DPRK Forum

Looks like an interesting news day today.

Energy starved North Korea is looking to Nigeria for an oil investment?

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria will send a high-level delegation to North Korea to discuss attracting investment in Nigerian energy and natural gas, President Umaru Yar’Adua has said.

Nigeria is the fifth largest oil supplier to the United States and an ally of Washington, but it also maintains warm relations with the secretive Stalinist state as a fellow member of the Non-Aligned Movement.

That’s so sweet, but then there is a tidbit I never heard of:

In 2004 North Korea, which tested a nuclear device for the first time in October 2006, offered to share missile technology with Nigeria as part of a wide-ranging military cooperation agreement. It is unclear if it went ahead after Washington opposed it.

All of this globetrotting is making my head hurt, but the summit seems to be on the top of the agenda. Human rights activists want Roh to talk to Kim about the human rights issue:

The groups appealed to the government at least to put pressure on North Korea to cease public executions and punishment of repatriated North Korean defectors. They also called for the abolition of North Korean concentration camps for political prisoners, the repatriation of South Korean prisoners of war and South Koreans abducted by North Korea in the 1960s, and religious freedom for North Koreans. Kim Sang-chul, the chairman of Save North Korea, said if the South Korean government declines to accept the groups’ demands, they will continue to fight “by legal and appropriate means.”

The question is, will it happen? Only time will tell, but I have my doubts. In Japan, after a long embargo with aid to the North are considering aid for the flood. This is an unusual move:

TOKYO, August 29 (RIA Novosti) - Japan is debating whether to lift a three-year embargo on humanitarian aid to North Korea, Tokyo financial newspaper Nikkei quoted the new foreign minister as saying Wednesday.

“The UN and other humanitarian organizations have called for help,” Nobutaka Machimura said. “In view of the distress caused by the recent natural disaster, surely we should not to tie everything to the problem of the abductees.”

…

Pyongyang has acknowledged that it kidnapped at least 13 Japanese nationals. Five were eventually repatriated, while the remaining eight reportedly died in the interim. The released abductees said they had been forced to train North Koreans to spy against Japan.

Japan has not accepted North Korean assertions that the matter is now closed, insisting that many more of its citizens remain unaccounted for.

The topic will be among the main items on the agenda at bilateral working group talks between Tokyo and Pyongyang September 5-6 in the Mongolian capital, Ulan Bator, as part of the six-party negotiations on North Korea’s nuclear disarmament.

But North Korea wants billions for the occupation of Korea, so this is a very touchy issue. Again, time will tell if the issue will be resolved, but in my opinion will be a long time.

Also check out this story on DPRK Studies regarding the investment issue with China and North Korea.