North Korea's bespectacled ruler is famously reclusive. He turns his back on visiting dignitaries. His own citizens almost never hear the sound of his voice and he leaves it to official media to deliver harangues against the US.
That made it all the more surprising when Kim Jong-il, in an unexpected meeting Friday with a visiting South Korean envoy, suggested his nation could rejoin nuclear talks and added: "I've been thinking favorably of the United States."
Kim also indicated his country might eventually renounce nuclear weapons in a session with South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young -- his first contact with a top Seoul official since April 2002, and one he clearly held in part to pass a message to Washington.
The US dismissed the overture, saying Kim needed to set a date and make a more concrete commitment to nuclear negotiations.
Kim, in rare flattering comments, said he "has no reason to think badly" of US President George W. Bush and even asked Chung if Bush should be addressed by a Korean honorific that roughly translates as "his excellency."
He said Russian President Vladimir Putin had told him Bush was a "good man to talk to."
"I would find him interesting to talk to," Kim said of Bush. "I've been thinking favorably of the United States since the Clinton administration."
Bush recently referred to Kim using the honorific "Mr." -- a softened tone after earlier comments labeling the North Korean leader a "tyrant" and lumping his country in an "axis of evil" that included Iran and Saddam-era Iraq.
In the past, the North has called Bush a "political imbecile."
"If it is certain that the United States is respecting the North as a partner, North Korea could come to the six-party talks as early as July," Kim said, according to Chung.
Kim added the North's return would need to be "further negotiated" with Washington, Chung said.
The North Korean ruler also said he would welcome international nuclear inspections and rejoin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if the nuclear standoff was resolved.
Kim said on Friday that "if the regime's security is guaranteed, there is no reason to possess a single nuclear weapon," according to Chung.
US officials have repeatedly asserted they have no intention of invading the North, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said Washington recognizes North Korea as a sovereign nation.
During the Friday talks, Kim and Chung also agreed to an August resumption of family reunions of Koreans separated by the heavily fortified border. That had been stalled for nearly a year after North-South relations soured followed mass defections.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
PAPAL RETORT: Pope Leo told reporters that he has ‘no fear, neither of the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel’ US President Donald Trump has feuded with Pope Leo XIV over the Iran conflict — setting off an unholy row that could have serious political implications for the Republican leader back in the US. Trump has drawn barbs even from some allies over the attacks on the US-born pontiff, who has criticized the Trump administration over its immigration crackdown, the intervention in Venezuela and the Iran war. The president risks alienating the religious right in November’s crucial US midterm elections. So far the unprecedented clash between the leader of the most powerful military on Earth and the head of the world’s 1.4 billion
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder and aggravated sexual abuse in Florida in the death of his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival Cruise ship, the US Department of Justice said on Monday. Timothy Hudson was initially charged in February and subsequently indicted on March 10, but the breadth of the case was not known until a seal was lifted on Friday last week, weeks after US District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami said that he would be prosecuted as an adult at the request of the government. Anna Kepner had been traveling on the Carnival Horizon ship in November last
RSS