Tag: North Korea

North Korea’s Kim and South’s Moon shake hands over demarcation line

  by Sunghee Hwang Agence France Presse SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the South’s President Moon Jae-in shook hands Friday over the Military Demarcation Line that divides their countries in a gesture laden with symbolism ahead of a historic summit. “I am happy to meet you,” Moon told Kim before the visitor stepped over the line, making him the first North Korean leader to set foot in the […]

Kim, Moon set off for historic Korea summit

by Sunghee Hwang Agence France Press SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — The leaders of North and South Korea set off Friday towards the Demilitarized Zone that divides their countries for a historic summit, the highest-level encounter yet in a recent whirlwind of nuclear diplomacy. The meeting on the southern side of the truce village of Panmunjom — only the third of its kind since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War — is intended to […]

JUST IN: Moon and Kim to meet at military demarcation line Friday — Seoul

  SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korean President Moon Jae-in and the North’s leader Kim Jong Un will meet at the Military Demarcation Line that divides the peninsula for their summit Friday, Seoul said, in an occasion laden with symbolism. Moon will greet his visitor at the concrete blocks that mark the border between the two Koreas in the Demilitarized Zone, the chief of the South’s presidential secretariat Im Jong-seok said.

Inter-Korean summit chairs to feature disputed islands

SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korea has custom-made furniture for Friday’s summit between President Moon Jae-in and the North’s leader Kim Jong Un — with chairs featuring disputed islands controlled by Seoul but claimed by Tokyo. One thing the rival Koreas share is a resentment of Japan, which imposed a brutal colonial rule on the peninsula from 1910 to 1945, and the gesture is likely to irritate Tokyo. Japan has already lodged a strong […]

Kim and Moon: the heir born to rule and the escapee’s son

by Jung Hawon and Sebastien Berger Agence France Presse SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the South’s President Moon Jae-in have followed paths to power as radically different as their two countries, but they will come together at a summit in the Demilitarized Zone on Friday. Moon’s parents were both born in a small village in Hungnam, in what is now North Korea, and his father Moon Yong-hyung graduated […]

N. Korean leader’s ‘bitter sorrow’ after fatal China tourist crash

SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un visited China’s embassy in Pyongyang to express his “bitter sorrow” after a bus crash killed dozens of Chinese tourists, state media reported early Tuesday. Thirty-two Chinese tourists and four North Koreans were killed when a bus plunged from a bridge in North Korea late Sunday, according to Chinese officials. In a rare admission of negative news from North Korea’s tightly controlled propaganda network, the […]

S. Korea’s Moon lauds North’s test halt as ‘significant’

SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Monday praised the declaration of a moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests by the North’s leader Kim Jong Un, days before a summit between the two men. Pyongyang’s move was “a significant decision towards total denuclearization of the Korean peninsula”, Moon said in a meeting with aides. Kim declared that Pyongyang had no further need for nuclear tests or intercontinental ballistic missile launches, and […]

S. Korea halts border broadcasts ahead of Kim summit

SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korea’s military on Monday switched off giant loudspeakers blasting messages towards the North’s soldiers at the border, in a conciliatory gesture ahead of Friday’s historic inter-Korea summit. The South has long broadcast a mix of news, music and propaganda messages urging the North’s soldiers to defect through huge speakers along the heavily-fortified border, with operations varying depending on the swings of volatile inter-Korea ties. The North plays propaganda of […]

Trump: US has conceded ‘nothing’ to N.Korea

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — President Donald Trump asserted Sunday that North Korea has agreed to “denuclearization” and a halt to testing while the United States had so far conceded “nothing” in return. North Korea pledged this week to halt nuclear and missile tests as the two countries prepare for a summit between Kim Jong Un and Trump but have not committed to giving up its nuclear weapons — which Pyongyang views as a shield […]

Kim heralds more N. Korea economic reforms: analysts

by Sebastien Berger © Agence France-Presse SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s promise to build “socialist economic construction” in his nuclear-armed but impoverished and isolated country could herald more Chinese-style economic reforms, according to analysts — but he will never explicitly say so. Alongside the declaration Saturday that the North had completed the development of its nuclear arsenal and no more atomic or missile tests were needed, Kim proclaimed that the […]

North Korea’s nuclear declaration: what it does and does not mean

  SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has declared an end to the nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests that sent tensions soaring on the peninsula, in the region, and beyond. The move, enshrined in a decision by the ruling Workers’ Party, comes ahead of a summit with the South’s President Moon Jae-in next week, and with a much-anticipated meeting with US President Donald Trump due later. But it is only […]

Japan’s Abe welcomes N. Korea pledge, but defense chief vows pressure

TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Saturday cautiously welcomed North Korea’s pledge to halt nuclear tests and intercontinental missile launches but its defense minister warned Tokyo will continue to put maximum pressure on Pyongyang. “We welcome it as a forward-looking move… but an important thing is whether the move will lead to the complete abandonment of missile and nuclear developments in a verifiable and irreversible manner,” Abe told reporters. “We want to […]