US envoys entered South Korea from North Korea in a rare border crossing yesterday after securing the remains of six US soldiers from the Korean War and pushing for action on the North's nuclear disarmament.
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Anthony Principi, the former US veterans affairs secretary, were greeted at the frontier between North and South by US Ambassador to South Korea Alexander Vershbow and US military officials.
Richardson spent four days in North Korea, also joined by the top White House adviser on Korea, Victor Cha.
"Hopefully, we've done our bit to relieve the tension between our two countries," Richardson said after crossing the border, referring to the US and the North.
While in the North on a mission to recover the remains of the US soldiers, the delegation met with officials to press Pyongyang to meet a Saturday deadline to shut down its sole operating nuclear reactor under a February agreement with the US and other regional powers.
It's unclear if the deadline will be met due to a separate dispute over frozen North Korean funds that Pyongyang has insisted be resolved before it moves to disarm.
Authorities in the Chinese territory of Macau, where North Korea had its accounts, said Wednesday that the money is now free for withdrawal. North Korea has yet to say whether it is satisfied with the resolution of the issue.
On Wednesday, the Americans drove two hours from the North Korean capital Pyongyang along roads with virtually no traffic, seeing farmers working fields with their hands and people walking along the highway. The remains of the soldiers were transported separately in small, black cases.
Before crossing into the South, the delegation toured the buildings where the armistice that ended the Korean War was negotiated and signed, with a guide showing them where each party sat.
They then walked across the North-South frontier at the truce village of Panmunjom, where the two Koreas stand face-to-face across the border that has divided the peninsula since the 1953 cease-fire.
Some 8,100 US servicemen are still listed as missing from the Korean War.
In 2005, the US government halted a separate cooperative program that permitted US military teams to excavate remains from North Korean battlefields, saying the North had created an unsafe environment. The program had recovered remains believed to be from 220 soldiers since 1996.
North Korea has no plans to resume the joint recovery operations, Richardson's Asian affairs adviser, K.A. "Tony" Namkung said, citing comments by North Korean General Ri Chan-bok.
Namkung said Ri had offered the six sets of remains as a gesture in return for Richardson's reconciliation efforts.
Once in South Korea, the US delegation flew on a Black Hawk helicopter to Yongsan Garrison, the main US military headquarters on the peninsula in central Seoul.
From above, they saw the stark difference between the communist North and capitalist South Korea, where cars stream down modern highways and high-rise buildings stretch into the distance.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in