South Korea’s president says he is willing to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-il this year to discuss the North’s nuclear weapons program despite a recent flare-up in border tensions.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak made the comment as North Korea fired artillery shells for a third day on Friday in what it said were military exercises near its disputed western sea border with South Korea.
The shellings, which on Wednesday prompted return artillery fire by the South, caused no reported casualties or damage. They came amid mixed signs from the communist North, which has recently appeared more eager to engage the South in dialogue after ballistic missile and nuclear tests last year drew UN sanctions, while still threatening its rival.
The presidential office said yesterday that it is unclear whether summit talks can be held soon, but that Lee said he “could probably meet [Kim] within this year” if it promotes peace on the Korean peninsula and North Korea’s nuclear disarmament.
Lee’s two liberal predecessors held talks with Kim Jong-il in 2000 and 2007. Lee has taken a tougher approach toward North Korea since taking office in 2008, worsening bilateral relations, but has indicated several times he is willing to meet Kim.
His comments came as North Korea fired about 20 artillery rounds into its western waters, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
The North has designated two no-sail zones in the area, including some South Korean-held waters, through March 29.
The western sea border has been a constant source of tension between the two Koreas. Their navies fought a skirmish in November that left one North Korean sailor dead and three others wounded, and engaged in bloodier battles in the area in 1999 and 2002.
In Washington, US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg said in a speech on Friday that the US and its negotiating partners will enforce tough sanctions on North Korea until it returns to stalled nuclear disarmament talks.
If North Korea continues to conduct nuclear and missile tests and threaten its neighbors, “it will continue to suffer the consequences,” Steinberg said.
North Korea has bargained with its neighbors and the US for more than a decade about giving up its nuclear program, gaining energy and aid concessions and then backing away from its agreements.
North Korea argues that it was compelled to develop nuclear weapons to cope with a military threat from the US, which has approximately 28,500 troops in South Korea.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate