by Editor | May 25, 2021 | World
Washington : US President Donald Trump has accepted an invitation to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, an extraordinary development following months of heightened nuclear tension and frequent threats and insults, media reports said.
The news was confirmed on Thursday night by both the White House and visiting South Korean National Security Adviser Chung Eui-yong.
“President Trump greatly appreciates the nice words of the South Korean delegation and President Moon. He will accept the invitation to meet with Kim Jong-un at a place and time to be determined. We look forward to the denuclearisation of North Korea. In the meantime, all sanctions and maximum pressure must remain,” CNN quoted White House press secretary Sarah Sanders as saying.
After meeting Trump at the White House, Chung said: “He (Kim) expressed his eagerness to meet President Trump as soon as possible.
“President Trump said he would meet Kim Jong-un by May.”
Chung however, did not provide any information on where the meeting would take, reports The Washington Post.
Chung led the South Korean delegation earlier this week to North Korea, where Kim and his senior cadre expressed a willingness to hold talks with the US and were prepared to discuss denuclearisation and normalising relations.
In Seoul, the presidential Blue House clarified that the meeting would occur by the end of May.
Trump also expressed his optimism about the meeting in a post on Twitter, saying that Kim had “talked about denuclearisation with the South Korean Representatives, not just a freeze”, The New York Times reported.
“Also, no missile testing by North Korea during this period of time… Great progress being made but sanctions will remain until an agreement is reached. Meeting being planned!”
Trump and Kim have spent the past year making belligerent statements about each other, with Trump mocking Kim as “Little Rocket Man” and pledging to “totally destroy” North Korea and Kim calling the American President a “dotard” and a “lunatic” and threatening to send nuclear bombs to Washington, D.C.
No sitting American President has ever met a North Korean leader, The Washington Post reported.
Former president Jimmy Carter met Kim’s grandfather Kim Il-sung, and former president Bill Clinton met his father, Kim Jong-il – during visits to Pyongyang after they had left office.
Both Carter and Clinton also went to Pyongyang to collect Americans who had been imprisoned by the regime.
Since he took over the leadership of North Korea from his father at the end of 2011, Kim Jong-un has not met any other head of state.
Discussions were now underway to hold a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in the demilitarised zone between the two Koreas at the end of next month.
After a year in which North Korea fired intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching all of the US and tested what is widely thought to have been a hydrogen bomb, such a moratorium would be welcomed by Washington and the world.
—IANS
by Editor | May 25, 2021 | Events, Social Round-up, World
Seoul : The North Korean leader and South Korean high-level envoys have reached an “satisfactory” agreement during their meeting in Pyongyang, to hold a inter-Korean summit with the South Korean President, the North Korean state news agency KCNA reported on Tuesday.
Seoul’s representatives delivered a letter from South Korean President Moon Jae-in to Kim Jong-un, who, upon “hearing the intention of President Moon Jae-in for a summit (…), exchanged views and made a satisfactory agreement,” according to the North Korean state media.
Kim and the South Korean envoys also exchanged views on what steps to take to “ease the military tensions on the Korean Peninsula and promote dialogue, cooperation and exchange.”
The North Korean leader, according to Efe, held a “sincere conversation” with Seoul’s delegation, showed them his “firm will to vigorously advance the north-south relations and write a new history of national reunification” and gave instructions to “rapidly take practical steps” for this bilateral improvement.
In early February, Kim Yo-jong, the sister of the North Korean leader, made an historic visit to South Korea on the occasion of the Winter Olympic Games, held in the South Korean county of PyeongChang, and conveyed to Moon an invitation to travel to Pyongyang and participate in a high-level inter-Korean summit, the first of its kind in more than a decade.
The South Korean president welcomed the invitation, but considered that certain conditions should be met to make his visit to Pyongyang a reality, including a new round of talks between the United States and North Korea.
If the meeting between Kim and Moon were to be held, it would be the first inter-Korean summit in more than a decade, after the ones held in Pyongyang in 2000 and 2007 between the late leader and father of Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il, and the former South Korean presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Tae-woo, respectively.
—IANS
by Editor | May 25, 2021 | Business Summit, Events, Social Round-up, World
South Korean President Moon Jae-in, left, shakes hands with Ri Son Gwon, chairman of the North Korea’s agency that deals with inter-Korean affairs, as Kim Yo Jong, right, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and Kim Yong Nam, North Korea’s nominal head of state, stand during a meeting at the presidential house in Seoul on Saturday.
Seoul : North Korea’s rather reclusive leader Kim Jong-un has asked South Korean President Moon Jae-in to visit Pyongyang at the “earliest date” possible for what will be a third inter-Korean summit.
The invitation was delivered on Saturday at a landmark meeting between Moon and the North Korean leader’s sister Kim Yo-jong in the Presidential Palace in Seoul, Yonhap news agency reported.
Kim Yo-jong and the North’s ceremonial head of state, Kim Yong-nam, made up the most senior delegation from Pyongyang o visit the South since the Korean War in the 1950s.
Kim Yo-jong invited Moon to visit “at the early date possible”, a spokesman for South Korea’s Presidential Palace said.
Moon apparently cited the conditions necessary for an inter-Korean summit. “Let us make it happen by creating the necessary conditions in the future,” he was quoted as saying.
The South Korean President also stressed the need for the Communist North to resume its dialogue with the US. “An early resumption of dialogue between the US and the North is needed also for the development of the South-North Korean relationship,” he said, according to his spokesman.
The figures from the two Koreas shared kimchi (Korean pickled cabbage) and soju rice liquor, and spoke for three hours. Moon’s spokesman said the meeting at the Blue House was held in a “friendly” mood.
Other members of the North Korean delegation present at Saturday’s meeting included Ri Son Gwon — who led the first sit-down talks at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) earlier this year, and Choe Hwi.
South Korean participants included senior officials Jeong Eui-yong, Jo Myong-gyoon and Im Jong-suk — the chief Presidential Secretary.
The meeting followed a brief encounter between the two parties at the Olympic Opening Ceremony on Friday, in which Moon twice shook hands with Yo-jong.
However, the apparent thaw was not reflected in Washington. US Vice-President Mike Pence, sitting a few seats away in the same Opening Ceremony VIP booth, looked stony faced as the scene unfolded.
Pence, who is leading the US delegation to the Olympics, briefly encountered Kim Yong-nam at the Games but the two tried to avoid directly facing each other.
He has accused Pyongyang of using the event for its own ends. “We will not allow North Korean propaganda to hijack the message and imagery of the Olympic Games,” he said in Japan earlier this week.
Later on Saturday, Moon and Kim Yong-nam will attend the first ice hockey match played by teams from both the sides, according to reports.
It was not immediately reported whether the North Korean leader’s sister would attend the evening match against Switzerland.
—IANS
by Editor | May 25, 2021 | World
Pyongyang : North Korea will remain committed to the country’s nuclear development in 2018, according to a report released on Saturday by state-media.
“Do not expect any change in its policy,” CNN quoted the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) report titled “No Force Can Prevail over Independence and Justice” as saying.
“Its entity as an invincible power can neither be undermined nor be stamped out. North Korea, as a responsible nuclear weapons state, will lead the trend of history to the only road of independence and justice, weathering all tempests on this planet,” it added.
The reportprovided a timeline of the country’s 2017 nuclear weapon achievements, mostly focused on possible US engagement.
North Korea will “continue bolstering the capabilities for self-defence and pre-emptive attack with the nuclear force as the pivot as long as the US and its vassal forces persist in nuclear threat”, the report said.
It boasted about Pyongyang’s new capability to strike “the heart of the US” and a new “status” as a “world-class nuclear power”.
The report said North Korea will “deal with the US’s most ferocious declaration of war with fire surely and definitely”.
Throughout 2017, North Korea has conducted a series of ballistic missile tests, despite constant criticism from the West and trade sanctions, CNN reported.
The most provocative moment came on November 29 when North Korea said it successfully tested a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile, topped with a “super-large heavy warhead”, which was capable of striking the US mainland.
This missile flew higher and farther than any other previous tests and came came after a break of almost two months in testing.
The UN Security Council responded by adopting a new set of severe US-drafted sanctions designed to further strangle North Korea’s energy supplies and tighten restrictions on smuggling and the use of North Korean workers overseas.
North Korea called those sanctions “an act of war” and said the US and other nations that supported the strict measures will pay a heavy price.
—IANS
by Editor | May 25, 2021 | World
By Arul Louis,
United Nations : With unprecedented Chinese backing, the Security Council tightened the economic chokehold on North Korea by unanimously voting on Friday to impose the strictest sanctions on North Korea aiming to cut off most fuel supplies and ban major exports following Pyongyang’s latest missile test.
The resolution introduced by the US after intense lobbying won the support of China, which has had a special relationship with North Korea and had in the past opposed or tried to soften sanctions.
The new round of restrictions further tightens the sanctions imposed last month, which had been lightened to gain the support of Moscow and Beijing.
“This resolution ratchets up the pressure on North Korea even further, building on our last resolution, which included the strongest sanctions ever imposed on them,” US Permanent Representative Nikki Haley, who piloted it, told the Council.
Haley acknowledged Beijing’s cooperation saying: “I would like to specifically thank my Chinese colleagues for working with us on the negotiations.”
Beijing’s vote for the tougher sanctions indicates that its direct influence with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is waning and that China is recognising the global dangers from North Korea’s nuclear and missile arsenals.
The Charge d’Affaires at the Chinese Mission, Wu Haitao, said there was a risk of the situation spiraling out of control.
The resolution would reduce North Korea’s refined petroleum imports by 90 per cent from the 2017 mid-year level to 500,000 barrels per year, and it authorises the Council to further reduce petroleum imports if it carried out any missile or nuclear tests.
All North Korean exports and most imports are also banned under the resolution. It also requires the expulsion by the end of 2019 of all North Korean expatriate workers who are estimated to earn the government $500 million each year.
Fifteen North Koreans, who are bankers or are involved in weapons developments were put on a sanctions list banning their travel and freezing their assets.
The resolution also requires all nations to seize ships smuggling goods to North Korea.
Wu called for an end to all rhetoric that would escalate tensions and said that “tough posturing” only led to Pyongyang advancing its proliferation activities.
Haley softened her tone this time at the Council without the past threats of violent retaliation that matched Pyongyang’s rhetoric.
The high-level Council meeting on North Korea earlier this month attended by US Secretary of Rex Tillerson and Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono paved the way for the latest sanctions because it sent a very clear message that the international community would not accept a nuclearised North Korea, Japan’s Permanent Representative Koro Bessho said at a news conference after the vote.
After the November 28 intercontinental ballistic missile test the campaign for the latest round of sanction began, he said.
(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)
—IANS
