North Korea is now hung up on a narrative that the CIA and South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) hired a North Korean lumberjack working in Russian Federation to detonate a biochemical weapon during a military parade to end the life of the young North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. The report, carried by the North's Korean Central News Agency, said the letter was sent Friday. He added the US should be ready to hold talks and relieve sanctions if the North agrees to real concessions on its nuclear and missile programs.
At the same time, however, a senior North Korean Foreign Ministry official flew to Oslo, Norway, this week to meet with former US officials and scholars in what is known as "track 2" talks on a range of nuclear, security and bilateral issues. The CIA and the White House declined comment. Pyongyang now demands the extradition of the Chinese national Xu, and the outgoing director of South's National Intelligence Service (NIS) Lee Byung-ho, as well as the "masterminds" from the CIA.
Nearly every day for the past week has been filled with state-run articles out of North Korea on its determination to hunt down the plotters who tried to take out the "supreme leader". The security ministry has vowed to "ferret out" anyone involved in the alleged plot, which it called "state-sponsored terrorism".
The experts also suggested Trump take steps to reassure South Korea on USA security commitments, such as deployments of conventional US military capabilities, efforts to enhance South Korea's self-defense capabilities and visible joint military exercises with the United States.
The CIA said it has established the Korea Mission Center in order to "harness the full resources, capabilities, and authorities of the agency in addressing the nuclear and ballistic missile threat posed by North Korea".
"This heinous crime, which was recently uncovered and smashed in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a kind of terrorism against not only the DPRK but the justice and conscious of humankind and an act of mangling the future of mankind", the ministry of state security said in a statement. It says he is a North Korean resident of Pyongyang who worked for a time in the Russian Far East.
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The NIS said earlier the North's accusation of its involvement in a plot was "groundless".
"These terrorists plotted and planned in detail for the use of biochemical substances, including radioactive and poisonous substances, as the means of assassination", Vice Minister Han said, reading from a prepared statement.
North Korea has a history of making unfounded claims, and CNN did not independently corroborate last week's report.
The statement said the organisers also gave him instructions to report on the "creed" of the person who would carry out the attack "and the state of his 'brainwashing", and to make sure the preparations were ideal, as there could be a war if it was revealed that South Korea's intelligence agency backed the operation.
The last time that Han appeared to brief foreign diplomats in Pyongyang was last December, to present North Korea's response to the latest round of United Nations sanctions after its September 2016 nuclear test.
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