I would be surprised if Kim Jong-un agrees to this unless the questions are all pre-screened:
Seoul is seeking to broadcast the upcoming inter-Korean summit as well as a joint press conference between President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un live, a top presidential aide said Tuesday.
A hotline between the two leaders is likely to be set up around Friday, and they may be able to have their first phone call early next week, he said.
Presidential chief of staff Im Jong-seok, who is leading the government’s inter-Korean summit preparation committee, said officials from the North and the South would discuss the broadcasting issue at a working-level meeting on protocol, security and media coverage, today.
“We want to broadcast the historic moment live,” Im said in a media briefing 10 days before the summit scheduled for April 27. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but could you imagine if questions were not pre-screened and journalists actually did their jobs and asked Kim Jong-un about the gulags or if he was going to apologize to the family members killed by his regime’s conventional and terrorist attacks?
Here is interesting anecdote if true from a comment made by a ROK top presidential aide to Kim Jong-un:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is a heavy smoker. But in a country where making a suggestion to the young dictator of anything against his will is considered a blasphemy that deserves heavy punishment, nobody would put one’s life at risk to ask him to quit smoking. This Dec. 12, 2012 file photo shows Kim puffing a cigarette at the satellite control center in Pyongyang. / Korea Times file
Top presidential aide Chung Eui-yong advised North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to stop smoking during a dinner Kim hosted for Chung visiting Pyongyang as President Moon Jae-in’s top envoy early last month.
Chung’s advice made the atmosphere at the head table in the banquet tense at least for a moment when the face of Kim Yong-chul, the North’s top intelligence officer, hardened in displeasure by Chung’s uncalled-for action.
It was Ri Sol-ju, the North’s first lady, who cheerfully clapped her hands and said, “He doesn’t listen when I ask him to quit smoking.” That defused the tension. The young leader himself did not mind Chung’s behavior.
Japan’s Asahi Shimbun reported this account recently, quoting knowledgeable sources, about what happened at the March 5 banquet. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but it was a good catch by Ri Sol-ju to break the tension with her comment. The way I look at it let Kim Jong-un smoke as well as eat away as much as he wants. His poor health may be what ultimately drives him out of power.
It appears Vladimir Putin does not want to be left out of the current negotiations that are occurring before the ROK-DPRK and US-DPRK summits:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has received an invitation to visit Russia, according to U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Dan Coats.
Coats’ claim adds to speculation that Kim may meet Russian President Vladimir Putin to bolster diplomatic leverage on North Korea’s nuclear program before a planned inter-Korean summit on April 27.
Kim, who visited Chinese President Xi Jinping in late March, is scheduled to send his Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho to Russia next week.
Russian news agency TASS reported that on Wednesday Coats mentioned Kim’s invitation to Moscow when asked about the possibility of resuming the six-party talks on North Korea’s denuclearization in the wake of the Kim-Xi meeting.
TASS said the DNI chief told reporters in Washington, D.C., he is trying to discover what the North Korean leader intends to discuss in Russia. [Korea Times]
Robert Gallucci the former nuclear negotiator with North Korea during the Clinton administration recently sat down and conducted an interview with the Joong Ang Ilbo about the upcoming Trump-Kim summit. Here is an excerpt from the interview:
Former diplomat Robert Gallucci, chairman of the U.S.-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, sits for an interview at the university in Washington on March 8. [LEE GWANG-JO]Q. Do you think a “one-shot” negotiation is possible between Trump and Kim Jong-un at the first U.S.-North Korea summit?
A. First of all, it never occurred to me that this would be a one-shot negotiation. It is hard for me to believe that anybody familiar with the complexity of the issues would think that anybody — and I do mean anybody — could sit down at a negotiation and work out all the differences between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the United States in one session. It is, for me, inconceivable. If you accept that, that means that if this is going to be a successful engagement, the summit between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump will be the start of a series of talks which will be top-down, because you can’t go higher up. So that means that there would be presumably professional diplomats or at least representatives of both governments who would then meet someplace or at an extended period of time, back and forth, to work out the details of an agreement. I cannot see a single session solving this problem.
What issue will be most hotly contested at the U.S.-North Korea summit?
If I look back to 1994 and to the 2000s, transparency, verification, monitoring, that’s always a difficult matter in the negotiation where we are looking to limit capability on both nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles. I imagine what’s in the mind of the American side is that they would want to reach an agreement in which the North Koreans commit to giving up their nuclear weapons program, that they want a nuclear weapons-free peninsula. So you can imagine North Koreans saying, “Sure. It’s done. We dismantled all our nuclear weapons yesterday. Everything’s done. Now, here’s what we would like.”
We might say, “We think the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) needs to get back in and do what it considers a full scope of safeguards.” North Koreans might hop on, maybe not. So what I’m saying here, you want to know where I see the greatest sensitivity will be, it will be on gaining agreement by the North Koreans to adequate measures to permit transparency, to permit monitoring of the agreement and ultimate verification of compliance with the agreement. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but let me remind everyone that Mr. Gallucci is the guy a few months ago that said even a deal North Korea cheats on is still a good deal. I have so far seen no indications that the Trump administration is ready to sign up for any deal that allows North Korea to cheat.
I have no idea whether the accusation that the South Korean K-Pop group Red Velvet is pro-Communism or not, but I just find it ironic that these performers are so eager to perform for a man that puts his own people into labor camps for watching South Korean entertainment. The hypocrisy on display is truly incredible:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, right, talks to Red Velvet members, left, after the Sunday performance at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater. / Yonhap
After the two-hour show at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater starting at 6:30 p.m., Kim met and shook hands with each musician, including four members of Red Velvet. The popular band from SM Entertainment was short of one member ― Joy, also an actress.
SM announced Saturday that she could not travel to the North because she was filming MBC’s TV drama “The Great Seducer,” in which she has a leading role.
Before its Pyongyang visit, the band had stirred controversy, with suggestions by some netizens that the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism had selected the band because it endorsed the North’s communism. Some suggested a parallel between communism’s symbolic color of red, the band’s name and one of its hits, “Red Flavor.”
Kim said after meeting the musicians, “many people had wondered whether I would come to the Sunday performance and watch Red Velvet.” The comment hinted that he knew about the Red Velvet controversy, but he did not elaborate. He said he had planned to watch the North-South joint performance on Tuesday, but had changed his schedule.
The band, the youngest stars among the troupe, performed dance numbers “Red Flavor” and “Bad Boy.”
Joy’s absence had divided fans. Some saw it as unacceptable because despite her busy acting schedule she had joined the band’s Tokyo concert on March 28-29. Fans wondered that if she had performed in Japan why she could not also have found time for Pyongyang.
A South Korean cultural critic said her absence from the North was “an example of the mass-narcissism evident among South Korean celebrities.” [Korea Times]
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un and his wife Ri Sol-ju are surrounded by South Korean musicians after their joint concert at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater, Sunday. / Joint Press Corps [Korea Times]
Kim Jong-un is continuing his charm offensive in the lead up to his summit with Present Moon Jae-in later this month:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (L) talks with South Korea’s culture minister Do Jong-whan during a performance by a South Korean art troupe in Pyongyang in this photo captured from a pool video on April 1, 2018. (Yonhap)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his wife attended a historic performance in Pyongyang by a South Korean art troupe on Sunday, the South Korean culture ministry said.
The couple was present for the concert by the 160-member South Korean art troupe at East Pyongyang Grand Theatre, a pool report said. The group included 11 Korean pop musicians such as Cho Yong-pil, Lee Sun-hee, Choi Jin-hee, Red Velvet and Seohyun of Girls’ Generation.
Kim became the first North Korean leader to attend a performance by a South Korean artistic group.
His appearance was somewhat expected as South Korean President Moon Jae-in attended the Seoul performance by a North Korean art troupe called “Samjiyon Orchestra” in February in celebration of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics in the South.
A pool report said the North Korean leader’s sister Kim Yo-jong and the country’s nominal head of state Kim Yong-nam attended the performance as well.
The North Korean leader also insisted that the two Koreas should hold cultural performances more often, suggesting that there should be another event in Seoul around fall. [Yonhap]
This photo capture from North Korea’s Central TV on March 29, 2018, shows a set of gifts that Chinese President Xi Jinping gave to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Kim traveled to Beijing, his first trip outside his country since taking power in late 2011, from March 25-28 and held talks with Xi. The talks between the two close allies preceded Kim’s planned summits with the leaders of South Korea and the United States. (Yonhap)
