Asia’s top diplomats on Saturday pressed North Korea to turn a pledge to completely dismantle its nuclear arsenal into reality amid concerns that it is proceeding with its programs.
However, North Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Ri Yong-ho hit the US in an Asian security forum in Singapore for certain “alarming” moves, including “raising its voice louder for maintaining the sanctions against” the North.
Those moves, could make an agreement with the administration of US President Donald Trump, including the North’s commitment to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, “face difficulties,” Ri told fellow ministers.
Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Alan Peter Cayetano said the rapprochement between North Korea and the US, along with completion of a negotiating draft of the code of conduct for the South China Sea, are breakthroughs.
However, “like any other breakthrough in diplomatic negotiations, they may lead to something great, they may lead to nothing,” he added.
ASEAN foreign ministers, along with counterparts from China, Japan and South Korea, urged the US and North Korea “as well as concerned parties to continue working toward the realization of lasting peace and stability on a denuclearized Korean Peninsula,” in a communique they issued after their meeting on Saturday.
They “noted” — often a diplomatic subtlety for a reminder — the “stated commitment” of North Korea “to complete denuclearization and its pledge to refrain from further nuclear and missile tests during this period.”
While North Korea has “initiated goodwill measures,” including a “moratorium on the nuclear test and rocket launch test and dismantling of nuclear test ground,” the US has gone “back to the old, far from its leader’s intention,” Ri said.
He made the remarks after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was at the meeting, warned Russia, China and others against any violation of international sanctions that North Korea continues to face.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion