases of remains were retrieved from North Korea. The White House earlier confirmed that a U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft containing remains of fallen service members had departed Wonsan, a Northern coastal city, on its way to the Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, near the South Korean capital of Seoul. A formal repatriation ceremony will be held there Wednesday.

At the air base, U.S. servicemen and a military honor guard lined up on the tarmac to receive the remains, which were carried in boxes covered in blue U.N. flags.

About 7,700 U.S. soldiers are listed as missing from the 1950-53 Korean War, and 5,300 of the remains are believed to still be in North Korea. The war killed millions, including 36,000 American soldiers.

U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, in a statement from the U.N. Command, called the retrieval mission successful. “Now, we will prepare to honor our fallen before they continue on their journey home.”

Following the honors ceremony on Wednesday, the remains will be flown to Hawaii for scientific testing. A series of forensic examinations will be done to determine if the remains are human and if the dead were American or allied troops killed in the conflict.

Trump late Thursday tweeted the repatriation was occurring and said, “After so many years, this will be a great moment for so many families. Thank you to Kim Jong Un.”

Officials in North Korea had no comment on the handover on Friday, the 65th anniversary of the end of the Korean War, which the country celebrated as the day of “victory in the fatherland liberation war.”

Despite soaring rhetoric about denuclearization before Kim and Trump met in Singapore, their summit ended with only a vague aspirational goal for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula without describing when and how that would occur.

The repatriation of remains could be followed by stronger North Korean demands for fast-tracked discussions to formally end the war, which was stopped with an armistice and not a peace treaty. South Korea’s Defense Ministry also said the North agreed to general-level military talks next week at a border village to discuss reducing tensions across the countries’ heavily armed border.

The U.S. military last month said that 100 wooden “temporary transit cases” built in Seoul were sent to the Joint Security Area at the Korean border as part of preparations to receive and transport remains in a dignified manner. U.S. Forces Korea spokesman Col. Chad Carroll also said, at the time, that 158 metal transfer cases were sent to a U.S. air base and would be used to send the remains home.

The remains are believed to be some of the more than 200 that North Korea has held in storage for some time, and were likely recovered from land during farming or construction. The vast majority of the war dead, however, have yet to be located and retrieved from cemeteries and battlefields across the countryside.

Efforts to recover American war dead had been stalled for more than a decade because of a standoff over North Korea’s nuclear program and a previous U.S. claim that security arrangements for its personnel working in the North were insufficient.

From 1996 to 2005, joint U.S.-North Korea military search teams conducted 33 recovery operations that collected 229 sets of American remains. The last time North Korea turned over remains was in 2007, when Bill Richardson, a former U.N. ambassador and New Mexico governor, secured the return of six sets.

The North marked Friday’s anniversary with ceremonies at war-related memorials; the capital Pyongyang and other cities were decked out in national flags and bright red banners. For the first time since 2015, Kim Jong Un has announced a general amnesty will be granted for prisoners who have committed crimes against the state.

North Korea has held out the return of remains as a symbol of its goodwill and intention to improve ties with Washington. Officials have bristled, however, at criticism from the U.S. that it seeks to profit from the repatriations by demanding excessive fees for handling and transporting the remains.

Pyongyang has nevertheless expressed its willingness to allow the resumption of joint search missions in the country to retrieve more remains. Such missions had been held from 1996 until they were cancelled by President George W. Bush amid heightening tensions over the North’s nuclear program in 2005.

Post Kim-Trump summit talks between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior North Korean officials got off to a rocky start earlier this month, with the North accusing the Americans of making “unilateral and gangster-like” demands on denuclearization. The North also said U.S. officials came up with various “conditions and excuses” to backtrack on the issue of formally ending the war.

“The adoption of the declaration on the termination of war is the first and foremost process in the light of ending the extreme hostility and establishing new relations between the DPRK and the U.S.,” the North’s Korean Central News Agency said in a statement on Tuesday, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “Peace can come only after the declaration of the termination of war.”

Pompeo said Wednesday that a great deal of work remains ahead of a North Korea denuclearization deal, but he dodged requests to identify a specific denuclearization timeline in testimony to members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Experts say a declaration to officially end the war, which could also involve Seoul and Beijing, would make it easier for Pyongyang to steer the discussions with Washington toward a peace treaty, diplomatic recognition, security assurance and economic benefits. Some analysts believe that North Korea would eventually demand that the United States withdraw or dramatically reduce the 28,500 troops it keeps in South Korea as a deterrent.

Washington has maintained Pyongyang wouldn’t get sanctions relief and significant security and economic rewards unless it firmly commits to a process of completely and verifiably eliminating its nuclear weapons. There are lingering doubts on whether Kim would ever agree to fully relinquish his nukes, which he may see as a stronger guarantee of survival than whatever security assurance the United States could offer.

Kim reported from Seoul and Baldor from Washington. AP journalists Eric Talmadge in Pyongyang, North Korea, Kim Yong-ho in Pyeongtaek and Foster Klug in Seoul contributed to this report.

Road To N. Korea's Denuclearization Is Littered With Failure

The cooling tower of the Nyongbyon nuclear complex is demolished in Nyongbyon, also known as Yongbyon, North Korea. Bill Clinton offered oil and reactors. George W. Bush mixed threats and aid. Barack Obama stopped trying after a rocket launch. While Seoul and Washington welcomed Pyongyang’s declaration on Saturday, April 21, 2018, to suspend further intercontinental ballistic missile tests and shut down its nuclear test site, the past is littered with failure. A decades-long cycle of crises, stalemates and broken promises gave North Korea the room to build up a legitimate arsenal that now includes purported thermonuclear warheads and developmental ICBMs. The North’s latest announcement stopped well short of suggesting it has any intention of giving that up. South Korean President Moon Jae-in meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday, April 27, 2018, to kick off a new round of high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with Pyongyang.

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (AP) — Bill Clinton offered oil and reactors. George W. Bush mixed threats and aid. Barack Obama stopped trying after a rocket launch. While Seoul and Washington welcomed Pyongyang's declaration on Saturday to suspend further intercontinental ballistic missile tests and shut down its nuclear test site, the past is littered with failure.

A decades-long cycle of crises, stalemates and broken promises gave North Korea the room to build up a legitimate arsenal that now includes purported thermonuclear warheads and developmental ICBMs. The North's latest announcement stopped well short of suggesting it has any intention of giving that up.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday to kick off a new round of high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with Pyongyang. The inter-Korean summit could set up more substantial discussions between Kim and President Donald Trump, who said he plans to meet the despot he previously called "Little Rocket Man" in May or June.

A look at previous negotiations with North Korea and how the currently planned talks between Seoul, Pyongyang and Washington took shape:

1994

The Clinton administration in October 1994 reached a major nuclear agreement with Pyongyang, ending months of war fears triggered by North Korea's threat to withdraw from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and convert its stockpile of nuclear fuel into bombs.

Under the "Agreed Framework," North Korea halted construction of two reactors the United States believed were for nuclear weapons production in return for two alternative nuclear power reactors that could be used to provide electricity but not bomb fuel, and 500,000 metric tons of fuel oil annually for the North.

The deal was tested quickly. North Korea complained about delayed oil shipments and construction of the reactors, which were never delivered. The United States criticized the North's pursuit of ballistic missile capability, demonstrated in the launch of a two-stage rocket over Japan in 1998.

The Agreed Framework further lost political support in Washington with the inauguration of Bush, who in his first State of the Union address in January 2002 grouped North Korea with Iran and Iraq as parts of an "axis of evil."

The deal collapsed for good months later after U.S. officials confronted North Korea over a clandestine nuclear program using enriched uranium. Washington stopped the oil shipments and Pyongyang restarted its nuclear weapons program.

2005

Responding to Washington's toughened stance, North Korea announced in 2003 it obtained a nuclear device and would withdraw from the Nonproliferation Treaty.

This brought the United States back to the negotiating table with the North and the six-party talks also involving South Korea, China, Japan and Russia began in Beijing in August 2003.

After months of fiery negotiations, North Korea accepted a deal in September 2005 to end its nuclear weapons program in exchange for security, economic and energy benefits.

But the agreement was shaky from the start as it came just days after the U.S. Treasury Department ordered American banks to sever relations with a Macau bank accused of helping North Korea to launder money from drug trafficking and other illicit activities, which hampered Pyongyang's international financial transactions.

Disagreements between Washington and Pyongyang over the financial punishment of Banco Delta Asia temporarily derailed the six-nation talks. In October 2006, the North went on to conduct its first nuclear test detonation.

2007

North Korea agreed to resume the disarmament talks a few weeks after the nuclear test. In February 2007, the United States and the four other nations reached an agreement to provide North Korea with an aid package worth about $400 million in return for the North disabling its nuclear facilities and re-allowing international inspectors into the country.

North Korea demolished the cooling tower at its Nyongbyon reactor site in June 2008. But in September, the North declared it will resume reprocessing plutonium, complaining that Washington wasn't fulfilling its promise to remove the country from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The Bush administration removed North Korea from the list in October after the country agreed to continue disabling its nuclear plant. However, a final attempt by Bush to complete an agreement to fully dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons program collapsed in December when the North refused to accept U.S.-proposed verification methods.

The six-nation talks have stalled since then. The North conducted its second nuclear test in May 2009, months after Obama took office.

2012

Months after taking power following the death of his father, current North Korean leader Kim reached a deal with the Obama administration in February 2012 to suspend nuclear weapons and missile tests and uranium enrichment and to also allow international inspectors to monitor its nuclear activities in exchange for U.S. food aid.

The United States killed the deal in April when the North launched a long-range rocket it claimed was built for delivering satellites. The failed launch was seen by the outside world as a prohibited test of ballistic missile technology.

The North criticized the United States of "overreacting" and launched another long-range rocket in December it said successfully delivered a satellite into space.

In 2013, Kim announced that his government would pursue a national "byungjin" policy aimed at simultaneously seeking nuclear development and economic growth. This was seen as a clean break from the North's previous stance that mainly used the nuclear program as a bargaining chip to extract concessions from foreign governments, rather than for immediate military purposes.

2018

North Korea's abrupt diplomatic outreach in recent months comes after a flurry of weapons tests that marked 2017, including the underground detonation of an alleged thermonuclear warhead and three launches of developmental ICBMs designed to strike the U.S. mainland.

Inter-Korean dialogue resumed after Kim in his New Year's speech proposed talks with the South to reduce animosities and for the North to participate in February's Winter Olympics in Pyongchang. North Korea sent hundreds of people to the games, including Kim's sister, who expressed her brother's desire to meet with Moon for a summit. South Korean officials later brokered a potential summit between Kim and Trump.

While South Korean and U.S. officials have said Kim is likely trying to save his broken economy from heavy sanctions, some analysts see him as entering the negotiations from a position of strength after having declared his nuclear force as complete in November last year.

Seoul has said Kim expressed genuine interest in dealing away his nuclear weapons. But North Korea for decades has been pushing a concept of "denuclearization" that bears no resemblance to the American definition, vowing to pursue nuclear development unless Washington removes its troops from the peninsula and the nuclear umbrella defending South Korea and Japan.

Some experts say Kim's nuclear program is now too advanced to realistically expect a roll back to near zero.

"Kim will not offer CVID at the door," said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University who's advising Moon on his summit with Kim. He was referring to an abbreviation for the "complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement" of the North's nuclear weapons program.

"Everything depends on whether Trump can accept a deal that puts out the 'early fire' — taking away the North's ICBMs and freezing and closing its known nuclear and missile production facilities — and leave the rest for future negotiations," Koh said.

Follow Kim Tong-hyung on Twitter at @KimTongHyung.

North Korea Says It Has Suspended Nuclear, Missile Testing

Provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, in Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korea said Saturday, April 21, 2018, it has suspended nuclear and long-range missile tests and plans to close its nuclear test site. The North's official Korean Central News Agency said the country is making the move to shift its national focus and improve its economy. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, File)


SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (AP) — North Korea said Saturday it has suspended nuclear and long-range missile tests and plans to close its nuclear test site ahead of a new round of negotiations with South Korea and the United States. There was no clear indication in the North's announcement if it would be willing to deal away its arsenal.

The North rather expressed confidence about its nuclear force, which leader Kim Jong Un declared as complete in November after a slew of weapons tests that included the underground detonation of a purported thermonuclear warhead and flight tests of three intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Some analysts believe Kim is entering the negotiations from a position of strength and is unlikely to accept a significant cut of his arsenal or go significantly beyond freezing a nuclear program. South Korean and U.S. officials have said Kim is likely trying to save his broken economy from heavy sanctions.

After the announcement Saturday about testing, President Donald Trump tweeted, "This is very good news for North Korea and the World" and "big progress!" He also said he's looking forward to his upcoming summit with Kim.

South Korea's presidential office welcomed North Korea's announcement as "meaningful progress" toward the denuclearization of the peninsula. Presidential official Yoon Young-chan said in a statement that the North's decision brightens the prospects for successful talks between Seoul, Pyongyang and Washington.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency said the country is making the move to shift its national focus and improve its economy. The North also vowed to actively engage with regional neighbors and the international community to secure peace on the peninsula and create an "optimal international environment" to build its economy.

The announcement came days before Kim is set to meet South Korean President Moon Jae-in in a border truce village for a rare summit aimed at resolving the nuclear standoff with Pyongyang. A separate meeting between Kim and Trump is anticipated in May or June.

The North's decisions were made in a meeting of the ruling party's full Central Committee, which had convened to discuss a "new stage" of policies. The Korean Workers' Party Central Committee declared a "great victory" in the country's official "byungjin" policy of simultaneously pursuing economic and nuclear development.

The committee unanimously adopted a resolution that called for concentrating national efforts to achieve a strong socialist economy and "groundbreaking improvements in people's lives." "To secure transparency on the suspension of nuclear tests, we will close the republic's northern nuclear test site," the party's resolution said.

The official news agency quoted Kim as saying during the meeting: "Nuclear development has proceeded scientifically and in due order and the development of the delivery strike means also proceeded scientifically and verified the completion of nuclear weapons.

"We no longer need any nuclear test or test launches of intermediate and intercontinental range ballistic missiles and because of this, the northern nuclear test site has finished its mission." Seoul says Kim has expressed genuine interest in dealing away his nuclear weapons. But North Korea for decades has been pushing a concept of "denuclearization" that bears no resemblance to the American definition, vowing to pursue nuclear development unless Washington removes its troops from the peninsula.

South Korean scientists have questioned whether the North could continue conducting underground nuclear detonations at its mountainous test site in Kilju in the northeast due to a series of earthquakes that were likely triggered by the activity, suggesting it's too unstable for further bomb tests.

At the height of Pyongyang's standoff with Washington and Seoul last year, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho told reporters the country could conduct an atmospheric hydrogen bomb test over the Pacific Ocean.