North Korea accuses US of murder plot as CIA opens new DPRK mission center

May 17, 2017 by Ian Allen

The United States Central Intelligence Agency has announced the establishment of a new center focusing on North Korea, shortly after Pyongyang accused Washington of plotting to assassinate its supreme leader. Last week, the regime’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Han Song Ryol, said the CIA tried to kill North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. He was speaking during a meeting with foreign diplomats in the North Korean capital, where he repeated previously stated claims by government officials that American spies had tried to assassinate their country’s leader. According to Pyongyang, the plot involved an attack by a North Korean CIA agent, who had been trained in the use of a biochemical weapon by his handlers. The North Koreans also accuse South Korea of collaborating with the alleged CIA assassination plot, claiming that Seoul either bribed or blackmailed the would-be assassin.

Meanwhile, the CIA announced last week that it has established a dedicated center focusing on developments in the Korean peninsula. The purpose of the center, said the CIA, is to “address […] the nuclear and ballistic missile threat posed by North Korea”. There are only 11 such centers in the CIA, which the Agency calls “Mission Centers”. They focus on specific issues or locations around the world, in accordance with the geopolitical priorities of the US policymaker community, led by the White House. The establishment of a dedicated Korean Mission Center is designed to reflect the elevation of the North Korean government’s missile program to a critical foreign-policy issue by the administration of US President Donald Trump.

The new Mission Center will be located at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and will bring together several intelligence analysts and even operations officers from a variety of directorates and units across the Agency. The goal of the new Center, according to the CIA, is to “integrate [these individuals] in one entity” in order to produce regular situation reports and analytical forecasts from the troubled region. Speaking to reporters late last week, CIA spokeswoman Heather Fritz Horniak said that the new Mission Center would allow Langley to “harness the full resources, capabilities and authorities of the Agency” in dealing with Pyongyang. But she refused to comment on North Korea’s allegations that the CIA tried to assassinate the communist state’s leader.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 17 May 2017 | Permalink