Wanderlust

Tag: Rodong Sinmun

  • North Korean media silent on Mike Pompeo meeting in New York

    Domestic political pressure on Kim Jong-un to move slowly in denuclearization talks with the U.S. is so intense that North Korean state media is avoiding any mention of the high-level meeting the nati

    Domestic political pressure on Kim Jong-un to move slowly in denuclearization talks with the U.S. is so intense that North Korean state media is avoiding any mention of the high-level meeting the nation’s foreign minister had with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week in New York.

    Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of Mr. Kim’s ruling Workers’ Party, ran a report Tuesday featuring a long list of meetings Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho had with others on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly — including with Chinese, Russian, Swiss, Kazakh, Venezuelan and other officials.

    But, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, the Rodong report neglected to point out Mr. Ri’s direct talks with Mr. Pompeo on Sept. 26, after which the secretary of state revealed that he had accepted an invitation to personally visit to Pyongyang in the weeks ahead to plan for a second summit between President Trump and Mr. Kim.

    The North Korean state newspaper also avoided any mention of talks that Mr. Ri had in New York with Taro Kono, the foreign minister of Japan, a close ally in the Trump administration’s ongoing push to get the Kim regime to abandon its nuclear weapons.

    Analysts say the denuclearization issue is sensitive for the regime because Mr. Kim’s father and grandfather spent decades staking their own legacies on developing the North Korean nuclear program.

    That Mr. Kim might now destroy the program — even if he did so in exchange for sanctions relief — is apparently deemed so risky by the 35-year-old dictator’s advisers that they’re downplaying progress the ongoing denuclearization talks.

    After stalling during the late summer, the talks have appeared to gain fresh momentum in recent weeks, following a three-day, mid-September summit in Pyongyang between Mr. Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

    Mr. Pompeo wrote on Twitter last week that he’d had a “very positive” subsequent meeting with Mr. Ri in New York.

  • North Korea praises Donald Trump’s ‘enthusiasm’ after historic summit

    North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is praising President Trump’s “realistic” approach to negotiations with Pyongyang, North Korea’s leading state-run newspaper reported Wednesday after the landmark summi

    North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is praising President Trump’s “realistic” approach to negotiations with Pyongyang, North Korea’s leading state-run newspaper reported Wednesday after the landmark summit between the two leaders.

    Mr. Kim “highly praised the president’s will and enthusiasm to resolve matters in a realistic way through dialogue and negotiations, away from the hostility-woven past,” the newspaper Rodong Sinmun reported in extensive coverage of the summit.

    The paper also reported that Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump “gladly accepted each other’s invitation” to visit Pyongyang and Washington, respectively, in follow-up meetings from the denuclearization summit.

    At their meeting in Singapore, Mr. Kim pledged the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula, although the agreement lacks details of how that could be achieved.

    The coverage in the state-run paper, including 33 images of Mr. Trump, Mr. Kim and others at the summit, praised the “will of the top leaders of the two countries to put an end to the extreme hostile relations between the DPRK and the U.S.”

    According to a summary in NK News, the coverage in North Korea highlighted Mr. Trump’s promise to end joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises, but didn’t mention Mr. Kim’s promise to destroy a major missile-engine test site in North Korea.

    Mr. Trump, who returned to the White House Wednesday morning, said as a result of the summit, “everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office.”

    “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea,” he tweeted. “Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!”

    Democrats are scoffing at the president’s assessment.

    “This is truly delusional,” tweeted Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Maryland Democrat. “It [North Korea] has same arsenal today as 48 hours ago. Does he really think his big photo-op ended the [North Korea‘s] nuclear program? Hope does not equal reality.”