Tag Archives: North Korea

Japan to acquire air-launched missiles able to strike North Korea

Japan to acquire air-launched missiles able to strike North Korea

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan is to acquire medium-range, air-launched cruise missiles, capable of striking North Korea, a controversial purchase of what will become the longest-range munitions of a country that has renounced the right to wage war.

Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera did not refer to North Korea when announcing the planned acquisition and said the new missiles would be for defence, with Japan still relying on the United States to strike any enemy bases.

“We are planning to introduce the JSM (Joint Strike Missile) that will be mounted on the F-35A (stealth fighter) as ‘stand-off’ missiles that can be fired beyond the range of enemy threats,” Onodera told a news conference.

Japan is also looking to mount Lockheed Martin Corp’s extended-range Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM-ER) on its F-15 fighters, he said.

The JSM, designed by Norway’s Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace , has a range of 500 km (310 miles). The JASSM-ER can hit targets 1,000 km away.

The purchase plan is likely to face criticism from opposition parties in parliament, especially from politicians wary of the watering down of Japan’s renunciation of the right to wage war enshrined in its post-World War Two constitution.

But the growing threat posed by North Korean ballistic missiles has spurred calls from politicians, including Onodera, for a more robust military that could deter North Korea from launching an attack.

Japan’s missile force has been limited to anti-aircraft and anti-ship munitions with ranges of less than 300 km (186 miles).

The change suggests the growing threat posed by North Korea has given proponents of a strike capability the upper hand in military planning.

North Korea has recently test-fired ballistic missiles over Japan and last week tested a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile that climbed to an altitude of more than 4,000 km before splashing into the sea within Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

(Reporting by Linda Sieg; Editing by Robert Birsel)

North Korea says U.S. threats make war unavoidable as China urges calm

North Korea says U.S. threats make war unavoidable as China urges calm

By Soyoung Kim and Heekyong Yang

SEOUL (Reuters) – Two American B-1B heavy bombers joined large-scale combat drills over South Korea on Thursday amid warnings from North Korea that the exercises and U.S. threats have made the outbreak of war “an established fact”.

The annual U.S.-South Korean “Vigilant Ace” exercises feature 230 aircraft, including a range of the U.S. military’s most advanced stealth warplanes, and come a week after North Korea tested its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) to date which it says can reach the mainland United States.

A spokesman for the North’s foreign ministry blamed the drills and “confrontational warmongering” by U.S. officials for making war inevitable.

“The remaining question now is: when will the war break out?” the spokesman said late on Wednesday in a statement carried by North Korea’s official KCNA news agency.

“We do not wish for a war but shall not hide from it.”

China, North Korea’s neighbor and lone major ally, again urged calm and said war was not the answer.

“We hope all relevant parties can maintain calm and restraint and take steps to alleviate tensions and not provoke each other,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in a statement.

“The outbreak of war is not in any side’s interest. The ones that will suffer the most are ordinary people.”

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have risen markedly in recent months after North Korea’s latest missile and nuclear tests, conducted in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions and international condemnation.

STRATEGIC BOMBERS

On Wednesday, a U.S. B-1B bomber flew from the Pacific U.S.-administered territory of Guam to join the exercises, which will run until Friday.

The flights by the B-1B, one of America’s largest strike aircraft, have played a leading role in Washington’s attempts to increase pressure on North Korea to abandon its weapons program.

In September, B-1Bs were among a formation of U.S. military aircraft that flew further north up North Korea’s coast than at any time in the past 17 years, according to the U.S. Pacific Command.

That prompted North Korea’s foreign minister, Ri Yong Ho, to warn that the North could shoot down the U.S. bombers even if they did not enter North Korean airspace.

“B1-B bombers have been regularly dispatched to the Korean peninsula over the past years; however, it seems that the U.S. Air Force might have enhanced its training to better prepare for actual warfare,” said Yang Uk, a senior fellow at the Korea Defence and Security Forum.

While B-1Bs are no longer equipped to carry nuclear weapons of their own, they would be key to any strike targeting major North Korean facilities, he said.

“That’s why North Korea has been making such a big deal when B1-B bombers are flying overhead.”

ESCALATING TENSIONS

Both sides insist they don’t want war, but blame each other for provocations while saying they will act to defend themselves.

White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster said over the weekend that the possibility of war with North Korea was “increasing every day”.

U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham urged the Pentagon on Sunday to start moving U.S. military dependants, such as spouses and children, out of South Korea, saying conflict with North Korea was getting close.

The Pentagon said it has “no intent” to move any dependants out of the country.

North Korea regularly threatens to destroy South Korea and the United States and says its weapons program are necessary to counter U.S. aggression. The United States stations 28,500 troops in the South, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War.

“Recently, as the U.S. is conducting the largest-ever joint aerial drill on the Korean peninsula targeting the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, its high-level politicians are showing alarming signs by making bellicose remarks one after another,” the North’s foreign ministry spokesman said, using North Korea’s official name.

“These confrontational war-mongering remarks cannot be interpreted in any other way but as a warning to us to be prepared for a war on the Korean peninsula,” he said.

North Korea’s latest missile test prompted a warning from the United States that North Korea’s leadership would be “utterly destroyed” if war were to break out, a statement that drew sharp criticism from Russia.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said the whole of North Korea would be destroyed in the event of war.

The rising tensions coincide with a rare visit to the isolated North by United Nations political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman this week, the highest-level U.N. official to visit North Korea since 2012.

Feltman met North Korean Foreign Minister Ri on Thursday, following his meeting with the vice foreign minister a day earlier, KCNA said.

(Additional reporting by Hyonhee Shin and Josh Smith in Seoul and Christian Shepherd in Beijing; Editing by Nick Macfie)

B-1B bomber joins U.S.-South Korea drills as tensions escalate

B-1B bomber joins U.S.-South Korea drills as tensions escalate

By Christine Kim and Hyonhee Shin

SEOUL (Reuters) – A U.S. B-1B bomber on Wednesday joined large-scale U.S.-South Korean military exercises that North Korea has denounced as pushing the peninsula to the brink of nuclear war, as tension mounts between the North and the United States.

The bomber flew from the Pacific U.S.-administered territory of Guam and joined U.S. F-22 and F-35 stealth fighters in the annual exercises, which run until Friday.

The drills come a week after North Korea said it had tested its most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States, as part of a weapons program that it has conducted in defiance of international sanctions and condemnation.

Asked about the bomber’s flight, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular news briefing in Beijing: “We hope relevant parties can maintain restraint and not do anything to add tensions on the Korean peninsula.”

North Korea regularly threatens to destroy South Korea, the United States and Japan. Its official KCNA state news agency said at the weekend that U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration was “begging for nuclear war” by staging the drills.

It also labeled Trump, who has threatened to destroy North Korea if the United States is threatened, “insane”.

KCNA said on Tuesday that the exercises in which the bomber took part are “simulating an all-out war”, including drills to “strike the state leadership and nuclear and ballistic rocket bases, air fields, naval bases and other major objects…”

U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham on Sunday urged the Pentagon to start moving U.S. military dependants, such as spouses and children, out of South Korea, saying conflict with North Korea was getting close.

The U.S.-South Korea drills coincide with a rare visit to the isolated North by U.N. political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman.

North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Pak Myong Guk met Feltman on Wednesday in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, and discussed bilateral cooperation and other issues of mutual interest, KCNA said.

Feltman, a former senior U.S. State Department official, is the highest-level U.N. official to visit North Korea since 2012. The State Department said on Tuesday he was not carrying any message from Washington.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in will visit China next Wednesday for a summit with his counterpart Xi Jinping, Seoul’s presidential Blue House said. North Korea’s increasing nuclear and missile capability would top the agenda, it said.

The military exercises, called “Vigilant Ace”, are designed to enhance joint readiness and operational capability of U.S. extended deterrence, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

North Korea has vehemently criticized the drills since the weekend, saying the exercise precipitates U.S. and South Korean “self-destruction”.

China and Russia had proposed that the United States and South Korea stop major military exercises in exchange for North Korea halting its weapons programs. China is North Korea’s lone major ally and fears widespread instability on its border.

Russia also has communication channels open with North Korea and is ready to exert its influence, the RIA news agency quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov as saying on Tuesday.

North Korea has tested dozens of ballistic missiles, two of which flew over Japan, and conducted its sixth and largest nuclear bomb test in September.

It says its weapons programs are a necessary defense against U.S. plans to invade. The United States, which has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, denies any such intention.

(Reporting by Christine Kim and Hyonhee Shin; Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols at the UNITED NATIONS, Arshad Mohammed and David Brunnstrom in WASHINGTON, Vladimir Soldatkin in MOSCOW, and Michael Martina in BEIJING; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Russia says ready to exert influence on North Korea: RIA

Russia says ready to exert influence on North Korea: RIA

By Vladimir Soldatkin

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia has communication channels with North Korea open and Moscow is ready to exert its influence on Pyongyang, RIA news agency quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov as saying on Tuesday.

“We have channels, through which we are conducting a dialogue, and we are ready to deploy them, we are ready to exert our influence on North Korea,” Morgulov was quoted as saying at a conference in Berlin.

He also said that neither Washington, not Pyongyang want a real war “but such scenarios exists”.

The Kremlin has traditionally protected the reclusive state though the latest Pyongyang tests have irked Moscow.

North Korea, which conducted its sixth and largest nuclear bomb test in September, has tested dozens of ballistic missiles under Kim Jong Un’s leadership in defiance of international sanctions.

Morgulov called for other measures than isolation to exercise in dealing with North Korea.

“We believe that the isolation alone…will not work, this won’t take us forward. By doing this, we will only worsen the situation, which is dangerous. We are really on the brink of a real war,” he said.

In Washington, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman said the Trump administration still wanted a peaceful, diplomatic solution to the nuclear and missile threat from Pyongyang but said: “(North Korea) has shown through its actions that it is not interested in talks. We must remain focused on increasing the costs for Pyongyang to continue to advance its WMD programs.”

Morgulov was also quoted as saying that North Korea was seeking a direct dialogue with the United States on its nuclear program, while it was not in need of security guarantees either from China or Russia.

(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow and David Brunnstrom in Washington; editing by Mark Heinrich)

South Korea, U.S. kick off large-scale air exercise amid North Korean warnings

South Korea, U.S. kick off large-scale air exercise amid North Korean warnings

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea and the United States launched large-scale joint aerial drills on Monday, officials said, a week after North Korea said it had tested its most advanced missile as part of a weapons programme that has raised global tensions.

The annual U.S.-South Korean drill, called Vigilant Ace, will run until Friday, with six F-22 Raptor stealth fighters to be deployed among the more than 230 aircraft taking part. The exercises have been condemned as a provocation by the isolated North.

F-35 fighters will also join the drill, which will also include the largest number of 5th generation fighters to take part, according to a South Korea-based U.S. Air Force spokesman.

Around 12,000 U.S. service members, including from the Marines and Navy, will join South Korean troops. Aircraft taking part will be flown from eight U.S. and South Korean military installations.

South Korean media reports said B-1B Lancer bombers could join the exercise this week. The U.S. Air Force spokesman could not confirm the reports.

The joint exercise is designed to enhance readiness and operational capability and to ensure peace and security on the Korean peninsula, the U.S. military had said before the drills began.

The drills come a week after North Korea said it had tested its most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile ever in defiance of international sanctions and condemnation.

Pyongyang blamed U.S. President Donald Trump for raising tensions and warned at the weekend the Vigilant Ace exercise was pushing tensions on the Korean peninsula towards “a flare-up”, according to North Korean state media.

North Korea’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country called Trump “insane” on Sunday and said the drill would “push the already acute situation on the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war”.

The North’s KCNA state news agency, citing a foreign ministry spokesman, also said on Saturday the Trump administration was “begging for nuclear war by staging an extremely dangerous nuclear gamble on the Korean peninsula”.

North Korea regularly uses its state media to threaten the United States and its allies.

(Reporting by Christine Kim; Editing by Paul Tait)

South Korea, U.S. launch aerial drills amid North Korean warnings of nuclear war

The South Korean army's K-55 self-propelled artillery vehicles take part in a military exercise near the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas in Paju, South Korea, November 29, 2017.

By Christine Kim and Philip Wen

SEOUL/BEIJING (Reuters) – The United States and South Korea went ahead with large-scale joint aerial drills on Monday, a move North Korea had said would push the Korean peninsula to “the brink of nuclear war”, ignoring calls from Russia and China to call them off.

The drills come a week after North Korea said it had tested its most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States as part of a weapons program that it has conducted in defiance of international sanctions and condemnation.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said it was “regrettable” that all parties had not “grasped the window of opportunity” presented by two months of relative calm before the North’s most recent test.

China and Russia had proposed that the United States and South Korea stop major military exercises in exchange for North Korea halting its weapons programs. Beijing formally calls the idea the “dual suspension” proposal.

The annual U.S.-South Korean drill, called Vigilant Ace, will run until Friday, with six F-22 Raptor stealth fighters to be deployed among the more than 230 aircraft taking part.

North Korea’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country called U.S. President Donald Trump “insane” on Sunday and said the drills would “push the already acute situation on the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war”.

F-35 fighters will also join the drills, which will include the largest number of 5th generation fighters ever to have taken part, according to a South Korea-based U.S. Air Force spokesman.

Around 12,000 U.S. service members, including from the Marines and Navy, will join South Korean troops. Aircraft taking part will be flown from eight U.S. and South Korean military installations.

South Korean media reports said B-1B Lancer bombers could join the exercise this week. The U.S. Air Force spokesman could not confirm the reports.

Trump said last week that additional major sanctions would be imposed on North Korea after Pyongyang’s intercontinental ballistic missile test.

Earlier last month, Trump put North Korea back on a list of state sponsors of terrorism, a designation that allows the United States to impose more sanctions.

Russia has accused the United States of trying to provoke North Korean leader Kim Jong Un into “flying off the handle” over his missile program to hand Washington a pretext to destroy his country.

Speaking at a news briefing in Beijing, Wang said China consistently opposed any behavior that elevated tensions.

“And measures that don’t abide by or are outside the UN Security Council resolutions lack basis in international law and damage the rights of United Nations members,” Wang said when asked about the prospect of further U.S. sanctions against North Korea.

China’s Air Force said on Monday that its surveillance aircraft had in recent days conducted drills in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea to “improve combat-readiness and safeguard the country’s strategic interests”.

The aircraft took a flight path not previously flown to regions they had never previously operated in, and coordinated with fighter jets, alert aircraft and guided missile forces, spokesman Shen Jinke said, according to a post on the Air Force’s official microblog.

The joint exercises between South Korea and United States are designed to enhance readiness and operational capability and to ensure peace and security on the Korean peninsula, the U.S. military had said before the drills began.

The North’s KCNA state news agency, citing a foreign ministry spokesman, said on Saturday the Trump administration was “begging for nuclear war by staging an extremely dangerous nuclear gamble on the Korean peninsula”.

North Korea regularly uses its state media to threaten the United States and its allies.

North Korea has tested dozens of ballistic missiles and conducted its sixth and largest nuclear bomb test in September, in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

It has said its weapons programs are a necessary defense against U.S. plans to invade. The United States, which has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, denies any such intention.

 

 

(Reporting by Christine Kim in SEOUL and Philip Wen in BEIJING; Additional reporting by Michael Martina in BEIJING; Editing by Nick Macfie)

 

U.N. council to meet on North Korea rights abuses, nuclear program in December

U.N. council to meet on North Korea rights abuses, nuclear program in December

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – United Nations Security Council ministers will meet on Dec. 15 to discuss North Korea’s nuclear and missiles programs and the body will also meet separately this month to discuss human rights abuses in the North Asian country, an annual meeting that its ally China has tried to prevent for the past three years.

Japan’s U.N. Ambassador Koro Bessho, president of the 15-member council for December, said several ministers were confirmed to attend the Dec. 15 meeting. He also said the meeting on human rights in North Korea could be held on Dec. 11.

China has unsuccessfully tried to stop three previous human rights meetings by calling a procedural vote. A minimum of nine votes are needed to win such a vote and China, Russia, the United States, Britain and France cannot wield their vetoes.

This year’s meeting has the backing of nine members – the United States, France, Britain, Italy, Japan, Senegal, Sweden, Ukraine and Uruguay.

Last year, the United States angered North Korea by blacklisting its leader Kim Jong Un for human rights abuses.

A landmark 2014 U.N. report on North Korean human rights concluded that North Korean security chiefs – and possibly Kim himself – should face justice for overseeing a state-controlled system of Nazi-style atrocities.

Michael Kirby, chairman of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry that drew up the report, said at the time that the crimes the team had cataloged were reminiscent of those committed by the Nazis during World War Two. “Some of them are strikingly similar,” he told Reuters.

North Korea has repeatedly rejected accusations of human rights abuses and blames sanctions for a dire humanitarian situation. Pyongyang has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its ballistic missiles and nuclear programs.

“Despite persistent sanctions and pressure by the U.S. and other hostile forces, my government concentrates all its efforts on improving people’s livelihood and providing them with a better future,” the North Korean Permanent Mission to the United Nations said in a statement on Nov. 14.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols, editing by G Crosse)

Seoul says North Korea puts Washington in range, but needs to prove critical technology

Seoul says North Korea puts Washington in range, but needs to prove critical technology

By Christine Kim and Dmitry Solovyov

SEOUL/MOSCOW (Reuters) – North Korea’s latest missile test puts Washington within range, but Pyongyang still needs to prove it has mastered critical missile technology, such as re-entry, terminal stage guidance and warhead activation, South Korea said on Friday.

South Korea’s Ministry of Defence said the Hwasong-15 missile tested on Wednesday was a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) which can fly over 13,000 km (8,080 miles), placing Washington within target range.

The test prompted a warning from the United States that North Korea’s leadership would be “utterly destroyed” if war were to break out, a statement that drew sharp criticism from Russia.

On Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov termed the threat from U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley “a bloodthirsty tirade” and said military action against Pyongyang would be a big mistake, Russian news agencies reported.

“We will do everything to ensure that (the use of force) doesn’t happen so that the problem is decided only using peaceful and political-diplomatic means,” Lavrov said.

Separately, Russian lawmakers just back from a visit to Pyongyang said North Korea was not prepared to disarm, and while it did not want nuclear war it was morally ready for it, Russia’s RIA news agency reported.

Pyongyang has said its Wednesday missile test was a “breakthrough” and leader Kim Jong Un said the country had “finally realized the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force.”

After North Korea released video footage and photographs of Hwasong-15, U.S. based experts said it appeared North Korea was indeed capable of delivering a nuclear weapon anywhere in the United States and could only be two or three tests away from being combat ready.

Yeo Suk-joo, South Korea’s deputy minister of defense policy, told the South Korean parliament that North Korea still needed to prove some technologies, like re-entry, terminal stage guidance and warhead activation.

Even so, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said North Korea was likely to pause its missile tests for a number of reasons, including the northern hemisphere winter season.

“For now if there are no sudden changes in situation or external factors, we feel there is a high chance North Korea will refrain from engaging in provocations for a while,” said Lee Yoo-jin, the ministry’s deputy spokeswoman.

North Korea is known to test fewer missiles in the fourth quarter of the year as troops are called to help with harvests, while the cold temperatures are a strain on the country’s fuel supplies.

This week’s missile launch was the first in 75 days.

South Korea Defence Minister Song Young-moo told parliament he expected North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to use his New Year’s Address to declare that North Korea had completed its weapons program.

South Korean and U.S. officials say the Hwasong 15 is the most advanced missile North Korea has ever tested.

Yeo told lawmakers the first stage engine of the missile featured a clustering of two engines from a smaller Hwasong-14 ICBM test-launched in July.

He said the Hwasong-15 is two meters (six feet) longer than the Hwasong-14. He said the second-stage engine requires further analysis.

Yeo said U.S. strategic assets would continue to be rotated on and near the Korean peninsula until the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea next February in a bid to deter further North Korean “provocations.”

U.S. President Donald Trump has responded to the latest North Korean test with a fresh round of insults directed against Kim Jong Un, who he called “Little Rocket Man” and a “sick puppy.”

Trump has vowed to respond with tougher sanctions, but his administration has warned that all options are on the table in dealing with North Korea, including military ones.

North Korea has stuck to its effort to develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the United States in spite of years of international sanctions and condemnation.

(Reporting by Christine Kim; additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Michael Perry and Andrew Hay)

Long road ahead to a new life for wounded North Korean defector

Long road ahead to a new life for wounded North Korean defector

By Hyonhee Shin

SEOUL (Reuters) – The North Korean soldier critically wounded when making a dash to the south last month may have cheated death, but even as his health improves, he is months if not years away from finding a normal life in South Korea, officials and other defectors say.

The transition to life in the democratic and prosperous South can be difficult for any defector from the isolated and impoverished North, let alone for a soldier from an elite border unit with potentially actionable military intelligence and a high profile that may complicate efforts to blend in.

The 24-year-old soldier, identified only by his surname Oh, has been released from intensive care after being shot five times during his daring defection, but is still battling a hepatitis B infection which could delay his transfer to a military hospital for some time, doctors said.

“As active duty soldier defectors have up-to-date information, the intelligence agencies would question the soldiers and see if anything needs to be addressed in our military’s operation and combat plans,” a current South Korean government official involved in resettling North Korean refugees told Reuters.

Oh will likely be under the protection of South Korea’s spy agency, the National Intelligence Service (NIS), and then be offered work such as code cracking in the military or related agencies, a former senior South Korean government official said.

“The decision would be made after a comprehensive assessment on what he means to national security, the level of information he has, and whether he would be capable of mingling with other defectors at the resettlement center,” the former official said.

A SPECIAL CASE

Defections by active-duty soldiers are extremely rare, once a year or less. Intelligence agencies are keen to question Oh, who was stationed in the Joint Security Area near the heavily fortified border, according to South Korean lawmakers briefed by the NIS.

Doctors have asked that officials wait until Oh is fully recovered both physically and emotionally before they begin questioning.

Given his high-profile escape and status as a member from an elite border unit, Oh will likely be given more personalized assistance, away from other North Korean defectors at the Hanawon resettlement center, the former South Korean official said.

Most defectors undergo security questioning by the National Intelligence Service for a few days up to several months in extreme cases, before being moved to the Hanawon resettlement center.

There they receive mandatory three-month education on life in the capitalist South, from taking public transportation to opening a bank account to creating an email address.

“It’s where you would get to see the outside world for the first time, as they take you out to meet people on the streets and learn how to access the social service network. These days, you can also do a homestay with an ordinary South Korean family,” said Ji Seong-ho, a 35-year-old defector who heads Now, Action and Unity for Human Rights (NAUH), a group that rescues and resettles North Korean refugees.

‘LIKE A BABY’

Such training can be more useful for some people than others, said Kim Jin-soo, a 29-year-old former member of the North Korean secret police who defected to the South in 2011.

“Looking back, it would’ve been really useful if they taught more realistic things even though it might discourage people, like how to prepare for a job fair and find a suitable workplace and why it’s important to lose the North Korean accent,” he said.

“Fresh off Hanawon, you’re like a one-year-old baby. But those are the things that would pose a real obstacle when you actually go out there on your own,” said Kim, who now works at a advertising firm in Seoul.

After leaving Hanawon, central and local governments provide defectors 7 million won ($6,450) in cash over a year – barely a fifth of South Korea’s annual average income – as well as support in housing, education and job training. Police officers are assigned to each of the defectors to ensure their security.

Oh may have potential value to the South Korean government or organizations that try to highlight conditions in North Korea, but it will be up to him whether he wants to live a life in the limelight, said Sokeel Park, country director for Liberty in North Korea, which helps North Korean refugees.

“If he has any mind to get involved in that kind of stuff then there will be all kinds of media or non-governmental organizations who would fall over themselves to give him that platform,” said Park.

“But if he makes a good recovery and he chooses to blend it, then he’s just another young guy with a vague back story.”

GRAPHIC: Defector braves hail of bullets http://reut.rs/2zAUDRN

(Writing and additional reporting by Josh Smith; Editing by Lincoln Feast)