North Korea said yesterday it has agreed with the US to continue working to resolve a stalemate in international negotiations over the North's promise to fully declare its nuclear weapons programs.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency said the two sides held "an in-depth discussion on the differences" during one-on-one meetings last week in Switzerland over a disarmament-for-aid agreement reached last year.
The two countries agreed to "sit face-to-face with each other and continue the discussion" to find a solution to the impasse which is holding up the nuclear deal, KCNA said in a three-sentence dispatch, the first time it has mentioned the Geneva talks.
The report gave no details of what was discussed or when the two sides would meet again.
US nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill has said he made progress in the talks with his North Korean counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan, but stopped short of announcing any agreement.
The nuclear deal stalled after Washington accused North Korea of failing to fully account for all its nuclear programs as it had pledged to do by the end of last year.
The key points are believed to be whether North Korea had a clandestine uranium enrichment program and whether it transferred nuclear technology to Syria.
The impasse has led North Korea to slow the disabling of its nuclear facilities.
North Korea also accused US-backed radio stations of broadcasting an increasing number of "provocative" programs criticizing Pyongyang, and called on Monday for an end to the transmissions.
The US-financed Radio Free Asia and Voice of America have been broadcasting more and more shows condemning the North and aimed at toppling the communist regime, the official Korean Central News Agency reported.
The broadcasts prove the US "has no willingness to make a switchover in its DPRK policy," KCNA said, referring to the North by the acronym for its formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
North Korea often accuses the US of a having a hostile policy toward it.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
EYEING A SOLUTION: In unusually critical remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump said he was ‘destroying Russia by not making a deal’ US President Donald Trump on Wednesday stepped up the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal with Ukraine, threatening tougher economic measures if Moscow does not agree to end the war. Trump’s warning in a social media post came as the Republican seeks a quick solution to a grinding conflict that he had promised to end before even starting his second term. “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
RSS