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Tag: North Korea

  • BREAKING: North Korea releases three jailed Americans

    North Korea has released three Americans jailed in the country, President Donald Trump has indicated.

    The release comes ahead of the planned meeting between President Trump and the North Korean leader.

    The three were released to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

    “I am pleased to inform you that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in the air and on his way back from North Korea with the 3 wonderful gentlemen that everyone is looking so forward to meeting. They seem to be in good health. Also, good meeting with Kim Jong Un. Date & Place set,” Mr Trump said on his official Twitter handle.

     

    Details later…

  • North korea leader makes second visit to China

    North korea leader makes second visit to China

    North Korean leader Kim Jong Un paid a second visit to China to hold talks with President Xi Jinping. The meeting comes ahead of the planned summit between Kim and Donald Trump.

    North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and China’s Xi Jinping have held a two-day meeting this week in the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian, official state media from both countries reported on Tuesday.

    It marks the second meeting between the two leaders in recent weeks, following Kim’s first official visit to Beijing in March, his first since taking power in 2011.

    According to China’s official Xinhua news agency, Xi and Kim discussed bilateral issues, with the Chinese president expressing his support of a historic planned meeting between Kim and US President Donald Trump.

    Chinese state media broadcast pictures of Xi and Kim meeting outdoors and walking together along Dalian’s waterfront.

    North Korea has been very cautious over coverage of Kim’s summits, choosing to only feature them a day or two after they are over and he was returned back to Pyongyang.

    -Trump welcomes warming relations-

    Shortly after details of the meeting, Trump said that he himself would be holding talks with Xi later on Tuesday. Trump tweeted that they would discuss trade, an area where “good things are happening,” as well as North Korea, “where relationships and trust are building.”

    Trump scheduled summit with Kim is expected to take place late May or early June, according to the White House, although the date and time have yet to be announced.

    -North Korea’s denuclearization pledge-

    A series of fast developments has seen North Korea go from belligerent nuclear power, to pledging to shut down its nuclear weapons facilities.

    China is North Korea’s only major ally, but relations between the two sides plummeted earlier this year as Pyongyang continued to conduct a series of nuclear missile tests. In response, Beijing enforced United Nations economic sanctions that crippled large parts of the North Korean economy.

    Kim has since taken his country in a historic new direction by pledging to rebuild relations with the North’s regional neighbors, including South Korea.

    Xinhua reports Kim was quoted as telling Xi he hoped that all parties involved in the denuclearization efforts would take “phased” and “synchronized” measures to ensure lasting peace on the Korean peninsula.

    “So long as relevant parties eliminate hostile policies and security threats toward North Korea, North Korea has no need for nuclear (capacity), and denuclearization can be realized,” Chinese media cited Kim as saying.

    Last month saw the leaders of North and South Korea hold a historic summit their shared border, where they vowed to negotiate a peace treaty to replace the shaky truce agreement that has left the peninsula divided since the Korean War.

     

  • North Korea leader vows to shut down nuclear test site

    North Korea has vowed to shut down its nuclear test site in Punggye-ri next month, the South Korean presidential office said on Sunday.

    North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae In agreed to publicly announce when Pyongyang dismantles the test site in May, and Kim said he would invite security experts and journalists to North Korea to ensure the process is transparent.

    “The US is constitutionally averse to North Korea, but through dialogue, it will become apparent that we have no intention to target South Korea, the Pacific Ocean or the US with nuclear weapons,” the North Korean leader said during his meeting on Friday with Moon, according to Moon’s chief press secretary Yoon Young Chan.

    “If we are able to build trust with the US through frequent meetings, and promises to end war, and practice a policy of non-aggression, there’s no reason for us to live a hard life with nuclear weapons,” Kim reportedly went on to say.

    “We will not repeat the painful history that is the Korean War, and I assure you that military force will not be used under any circumstance,” said Kim, according to Yoon.

    Kim also reportedly said North Korea would unify its time zone with South Korea. Seoul is currently 30 minutes ahead of Pyongyang.

    “I feel sad to see that there are two clocks hung on the wall in the Peace House, one for Seoul time and the other for Pyongyang time,” Kim said.

    On Saturday, US President Donald Trump said that he expects a meeting with Kim could take place in “the next three, four weeks,” capping a week that focussed largely on the Korean conflict.

    “Whatever happens, happens,” Trump said of the prospective meeting with the North Korean leader.

    “Look, I may go in. It may not work out. I leave,” Trump said Saturday at a campaign-style rally in Michigan.

    Earlier Saturday, Trump said he had “a long and very good talk” with Moon, one day after Moon and Kim signed an agreement to pursue a nuclear-free peninsula and an official end to the Korean War.

    “Things are going very well,” Trump said in a tweet, adding that a time and location for his own meeting with the North Korean leader “is being set.”

    The White House confirmed the phone call. The two leaders agreed that “unprecedented pressure” applied by the US, South Korea and the international community had led to what it termed “this significant moment,” according to a White House statement.

    Meanwhile, new US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Kim was serious about getting rid of his country’s nuclear weapons.

    Kim is “prepared to … lay out a map that would help us achieve” denuclearization, Pompeo told ABC News This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

    “I had a clear mission statement from President Trump,” Pompeo said of his recent talks with Kim. “When I left, Kim Jong Un understood the mission exactly as I described it today.”

    Pompeo says the administration’s objective is “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization” with North Korea.

    Trump and Moon agreed on this objective, the White House statement added.

    Trump said he spoke by phone with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe “to inform him of the ongoing negotiations,” and the Pentagon said US Secretary of Defence James Mattis spoke with South Korean Defence Minister Song Young-moo.

    The White House said Trump and Abe affirmed their commitment to achieving “the permanent and verifiable denuclearization of North Korea” and to continuing their close coordination in advance of talks between the United States and North Korea.

    They also reiterated the need for North Korea to abandon all weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programmes, according to a White House statement.

    The conversations between the US and Asian leaders came as the governments of Iran and Russia reacted to Friday’s historic inter-Korean Summit.

    Iran warned the leaders of North and South Korea to keep Trump out of their reconciliation efforts.

    “The American government has shown with the Iran nuclear deal that it does not hold to international agreements and is therefore not trustworthy,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghassemi said in Tehran.

    Trump has complained bitterly about the 2015 deal, which aims to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. He has threatened to effectively withdraw from it next month unless its “flaws” are reworked.

    Pompeo said Friday on his first full day as secretary of state that the United States is “unlikely” to stick with the deal unless shortcomings of the agreement are addressed.

    Russia also weighed in on the talks on the Korean peninsula, saying it is eager and open to participate in discussions.

    Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulow told Russia’s Interfax news agency that the traditional six-party format composed of Russia, China, the United States, Japan and both Koreas is optimal and without alternative.

    North and South Korea agreed at the summit to pursue trilateral talks with the US, or quadrilateral meetings with the US and China, to declare an end to the Korean War, turn the armistice into a peace treaty and establish “a permanent and solid peace regime.”

    The thaw this year follows a tense 2017, in which multiple missile tests by North Korea prompted an international outcry and an exchange of insults between Trump and Kim.

    Trump now credits his tough talk and the relationship he has built with Chinese President Xi Jinping for bringing about changes in Kim’s posture.

    The US president also says that “maximum pressure,” including sanctions and other modes of economic isolation, will continue until North Korea completes denuclearization.

    dpa

  • BREAKING: Kim Jong Un becomes first North Korean leader to enter South Korea

    (more…)

  • Trump excited as North Korea suspends nuclear, missile tests

    U.S. President Donald Trump has shown excitement at the decision of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un to suspend all nuclear and missile tests.
    Trump tweeted shortly after the announcement from Pyongyang that Kim has declared that he would suspend nuclear and missile tests starting from Saturday and that he would shut down the site where the previous six nuclear tests were conducted.
    Trump tweeted: “North Korea has agreed to suspend all Nuclear Tests and close up a major test site.
    “This is very good news for North Korea and the World – big progress! Look forward to our Summit”.
    North Korea’s KCNA reported that Kim said the regime no longer needs nuclear tests or intercontinental ballistic missile tests.
    “Under the proven condition of complete nuclear weapons, we no longer need any nuclear tests, mid-range and intercontinental ballistic rocket tests, and that the nuclear test site in northern area has also completed its mission,” KCNA quoted Kim as saying.
    The surprising announcement came just six days before Kim is set to meet South Korean President Moon Jae-in, preparatory to a historic summit between Kim and Trump.
    Trump is set to meet Kim at the end of May or beginning of June, however, a location has not yet been set.
    Next Friday, Kim will cross the Military Demarcation Line that has divided the peninsula since the end of the Korean War in 1953, becoming the first North Korean leader to do so since then.
    He would step into “Peace House” on the southern side of the line to meet Moon, with their encounter being broadcast live.
    Moon signaled this week that everything was on the table at the meeting.
    “North Korea is expressing its intention for complete denuclearisation and it is not making demands that the U.S. cannot accept, such as the withdrawal of the U.S. forces in Korea,” Moon said on Thursday.
    The U.S. military has 28,000 troops stationed in South Korea, with back-ups in Japan and on Guam – the legacy of the standoff that has ensued since the Korean War ended in an armistice in 1953.

  • South Korean president endorses North Korea’s demand for signing peace treaty

    South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Thursday expressed his support for the North’s long-time demand to sign a full-fledged peace treaty instead of the Korean Armistice Agreement concluded in 1953 after the end of the Korean war.

    “We should put an end to the armistice that has lasted for 65 years and move toward signing a peace treaty trough the declaration of the end of war,’’ Moon told newsmen.

    The president noted that the upcoming inter-Korean summit was a “dramatic change.”

    “Through the inter-Korean summit, we must create a milestone in the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, establish permanent peace and develop sustainable inter-Korean relations.

    “It should also prompt the success of the North Korea-U.S. summit,’’ Moon said.

    On March 5 and March 6, South Korea’s high-ranking delegation visited North Korea.

    Upon the delegation’s return, the South Korean presidential office announced that Seoul and Pyongyang had reached a historic agreement on holding the third ever summit of the countries’ leaders.

    The meeting between Moon and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is scheduled for April 27, and it will be followed by U.S. Donald Trump’s meeting with Kim, expected to take place at the end of May.

    South and North Korea remain legally at war, as no peace treaty was signed after the Korean War of 1950 to 1953.

    The 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement provided for a suspension of open hostilities and a fixed demarcation line with a buffer zone.

    North Korea has repeatedly announced that it would no longer abide by the armistice and called for replacing it with a peace treaty, stressing that the 1953 agreement was meant to be a transitional measure.

    However, tensions on the peninsula, as well as the North’s hesitation to take steps toward denuclearisation have curbed the talks on the issue.

  • North Korea will take part in next two Olympics – IOC chief

    North Korea will take part in the next two Olympic Games in Japan and China, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said on Saturday after meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang.

    Bach traveled to Pyongyang on Thursday in a visit that comes after North Korea’s participation in the Pyeongchang Winter Games helped ease tensions over the Korean peninsula.

    Speaking to reporters at Beijing airport upon his return, Bach said North Korea will participate in the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo and the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing.

    “This commitment was fully supported by the supreme leader of the DPRK in a very open and fruitful discussion I had with him yesterday,” Bach said, using the country’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
    “The IOC will make a proposal for a potential joint march or potential other joint activities for Tokyo and then maybe also for Beijing at the appropriate time,” he added.

    The North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Bach told Kim the trip was to “express the most heartfelt thanks” to North Korea’s leader for helping make February’s the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics a Games that were “symbolic of peace.”

    Athletes from North and South Korea marched under a unified peninsula flag at the opening ceremony in Pyeongchang, and the two Koreas have seen a significant thaw in tensions since.

    KCNA said Kim expressed thanks for the IOC’s support and for cooperating with North Korea “regardless of any political climate and conditions”.

    He said he hoped that the IOC’s relationship with the North’s Olympic Committee would continue to develop favorably and expected cooperation in developing and improving sport in North Korea, the report added.

    An official from South Korea’s Unification Ministry said it was aware of the KCNA’s report but declined to comment further.

    Bach had accepted North Korea’s invitation in February, and told Reuters at the time that he saw sports as a way to reduce political tensions.

    After Kim made a surprise trip this week to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, his engagement with the international community has sparked speculation he may try to meet other leaders ahead of summits with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and United States President Donald Trump.

    The two Koreas have experienced a significant easing in tensions since the Winter Olympics in South Korea in February, leading them to set a date to hold their first summit in more than a decade on April 27.

    Reuters

  • Washington wants peaceful solution to North Korea crisis – U.S. VP Pence

    Vice President Mike Pence said on Thursday that Washington wants to peacefully dismantle North Korea’s nuclear programme but warned Pyongyang not to underestimate U.S. military strength or resolve.

    “Our forces are ready and our nation is resolved,” Pence said in a speech to U.S. troops at the Yokota Air Base in Japan, as he prepared to fly to South Korea to attend the Winter Olympics.

    “The U.S. will always seek peace, we will ever strive for a better future, but you the instruments of American power know and let our adversaries know all options are on the table.

    “America stands strong with the proud and free people of South Korea and we always will,” said.

    Pence, who arrived in Japan on Tuesday to meet Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, is traveling to South Korea Thursday to attend the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics opening ceremony, just 80 km (50 miles) from the heavily armed border with North Korea.

    Two of North Korea’s most senior officials will also be there.

    On Wednesday Pence said Washington will soon impose its harshest-ever sanctions on Pyongyang.

    After a year of escalating rhetoric between the Pyongyang and Washington, tensions on the Korean peninsula have eased after the North’s leader Kim Jong Un said in a New Year’s address he was willing to open discussions with Seoul.

    Since then the North has agreed to take part in the South’s Winter Olympics with a combined women’s ice hockey team from both sides, and Kim Yo Jong, the 28-year-old sister of the North Korean leader, will attend the opening ceremony.

    South Korea wants to use the Olympics to re-engage with North Korea and open the way for talks to resolve one of the world’s most dangerous crises.

    North Korea last tested a missile in November, 2017.

    The intercontinental ballistic missile, the Hwasong-15, is believed to be capable of reaching the continental

    U.S., but the North is not yet believed to have the capability to mount a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile.

    In another development, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi said Beijing hopes North and South Korea can keep the momentum of interaction going and gradually open the door to peace on the peninsula.

    Yi was speaking at a briefing in Beijing a day before the Winter Olympic Games begin formally in Seoul, where North Korean athletes are set to compete.

    South Korea hopes the Games will be an opportunity to re-engage with the North and open the way for talks to resolve one of the world’s most dangerous crises.

     

  • Pope praises joint Korean Olympic teams

    Pope praises joint Korean Olympic teams

    Pope Francis said on Wednesday the participation of North Korean athletes in the Olympics raised hopes for reconciliation on the Korean peninsula and that the Vatican was ready to back any peace initiative.

    “The traditional Olympic truce acquires special importance this year,” he told pilgrims and tourists at his weekly general audience.

    Delegations from the two Koreas will march together under a single flag and athletes will compete as a single team in some sports at the Winter Games starting on Friday in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

    The Pontiff said: “this allows for hope for a world where conflicts can be resolved peacefully through dialogue and reciprocal respect, as sport teaches us to do.

    “May these Olympics be a great feast of friendship and sport.”

    He said that the Vatican was ready to back any “useful peace initiative that favors peace and encounter among peoples”.

    Francis has in the past called on all nations to support dialogue to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula and to work for a legally binding ban on nuclear weapons..

    In 2017, he said a third country, such as Norway, should try to mediate the dispute between North Korea and Washington, to cool a situation that had become “too hot” and posed the risk of nuclear devastation.

    The pope, who is a soccer fan, said he would be accompanying the Games with his prayers.

     

  • U.N. Security Council imposes new sanctions on North Korea over missile test

    The U.N. Security Council unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea on Friday for its recent intercontinental ballistic missile test, seeking to limit its access to refined petroleum products and crude oil and its earnings from workers abroad.

    The U.N. resolution seeks to ban nearly 90 percent of refined petroleum exports to North Korea by capping them at 500,000 barrels a year and, in a last-minute change, demands the repatriation of North Koreans working abroad within 24 months, instead of 12 months as first proposed.

    The U.S.-drafted resolution also caps crude oil supplies to North Korea at 4 million barrels a year and commits the Council to further reductions if it were to conduct another nuclear test or launch another ICBM.

    North Korea on Nov. 29 said it successfully tested a new ICBM that put the U.S. mainland within range of its nuclear weapons.

    Tension has been rising over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, which it pursues in defiance of years of U.N. Security Council resolutions, with bellicose rhetoric coming from both Pyongyang and the White House.

    In November, North Korea demanded a halt to what it called “brutal sanctions”, saying a round imposed after its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 3 constituted genocide.

    U.S. diplomats have made clear they are seeking a diplomatic solution but proposed the new, tougher sanctions resolution to ratchet up pressure on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

    “It sends the unambiguous message to Pyongyang that further defiance will invite further punishments and isolation,” Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said after the 15-0 vote.

    The North Korean mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Wu Haitao, China’s deputy U.N. ambassador, said tensions on the Korean peninsula risk “spiraling out of control” and he repeated Beijing’s call for talks.

    China’s foreign ministry said it hoped all parties would implement the resolution and urged all sides to exercise restraint.

    It also reiterated a call for what it calls a ”dual suspension” proposal for the United States and South Korea to stop major military exercises in exchange for North Korea halting its weapons programs.

    South Korea welcomed the sanctions and called on the North to “immediately cease reckless provocations, and take the path of dialogue for denuclearization”.

    North Korea regularly threatens to destroy South Korea, the United States and Japan, and says its weapons are necessary to counter U.S. aggression. The United States stations 28,500 troops in the South, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War.

    On Friday, North Korea called U.S. President Donald Trump’s recently released national security strategy the latest attempt to “stifle our country and turn the entire Korean peninsula” into an outpost of American hegemony.

     

    Reuters