Author Topic: North Koreans 'believe they are at war on a daily basis', Russian academic warns  (Read 297 times)

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Offline EC

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Leonid Petrov has spent a lifetime watching North Korea and is considered one of the world's leading experts on the reclusive regime.

The Russian academic has not long returned from his latest trip to the capital Pyongyang and is never surprised at just how surreal it is.

"North Korea is a wonderland of myths ... you feel like you are participating in a movie," he said.

This week that strange movie has taken yet another twist.

The half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was murdered in a Malaysian airport. Two women have been arrested over a suspected intricate poisoning plot.

Kim Jong-nam had lived in exile, considered a potential rival to the leader. There are suspicions that Kim Jong-un ordered the killing.

    "Regimes like this cannot survive without fresh blood, they constantly need purges, they need repression," Dr Petrov said.

North Korea is considered a rogue state. It is nuclear armed and this last week reminded the world of the threat it poses.

Kim Jong-un ordered a test-fire of a missile towards Japan as the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was meeting US President Donald Trump.

Dr Petrov said it was a reminder that North Korea was still in a state of war.

"They believe they are at war on a daily basis, they are convinced that war is imminent," he said.

Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-17/north-koreans-believe-they-are-at-war-expert-leonid-petrov-says/8281044
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Offline Sanguine

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Interesting.  I wonder what it does to people psychologically, to be always on the verge of war?