Faced with the killing of its leader’s half brother in what appears to have all the trappings of a politically motivated hit, North Korea is turning up the
Faced with the killing of its leader’s half brother in what appears to have all the trappings of a politically motivated hit, North Korea is turning up the volume on a familiar defense: Flatly deny the allegations, viciously attack the accusers.
It’s a position the North has been in before, from dismissing U. N. reports outlining human rights abuses or the findings to disputing who threw the first punch in the Korean War.
But, while master of the message at home, rarely, if ever, has Pyongyang managed to effectively sway world opinion.
With evidence emerging that seems to strongly implicate some kind of North Korea connection to the killing of Kim Jong Un’s estranged half brother Kim Jong Nam, the North is intensifying its public attack on the officials in charge of the investigation in Malaysia.
In its first mention of the case, state-run media denied Thursday that North Korean agents masterminded the killing and said the Malaysian investigation was full of “holes and contradictions.”
The response came a day after Malaysian police said they were seeking two more North Koreans, including the second secretary of North Korea’s embassy in Kuala Lumpur, in connection with the Feb. 13 killing of Kim Jong Nam in an airport lobby.
North Korea’s ambassador in Malaysia has made similar statements to reporters. But the decision to carry the story in the North’s highly selective official media is significant because it reflects a level of concern in Pyongyang over the allegations and its desire to push harder with the counter-message of its own.
Pyongyang’s fiery and categorical denials and counter-allegations follow a well-established pattern: It has taken essentially the same tack in response to allegations leveled at it going all the way back to who started the 1950-53 Korean War (Pyongyang claims it was attacked, not the attacker).
To this day, it also disputes as biased and politically motivated the findings of an international investigation into the 2010 torpedoing of the Cheonan warship that left 46 South Koreans dead — calling it “fictitious” and an “intolerable mockery.
