North Korea’s nuclear programs were on the agenda yesterday as the Chinese and South Korean presidents met for a summit amid recent angry rhetoric from Pyongyang.
Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak began about 30 minutes of one-on-one talks to be followed by a broader meeting with foreign affairs, security and economic officials attending, the presidential Blue House said.
Hu arrived earlier for the two-day state visit, flush with his country’s success in hosting its first Olympic Games, which concluded on Sunday.
He was given a red-carpet welcome at a military airport by South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan before heading into the capital to begin the summit.
Later, about 10 protesters in downtown Seoul held up a sign reading “Grant refugee status to North Koreans.”
China does not recognize North Koreans who enter the country as refugees, rather viewing them as economic migrants.
China and North Korea have a treaty that calls for the repatriation of North Koreans caught crossing their shared border.
Human rights advocates in South Korea say North Koreans face persecution if they are sent back.
Hu and Lee were to hold in-depth consultations on “advancing the six-nation talks” aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear programs, comments posted on South Korea’s presidential Web site earlier said.
China, North Korea’s key ally and main aid donor, has chaired numerous rounds of disarmament talks since 2003 on the North’s weapons programs. The talks — which also involve the US, the two Koreas, Russia and Japan — have produced a landmark aid-for-disarmament deal.
In June, North Korea demolished its nuclear reactor’s cooling tower and submitted its long-delayed nuclear declaration. The North, however, remains at odds with the US over how to verify the declared nuclear programs.
North Korea has accused Washington of delaying its removal from a US terrorism blacklist. Washington has said it will drop North Korea from the list only after it agrees to a full nuclear verification plan.
North Korean state media carried a series of dispatches criticizing the US last week and blasting US-South Korean computer-simulated war games.
The North’s Foreign Ministry said Pyongyang would bolster its “war deterrent” — a euphemism for its nuclear programs — amid “military threats” posed by the US.
At the summit in Seoul, Hu and Lee were also expected to discuss action plans for the “strategic cooperative partnership” pledged at their first summit in Beijing in May.
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including