South Korean President Lee Myung-bak yesterday reached out to North Korea, saying Seoul was open to talks and offering closer economic ties despite high tensions on the peninsula.
In his New Year policy address, just days after Pyongyang called for improved relations this year, Lee also urged the North to abandon its “military adventurism.”
Relations between the two Koreas plunged after the North shelled a border island in November, killing four people, including two civilians. The South has since staged a series of military exercises, including a live-fire drill on Dec. 20 on the island, but the North did not follow through with threats of a new and deadlier attack.
Despite the heightened tensions, Lee held out hopes for improved ties, saying the door for talks between the Koreas was “still open.”
“If the North exhibits sincerity, we have both the will and the plan to drastically enhance economic cooperation together with the international community,” he said.
“The North must come to the realization that nothing can be gained through military adventurism ... Nuclear weapons and military adventurism must be discarded,” he added.
The North, in a joint New Year editorial in state media on Saturday, said tensions “should be defused as early as possible,” stressing dialogue and cooperation “should be promoted proactively.”
“This year we should launch a more determined campaign to improve inter-Korean relations,” it said.
Analysts said Lee, speaking for the first time since North Korea issued its New Year message, was telling Pyongyang that Seoul was ready to revive talks, which have been at a standstill for three years.
“This is Seoul’s answer to Pyongyang’s New Year editorial that it is politically ready to revive talks,” said Baek Seung-joo of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses.
Baek said breakthroughs in inter-Korea relations were often made possible by the determination of political leaders, despite very difficult diplomatic circumstances.
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
RSS