SEOUL, April 15 -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-un could visit Russia as early as next week, Yonhap News Agency reported on Monday citing its own sources in Moscow. "Chances are fairly high that a summit between Russia and North Korea could take place around that time," the news agency said. According to Yonhap, the top-level meeting is likely to be held in Vladivostok. The news agency noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin would take part in the One Belt, One Road forum in China on April 26-27. According to one of its sources, Putin’s meeting with Kim could be held a day or two before or immediately after that event. Yonhap earlier reported that Kim Chang-son, known as Kim Jong-un's de facto chief of staff, visited Moscow and Vladivostok on March 19-25. According to the news agency, that trip is related to preparations for the North Korean leader's visit to Russia. On March 14, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov and his North Korean counterpart Im Chon Il discussed the schedule of political contacts between Moscow and Pyongyang.
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SEOUL, April 13 -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he is open to a third summit with US President Donald Trumpbut that failure to reach mutually acceptable terms risked reviving tensions, state media KCNA said on Friday. "It is essential for the US to quit its current method and approach us with a new one," Kim said in a speech to the Supreme People's Assembly on Friday. "If it the United States keeps thinking that way, it will never be able to move the DPRK even a knuckle nor gain any interests no matter how many times it may sit for talks with the DPRK." Kim said he would wait until the end of the year "for the US to make a courageous decision" on another meeting, after his most recent summit with Trump in Vietnam broke down and both sides left without an agreement. Trump and Kim have met twice, in Hanoi in February and Singapore in June, building good will but failing to agree on a deal to lift sanctions in exchange for North Korea abandoning its nuclear and missile programs. Washington has blamed the February deadlock on the North's demands for sanctions relief in return for limited nuclear disarmament, but Pyongyang said it had wanted only some of the measures eased. In Hanoi, the US came "to the talks only racking its brain to find ways that are absolutely impracticable" and did "not really ready itself to sit with us face-to-face and settle the problem," Kim said. Escalating hostility Kim said that despite his good relationship with Trump, he would only be interested in attending a third summit if it offered concrete solutions to the dispute. "[The US] is further escalating the hostility to us with each passing day despite its suggestion for settling the issue through dialogue," Kim said. The current US policy of sanctions and pressure is "as foolish and dangerous an act as trying to put out a fire with oil". President Trump, meeting with his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in on Friday, said sanctions on North Korea would stay in place. On Friday, the KCNA reported that Kim was re-elected as chairman of the State Affairs Commission, the nation's most important decision-making body, during a session of the Supreme People's Assembly that praised his "outstanding ideological and theoretical wisdom and experienced and seasoned leadership". Experts say the new appointments may be a sign of Kim's desire to keep recent months of up-and-down nuclear diplomacy alive rather than returning to the threats and weapons tests that characterised 2017, when many feared war on the Korean Peninsula. SHAH ALAM, April 1 -- The Vietnamese woman accused of murdering the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was sentenced to three years and four months' jail on Monday (April 1) after pleading guilty to a lesser charge. Doan Thi Huong, 30, will likely be freed in May because her prison time could be reduced by a third due to good behaviour. Her lawyer Hisyam Teh Poh Teik told reporters in the Shah Alam High Court: "According to prison procedures, all prisoners are entitled to one-third remission (of their sentence). So by our calculations, she would be released on the 4th of May.” Huong escaped the death penalty after Malaysian prosecutors offered an alternative charge, under Section 324 of the Penal Code, of causing hurt. This charge carries a maximum punishment of 10 years in prison. Wearing a headscarf and a white sweater, Huong looked on in disbelief and growing relief as the court proceedings unfolded. In a short statement through her translator, she thanked the court, the Attorney-General, prosecutors, lawyers and the Vietnamese government. She told reporters that she would like to pursue acting and singing once she was freed. “I’m very happy. I want (to) sing and act.” Her lawyer told the court that she had been honest both on her reasons for coming to Malaysia and during police investigations. “She is neither a criminal nor has a propensity to commit a crime,” Mr Hisyam said, citing her background. Her father is a war veteran and a stall owner. She is the youngest of five children. “However, she was naive and gullible," he said, adding that her weaknesses had been exploited to carry out the murder "under the camouflage of funny videos and pranks”. Prosecutor Muhamad Iskandar Ahmad had urged the court to take into account the seriousness of the offence and public interest of the case in sentencing. “It’s clear (from the airport CCTV) after the accused wiped the face of the deceased, she just walked off. From there, we can see the conduct of the accused,” Mr Iskandar said. Judge Azmi Ariffin called Huong a "very lucky person" as he pronounced the verdict. "First of all, Ms Doan, I must say that you are a very lucky person today. "I say lucky because from a murder charge under Section 302 that comes with mandatory death penalty, the prosecution offered a charge under Section 324 with maximum sentence of only 10 years, with fine, whipping, or any two. However the Criminal Procedural Code says that female cannot be whipped, so a whipping sentence cannot be given." The decision came two weeks after her co-accused, Indonesian Siti Aisyah, was unexpectedly released on March 11. Huong had been accused alongside Ms Aisyah, 27, of killing Mr Kim Jong Nam by smearing VX nerve agent on his face at Kuala Lumpur airport in February 2017, in a brazen Cold War-style hit that shocked the world. The women had denied murder, saying they believed they were taking part in a prank for a reality show and were tricked by North Korean agents into carrying out the hit. The two women spent nearly two years in custody. Huong had been scheduled to testify for the first time on March 12. However, the trial was postponed after the court found her to be “mentally and physically” unfit when she learnt that the application for her release was rejected. Her lawyers accused the Malaysian government of “discrimination”, as both women had put up a similar defence before Malaysia’s High Court. Reports said Indonesian government had lobbied hard for Ms Aisyah’s release. A letter from Malaysia’s Attorney-General Tommy Thomas to Indonesian Minister of Law and Human Rights Yasonna Laoly said the charges against Ms Aisyah were dropped after “taking into account the good relations” between the two countries. SEOUL, March 10 -- North Koreans go to the polls Sunday for an election in which there can be only one winner. Leader Kim Jong Un's ruling Workers' Party has an iron grip on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, as the isolated, nuclear-armed country is officially known. But every five years it holds an election for the rubber stamp legislature, known as the Supreme People's Assembly. And in keeping with one of Pyongyang's most enduring slogans -- "Single-minded unity" -- there is only one approved name on each of the ballot papers. Voters have the opportunity to cross it out before casting their ballot, but in practice that is unknown. Turnout last time was 99.97 percent, according to the official KCNA news agency –- only those who were abroad or "working in oceans" did not take part. And the vote was 100 percent in favour of the named candidates. "We regard all the people in our country as one family so we will unite with one mind and we will vote for the agreed candidate," Socialist Women's Union official Song Yang Ran, 57, told AFP ahead of this year's poll. Ordinary North Koreans always express total support for the authorities when speaking to foreign media. "Our system is the best," Song said when asked her opinion of elections that have several names on the ballot paper. "We acknowledge no one but the Supreme Leader," she added, referring to Kim Jong Un. "And we will hold the respected Marshal in high esteem forever." Ritual exercise With a total absence of electoral competition, analysts say the vote is held largely as a political rite to enable the authorities to claim a mandate from the people. It was the result of "established institutional inertia and a need to legitimise the government by simulating democratic procedure", said Andrei Lankov of Korea Risk Group. Soviet-style Communist states had a long tradition of holding general elections, he said, even if the ruling party ignored its own rules about holding regular congresses –- something the North skipped for more than 30 years. "North Korea is just emulating all other Communist states," he said. "The early Communists sincerely believed that they were producing a democracy the world had never seen. So they needed elections and it became a very important part of self-legitimisation." The last significant government of a major country to dispense with elections altogether was Nazi Germany, he pointed out. The North is divided into constituencies for the vote –- there were 686 at the last election in 2014, when Kim stood in Mount Paektu, a dormant volcano on the border with China revered as the spiritual birthplace of the Korean people. He received a 100 percent turnout and 100 percent in favour according to KCNA. Some of the seats are allocated to two minor parties, the Korean Social Democratic Party and the Chondoist Chongdu Party, which has its roots in a 20th century Korean religious movement. They are both in a formal alliance with the ruling party and analysts and diplomats say they exist largely on paper, with only small central offices maintained for propaganda purposes. Even so, participation in the poll, like other "obligatory rituals" in the North, does reinforce loyalty to the government and social unity, Lankov said, "because humans love symbolism". In an article headlined "Superior Election System of DPRK", KCNA said the vote was an important occasion "displaying the solidity and invincibility of the socialist system in which the leader, the party and the masses form a harmonious whole". PYONGYANG, March 4 -- A ship with humanitarian aid from Russia carrying more than 2,000 tonnes of wheat has arrived in the North Korean port of Chongjin, the Russian Embassy in Pyongyang reported. "Over the weekend, the staff of the Russian Consulate General in Chongjin visited the city port where a ceremony to receive humanitarian aid from Russia was held. Consul General Yuri Bochkarev inspected the cargo (2,092 tonnes of wheat), after which he climbed aboard the ship and talked with the captain and crew," the embassy said. According to the Russian diplomatic mission, only half of the humanitarian cardo was unloaded in Chongjin, while the rest will be transported to the city of Hungnam. HANOI, February 28 -- The White House says no joint agreement was reached between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at their second summit in Hanoi. “No agreement was reached at this time, but their respective teams look forward to meeting in the future,” press secretary Sarah Sanders wrote in a statement. Sanders added: “President Donald J. Trump of the United States and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea had very good and constructive meetings in Hanoi, Vietnam, on February 27-28, 2019." White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the two leaders "had very good and constructive meetings" and "discussed various ways to advance denuclearization and economic driven concepts," but that "no agreement was reached at this time." The two leaders had been scheduled to hold a signing ceremony Thursday afternoon in Hanoi for an expected deal. But the event was called off less than two hours before it was supposed to take place, and Trump moved up his departure time from Vietnam. Trump had spent the morning setting expectations for the event, repeatedly stressing that he was "in no rush" to force North Korea to denuclearize. "Speed is not that important to me as long as there’s no testing," Trump said Thursday morning in Vietnam, referencing Pyongyang's halt of missile tests. At one point, Trump reiterated the phrase "no rush" several times in a row. "Over the years, I’m sure we’ll be together a lot,” he added. In a startling moment, Kim even responded to reporters' questions about his intentions and predictions for the summit. “It’s too early to tell, but I wouldn’t say I’m pessimistic,” he said through a translator, perhaps answering a foreign journalist's question for the first time. “From what I feel right now I do have a feeling that good results will come out." HANOI, Februari 27 -- US President Donald Trump shook hands with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the start of their second summit Wednesday, saying the totalitarian state could enjoy a brilliant future if it gives up nuclear weapons. Trump predicted a "very successful" summit as the pair prepared for dinner at the luxury Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi to follow up on their initial historic meeting in Singapore in June. In a brief sit-down ahead of one-on-one talks, Trump repeated his view that North Korea had "tremendous" economic potential. For his part, Kim pledged to do his "best" to achieve an outcome that "will be welcomed by all people." They were due to open with about 20 minutes of head-to-head talks before sitting around a table with only a handful of top advisers. Negotiations were then scheduled to resume on Thursday. Earlier, Trump sent a tweet touting North Korea's "AWESOME" potential if his "friend" Kim agrees to relinquish his weapons. The president risks being distracted by scandal back in Washington, where his former lawyer Michael Cohen was set to describe him as a "conman" in bombshell testimony to Congress scheduled for shortly after the summit dinner ends on the other side of the world. But Trump, seeking a big foreign policy win to push back against domestic troubles, believes he can make history with North Korea -- and claims Japan's prime minister has already nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize. His goal is to persuade Kim to dismantle his nuclear weapons and resolve a stand-off with the totalitarian state that has bedevilled US leaders since the end of the Korean war in 1953. To lure Kim into radical change, Trump is believed to be considering offering a formal peace declaration -- though perhaps not a formal treaty -- to draw a line under the technically still unfinished war. WASHINGTON, February 24 -- US President Donald Trump has welcomed sanctions imposed by Russia and China on the border with North Korea. "The last thing China wants are large scale nuclear weapons right next door. Sanctions placed on the border by China and Russia have been very helpful," Trump tweeted on Sunday. The US president blogged that he is leaving for Hanoi, Vietnam, early on Monday to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. "’We both expect a continuation of the progress made at first Summit in Singapore. Denuclearization?" the president wrote, adding that he has "great relationship with Chairman Kim". According to the US president, Kim Jong Un "realizes, perhaps better than anyone else, that without nuclear weapons, his country could fast become one of the great economic powers anywhere in the World." "Because of its location and people (and him), it has more potential for rapid growth than any other nation!" he wrote in his Twitter account. Trump also hailed Chinese President Xi Jinping for helping to organize a second US-North Korea summit, due next week. On June 12, Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un held a historic meeting - the first-ever between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader - in Singapore. They signed a joint statement, pledging to implement the stipulations in the document fully and expeditiously. North Korea committed to work towards denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in return for security guarantees from the United States. PYONGYANG, February 23 -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has started his train journey from Pyongyang to Hanoi (Vietnam), where he is set to meet with US President Donald Trump next week. The source informed that around 17:00 local time (11:00 Moscow time), the North Korean leader left for Hanoi in an armored train. He is expected to travel all the way to Vietnam by train, passing China. The total distance between Pyongyang and Hanoi surpasses 4,500 kilometers. The North Korean leader’s trip is expected to last for over 48 hours. Earlier, Trump announced that he would meet with Kim Jong Un for the second time in Vietnam's capital Hanoi on February 27-28. The first summit between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump took place in Singapore on June 12, 2018. The parties signed a joint document, in which Pyongyang committed to denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula in return for US security guarantees. BEIJING , February 22 -- North Korea says it is facing a food shortage for 2019 that will require rations be reduced by almost half for its citizens. The country revealed the information to the United Nations in a two-page memo, although the document is not dated. However, the information comes a week before North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meets with U.S. President Donald Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam. The summit will be the second between the two nations. The memo says that the country produced 503,000 tons less of food in 2018 as compared to 2017. The country estimates that its food shortage will equal 1.4 million tons in 2019. Kim Song, North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations, wrote the memo. Song said the combination of high temperatures, drought and typhoons, as well as sanctions against the country are to blame for the shortage. The memo, issued from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), North Korea's official name, urges the United Nations to provide assistance. “The DPRK government calls on international organizations to urgently respond to addressing the food situation,” the memo says. North Korea plans to import 200,000 pounds of food and grow roughly 400,000 pounds of crops, but a gap still remains in supplying food for the country. Because of the gap, North Korea said in the memo that it planned to reduce food rations by 10.5 ounces for a "family of blue or white collar workers," going from 1.2 pounds (550 grams) of food per day to 0.66 pounds (300 grams) per day. The ration reductions were scheduled to begin in January. According to a March 2018 report from the United Nations, 10.3 million people — nearly half the population of the country — are in need. Of those people, 41 percent are undernourished. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that UN officials and other aid groups were working with North Korean officials "in order to take early action to address their humanitarian needs" for the country's "most vulnerable people." The memo says that sanctions issued against North Korea have contributed to the shortage by “restricting the delivery of farming materials in need." “All in all, it vindicates that humanitarian assistance from the UN agencies is terribly politicized and how barbaric and inhuman sanctions are,” the memo reads. Data to verify the claims made in the memo are hard to come by, though the United Nations did confirm that the numbers in the memo match what the country reported at the end of January. Several experts have said that the memo could be a negotiating ploy for Kim ahead of the summit with Trump. “Just look at the way the letter is worded. They want to make it sound like sanctions equals starvation so the U.S. should really be benevolent and give them up,” Benjamin Silberstein, co-editor of North Korean Economy Watch and an associate scholar at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said. Sue Mi Terry, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former CIA analyst that tracked North Korea, echoed Silberstein. WASHINGTON, February 6 -- President Trump announced on Tuesday that he will sit down with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, at the end of this month in Vietnam, a country chosen as a neutral location for their second nuclear summit meeting, but one that also has plenty of symbolic significance. Mr. Trump hopes the meeting will jump-start a diplomatic effort that has stalled since their first encounter, last June in Singapore. While North Korea since then has refrained from overtly provocative actions like testing nuclear warheads or ballistic missiles, it has yet to agree to actually give up any piece of its atomic arsenal. “If I had not been elected president of the United States, we would right now, in my opinion, be in a major war with North Korea,” Mr. Trump said in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. “Much work remains to be done, but my relationship with Kim Jong-un is a good one. Chairman Kim and I will meet again on February 27 and 28 in Vietnam.” Mr. Trump disclosed the location in an interview last week with The New York Times, but aides asked that it not be immediately reported, citing security concerns. BEIJING, February 4 -- The presidents of China and the United States are considering meeting in Vietnam on February 27 and 28, according to a source familiar with the discussions. The source said President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump may meet in the coastal city of Da Nang, where they are expected to continue pushing to resolve the trade dispute between the two nations. The meeting was mentioned by Trump when a Chinese trade delegation was in Washington this week for talks. Trump said he looked forward to meeting Xi once or twice to conclude a trade deal. No details of arrangements for those meetings were revealed, and the Chinese foreign ministry said only that Xi was willing to keep in touch with Trump through various means. Washington is also preparing for a second summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in late February. Trump said he would announce the date and location for the meeting with Kim early next week, possibly during his State of the Union address scheduled for Tuesday. Several locations were suggested for the summit, including Da Nang. Earlier, when asked if he would consider meeting Xi during his next visit to Asia, Trump said he was “thinking about it”. “There’s a possibility we’ll meet somewhere,” Trump told reporters on Friday. “Whether it’s there, I’m over in a certain location I’ll be over in a certain location as you know.” The Wall Street Journal reported that during the meeting at the Oval Office on Thursday, the Chinese delegation proposed a meeting with Xi on the island of Hainan after Trump’s summit with Kim. Jin Canrong, the associate dean of international studies at Renmin University in Beijing, said Beijing would prefer to host the Xi-Trump summit on Chinese territory. “It’s a bilateral issue which has nothing to do with a third country,” Jin said, “China has made great compromises on trade issues and if Trump does travel to East Asia, it would be ideal if he could drop by in Hainan.” Jin also noted that Beijing may not want to complicate the trade talks by discussing North Korean denuclearisation, where little progress has been made since Trump and Kim’s first meeting in June. Despite sharp falls in bilateral trade last year because of the UN sanctions, China remains North Korea’s top trading partner and a close ally, Kim’s most recent meeting with Xi earlier last month, his fourth over the past year, was seen by some observers as a sign that Kim may be seeking to use his links with Beijing as a bargaining chip in his next meeting with Trump. SEOUL, January 12 -- Chinese President Xi Jinping is highly likely to visit North Korea in April, followed by a visit to South Korea in May, the Korean Herald reported, citing South Korea's ruling party leader. "It seems like Chinese President Xi Jinping is slated to visit North Korea in April, and there is a high possibility that he will visit South Korea in May," Democratic Party leader Lee Hae-chan was quoted as saying on Friday (Jan 11) during a meeting with new presidential chief of staff Noh Young-min upon his courtesy call on the National Assembly. "A summit between China and North Korea, followed by a second US-North Korea summit and inter-Korean summit will foster peace in North-east Asia," Lee said. Lee added the leaders of the countries appear likely to meet frequently in the first half of the year. He also said the path for inter-Korea economic exchanges and cooperation is now visible, which could revitalise the economy. Xi had met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Beijing this week, which was their fourth summit meeting, during the latter's four-day visit to the Chinese capital. China is considered the best buffer North Korea has against US pressure and sanctions as Kim prepares for a second meeting with Trump. He also consulted with Xi before and after his first meeting with Trump, which took place in Singapore in June. The June meeting produced a vaguely worded agreement to "work towards complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula" and "new" relations between North Korea and the United States, which have been adversaries for seven decades. But talks have since stalled over how to implement the Singapore deal. Washington wants North Korea to start dismantling its nuclear facilities and weapons, while the North has demanded that the United States first build trust with corresponding measures, starting with the easing of sanctions. When Xi met Kim on Tuesday, the Chinese leader urged North Korea and the United States to meet each other "in the middle" BEIJING, January 8 -- Kim Jong Un is visiting China from January 7 to 10. At the invitation of Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and Chinese president, Kim Jong Un, chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea and chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is visiting China, a spokesperson said on Tuesday. Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of Workers' Party of Korea, reported that Kim is accompanied by Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho and a senior party official charged with negotiations with the United States, Kim Yong Chol. South Korea hailed the visit, expressing hope that it would have a positive effect on denuclearization and peace process on the Korean Peninsula, the country’s Yonhap news agency reported. "The government expects that high-level exchanges between the North and China, including a meeting between Chairman Kim Jong-un and President Xi Jinping, will be able to contribute to the complete denuclearization and establishment of permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula," a foreign ministry official told the agency, adding it's the government's formal response. The diplomat added that his country would continue its efforts to foster the denuclearization process and will assist diplomatic activities involving Seoul and Pyongyang, with the participation of other regional powers. Meanwhile, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported that the leaders of China and North Korea were expected to meet in person during the visit. Chinese Foreign Ministry’s official spokesman Lu Kang said on January 3 that the top-level Chinese-North Korean meeting in 2019 may have a positive effect on peace and stability worldwide, and China expects it to be a success. A historic meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore on June 12, 2018, yielded a joint document where North Korea undertook a commitment to work towards denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in exchange for security guarantees from the United States. Besides, the US president vowed to stop holding joint military drills with South Korea near the North Korean border. |
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