North Korea's Kim arrives home after Trump summit
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea's Kim Jong Un arrived home on Tuesday, state media said, completing his marathon journey through China after his Hanoi summit with US President Donald Trump ended without a nuclear deal.
Kim's return to Pyongyang marked the end of an epic 4,000-kilometre (2,500-mile) journey -- on board his olive green armoured train -- from Vietnam, where his much-hyped second summit with Trump came to an abrupt halt last week.
His talks with the US leader were followed by an official visit to Vietnam, with Kim paying tribute to the country's late revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh.
"Kim Jong Un... arrived at home on Tuesday after successfully wrapping up his official goodwill visit to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam," according to the official KCNA news agency.
"At 3 o'clock in the early morning, his train entered the railway station yard" in Pyongyang, KCNA said, adding that senior officials "greeted him with their ardent congratulations".
A smiling Kim boarded his train at the Dong Dang border station in Vietnam on Saturday, waving to crowds at the station. His route through China was not known, nor was it clear whether he would stop to meet President Xi Jinping along the journey -- although it now appears that he did not.
Earlier Saturday, Kim made a highly unusual stop at the stark concrete monument where the body of Vietnam's independence hero Ho Chi Minh is on display.
No deal in Hanoi
On historic North Korean anniversaries, Kim regularly pays tribute to his predecessors, his father Kim Jong Il and grandfather Kim Il Sung, at the sprawling memorial palace on the outskirts of Pyongyang where their preserved remains lie in state.
But he is not known to have previously done anything similar for a foreign leader.
Kim's trip to Vietnam was the first by a North Korean leader since 1964, when Kim Il Sung also travelled by rail for his journey to the southeast Asian nation.
Talks between Kim and Trump in Hanoi finished abruptly, with a signing ceremony scrapped after the pair failed to reach an agreement on walking back North Korea's nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
In the aftermath, each sought to blame the other's intransigence for the deadlock.
Trump insisted Pyongyang wanted all sanctions imposed on it over its banned weapons programmes lifted, and that this was a bridge too far.
But in a rare late-night press briefing, the North Korean foreign minister said Pyongyang had only wanted some of the measures eased, and that its proposal to close "all the nuclear production facilities" at its Yongbyon complex was its best and final offer.
Despite the stalemate, both sides said they were open to further talks, though a third summit has not been scheduled.
The United States formally concluded that North Korea ordered the murder of Kim Jong-Nam, a half-brother and potential rival to ruler Kim Jong-Un, with the VX nerve agent.
"This public display of contempt for universal norms against chemical weapons use further demonstrates the reckless nature of North Korea and underscores that we cannot afford to tolerate a North Korean WMD program of any kind," US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.
The finding triggered another layer of US economic sanctions against Pyongyang, just as South Korea reported that the regime is ready for talks to end a nuclear standoff.
Suspected North Korean hackers have attempted an attack targeting a major joint military exercise between Seoul and Washington that starts on Monday, South Korean police said.
South Korea and the United States will kick off the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield drills on Monday through August 31 to counter growing threats from the nuclear-armed North.
Pyongyang views such exercises as rehearsals for an invasion and has repeatedly warned it would take "overwhelming" action in response. — AFP
The United States says it was committed to freeing an American soldier who crossed into North Korea, as it voiced caution on remarks attributed to him by Pyongyang.
In North Korea's first comments about last month's crossing of Travis King, state media said Tuesday that the soldier, who is Black, said he fled "racial discrimination" and bore "ill feeling" toward the US Army.
"We would caution everyone to consider the source here. That is incredibly important," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tells reporters when asked about King's purported remarks. — AFP
A US soldier is believed to have been detained by North Korea after crossing the heavily fortified border -- an incident likely to further aggravate Washington's troubled relations with the nuclear-armed state.
Hours later, North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea, according to the South Korean military -- an apparent response to the first visit by an American nuclear-armed submarine to a South Korean port in decades.
The events underscored the diplomatic tightrope being walked by Seoul and Washington in the face of an increasingly assertive Pyongyang. — AFP
North Korea threatens to shoot down any US spy planes violating its airspace and condemns Washington's plans to deploy a nuclear missile submarine near the Korean peninsula.
A spokesperson for the North's Ministry of National Defense says the United States has "intensified espionage activities beyond the wartime level", with "provocative" flights made by US spy aircraft over eight straight days this month, and one reconnaissance plane intruding into its airspace over the East Sea "several times".
"There is no guarantee that such shocking accident as downing of the US Air Force strategic reconnaissance plane will not happen in the East Sea of Korea," the spokesperson says in a statement, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. — AFP
North Korea has accused a US spy aircraft of violating its airspace and condemned Washington's plans to deploy a nuclear missile submarine near the Korean peninsula.
A spokesperson for the North's Ministry of National Defence said "provocative" flights were made by US spy aircraft this month, with one reconnaissance plane intruding into its airspace over the East Sea "several times".
"There is no guarantee that such shocking accident as downing of the U.S. Air Force strategic reconnaissance plane will not happen in the East Sea of Korea," the spokesperson said in a statement, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. — AFP
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