Last week’s claims by North Korea of a 2014 plot to assassinate Kim Jong-un involving the CIA and South Korean intelligence services appears to be than just a one-off statement, as officials are now demanding that the US hand over those “conspirators” involved in the plot.
Details are scant, but center around claims that the US “corrupted and bribed” a North Korean working in Russia, who they identified only as Kim, and sought to use him to assassinate Kim Jong-un with a bio-chemical weapon. The CIA has denied all comment.
North Korea has not provided the names of any of those involved, and while it’s not completely implausible that such a plot may have taken place, the lack of specifics is going to make it awfully hard for North Korea to get anyone extradited over it.
Instead, South Korean officials denied the allegation outright, and focused instead on the number of times that the North Korean government had tried to assassinate their leaders in recent years, though of course this would not provide a legal basis for a retaliatory assassination.
US intelligence officials have in recent months pushed, among the proposals for President Trump to escalate in North Korea, the option of assassinating Kim and the rest of the nation’s leadership, comments which are likely playing a role in North Korea making this matter from 2014 public.