Kim Jong Un in China? Speculation grows over ‘surprise visit’
There is growing speculation that the senior North Korean official who has arrived unexpectedly in Beijing on a diplomatic train is Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.
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Bloomberg cited three unnamed sources as saying the visitor was Kim Jong Un.
But according to the BBC, analysts speaking to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency said the official “could also be the Supreme Leader’s younger sister Kim Yo-jong, who recently made an appearance at the Winter Olympics in South Korea, or military official Choe Ryong-hae”.
“We have not confirmed yet who has travelled to Beijing,” said an official from the presidential office in Seoul. “We are carefully watching the situation... with all possibilities in mind.”
The manager of a shop outside Beijing railway station described seeing “unusual” scenes on Monday afternoon.
“There were a lot of police officers outside and along the road in front of the station. The station was blocked inside,” he told the AFP news agency.
Police also ushered tourists out of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, according to Reuters, which usually signals a high-level meeting in the Great Hall of the People there.
The delegation is thought to have returned to Pyongyang on Tuesday.
While Kim Jong Il was in power, “Chinese and North Korean official sources usually waited until after his return to Pyongyang before confirming he had been in China”, says Bloomberg.
Yoo Ho-yeol, a professor of North Korean studies at Korea University in Seoul, suggested to Sky News that the meeting was likely to represent a bid by Kim to “reaffirm close ties” with Beijing before a planned summit with US President Donald Trump.
He said: “If North Korea speaks with the US on its own it might feel it is at a disadvantage, but if it has China as an ally, Pyongyang may think it will be able to protect its interests and profits during the summits.”
Melissa Hanham, a researcher at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California, told Bloomberg that a rapprochement with China could be “more productive than a photo op between Trump and Kim in a few weeks”.
“North Korea is often perceived as an ungrateful junior brother [in China], but recent tensions and increased nuclear and missile capabilities mean China’s taking this seriously and doesn’t want to be left out of the process.”
21 March
South Korean president hints at three-way talks with US and North Korea
South Korean President Moon Jae-in has said a three-way meeting between his nation and the US and North Korea may be possible, depending on the outcomes of a series of upcoming summits.
“A North Korea-US summit would be a historic event in itself following an inter-Korean summit,” Moon said at the presidential Blue House, in Seoul, following a meeting of the Inter-Korean Summit Preparatory Committee.
“Depending on the location, it could be even more dramatic. And depending on progress, it may lead to a three-way summit between the South, North and the United States,” he added.
Moon has agreed to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in April - the first public meeting by Kim with a foreign head of state.
The goals of the upcoming negotiations will be denuclearisation and "permanent peace" on the Korean Peninsula, Moon said.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has said he will meet with Kim by the end of May, a plan that would make him the first-ever sitting US president to meet with a North Korean leader.
The two nations are still technically at war, following the ending of the Korean War in 1953 with a truce rather than a peace treaty.
The recent thawing in diplomatic relations began in the run-up to the Winter Olympics in South Korea last month, which “helped ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula”, reports Reuters.
However, officials and analysts remain unsure whether Kim’s offer indicates “a fundamental shift toward dismantling his nuclear arsenal” or whether it is “a short-term ploy” to create confusion and further advance his nuclear programme, says The New York Times.
16 March
North Korea’s foreign minister in Sweden for talks
North Korea’s top diplomat is in Sweden for high-level talks that could lay the groundwork for a planned meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un.
Swedish officials said the talks, continuing today, would focus on recent reconciliation efforts and the general situation on the Korean Peninsula, as well as Sweden’s consular role in North Korea.
The Scandinavian nation, which has a policy of non-alignment, “has long played an intermediary role between the US and North Korea”, The New York Times reports.
Sweden is one of the few Western countries with an embassy in Pyongyang, and also provides consular services for the US, Canada and Australia.
Ri’s visit has fuelled speculation that Stockholm could host the proposed summit between Trump and North Korea leader Kim, tentatively scheduled to take place in May.
Swedish PM Lofven has dismissed the reports as premature. “I think it’s much too early to speculate about that… we’re not there yet,”he said, according to news website The Local.
But Lofven added: “If the main actors want Sweden to play a role – facilitate, be a forum or a link or whatever it may be – then we are ready to do that.”
President Trump accepted the invitation to meet with Kim last week, following months of escalating tensions. The details of the planned summit remain unclear, however, and some US officials have warned that it may not even take place.
Meanwhile, South Korea is seeking high-level talks with Pyongyang later this month, ahead of a separate summit between the South’s President Moon Jae-in and Kim in April.
Although many experts are “rightly caution against excessive optimism”, the inter-Korean summit “could open a window of opportunity to take a step toward resolving the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula”, says international relations expert Taehwa Hong in an article for the Asia Times.
13 March
US ‘fully expects’ North Korea meeting to go ahead
The White House says it “fully expects” a high-stakes meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un to take place, despite receiving no confirmation from the North Korean leader.
She added that the talks - tentatively scheduled to take place by the end of May - will “go on as planned”, provided Pyongyang sticks to its promise to halt nuclear and missile tests during the negotiations.
Sanders’ comments come after she “appeared to give Trump wiggle room to cancel” the meeting during Friday’s press briefing, when she said that the meeting wouldn’t happen “until we see concrete actions that match the words and the rhetoric of North Korea”, The Hill reports.
The US president stunned allies and senior advisers last week by accepting an invitation to meet the North Korean leader to discuss how to defuse the ongoing nuclear stand-off.
But even as White House officials “scramble” to turn Trump’s surprise decision into a reality, North Korea has remained silent.
Speaking yesterday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson confirmed that US officials have not heard back from their North Korean counterparts on the specifics of the meeting, but urged patience.
“I know those are all questions that people are anxious to have answers to,” Tillerson said, following questions about the time and location of the talks. “I would say just remain patient and we’ll see what happens.”
Sources inside the State Department have told The New York Times that they believe there is less than a 50% chance of a meeting between Trump and Kim going ahead.
6 March
North Korea ‘open to denuclearisation’, says South Korea
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is willing to hold talks with the United States on denuclearisation and would suspend nuclear tests while engaging in the dialogue, according to a South Korean delegation visiting Pyongyang.
The meeting in Pyongyang today is the first direct contact between South Korean officials and the North Korean leader since he took power in 2011.
The head of the South’s ten-strong delegation, Chung Eui-yong, told a media briefing: “North Korea made clear its willingness to denuclearise the Korean Peninsula and the fact there is no reason for it to have a nuclear programme if military threats against the North are resolved and its regime is secure.”
According to Sky News, a South Korean official added: “Chairman Kim said that even denuclearisation could be among the agenda items for talks between North Korea and the US.”
Kim “made clear that achieving denuclearisation is his father's dying wish and that it has not been changed at all”, according to the official.
The news comes during a period of heightened tension between North Korea and the US - a close ally of the South - over the former’s nuclear weapons programme.
Although Pyongyang and Washington have expressed a “willingness to talk” in the past, says ABC, the US position has been that any negotiations “must be aimed at North Korea's denuclearisation” - a subject that until now Pyongyang has refused to discuss.
The North Korean Central News Agency reported earlier today that Kim had expressed a "firm will to vigorously advance" inter-Korean relations and to "write a new history of national reunification".
Responding to the possibility of talks, President Trump tweeted: “We will see what happens.”
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