Changing Channels, Part 2

NORTH KOREA’S AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N. has been suddenly and unexpectedly replaced for the second time in just 18 months:

North Korea’s Ambassador to the UN Pak Gil-yon will be replaced in April, it emerged on Wednesday. A South Korean government official said, “I understand that Ambassador Pak will return to North Korea soon. It doesn’t seem likely that he is leaving his post for health reasons.”  [Chosun Ilbo]

Recall that the last North Korean Ambassor to the U.N., Han Song-Ryol, was just as unexpectedly replaced in  September of 2006.  The Chosun proffers several lines of speculation for the sudden personnel change, so I might as well offer one — who thought it was a good idea for members of  North Korea’s U.N. Mission to confess to U.S. Senate staffers that they engaged in deliberately deceptive financial transactions with U.N. development funds?  I’m sure someone in Pyongyang must have been unhappy losing that revenue source.

North Korea’s U.N. Ambassador has traditionally served as its unofficial ambassador to the United States, with this line of communication sometimes referred to as the “New York Channel.”

In other news of the not-necessarily-diplomatic, North Korea has denounced State’s annual human rights report, the one that but for a strategic leak would have been airbrushed, as  an “anti-DPRK smear campaign.”  They’re also upset by increased American and South Korean broadcasting into the North:

“Increasing broadcasts aimed at the North are an unacceptable, anti-unification, and anti-Korean-nation act which tries to revert North-South Korean relations back to the pre-June 15th era (prior to the North-South Joint Declaration-June 15, 2000). Calling for a historical and regime confrontation against the same family is an unacceptable, anti-Korean nation, anti-unification uproar.”  [Daily NK]

They’re right to be worried.