N. Korea to deliver condolence message, flowers for late first lady's funeral

The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will deliver a condolence message and flowers to South Korea at the border village of Panmunjom on Wednesday over the death of former South Korean first lady Lee Hee-ho, the unification ministry said.The North informed the South through their joint liaison office in the North's border city of Kaesong that the leader's younger sister, Kim Yo-jong, will deliver the message and flowers at the North Korean side of Panmunjom at 5 p.m., the ministry said.

June 12, 2019

N. Korea's official newspaper confirms outbreak of African swine fever

North Korea's official newspaper confirmed an outbreak of African swine fever in the country on Wednesday, its first acknowledgment of the disease since Pyongyang reported a case to an international organization last month, saying nationwide efforts are under way to prevent its spreading."Emergency preventive efforts are actively underway across the country to stem the spread of African swine fever, a highly contagious virus," the Rodong Sinmun said in an article, adding that relevant

June 12, 2019

Trump says he received letter from NK leader

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday he has received a "beautiful" and "very warm" letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.Trump told reporters at the White House that he received the letter on Monday, the first known correspondence of its kind since the two men's summit in Vietnam in February ended without a deal."I just received a beautiful letter from Kim Jong-un," Trump said. "It was a very personal, very warm, very nice letter. I appreciate it."

June 12, 2019

Sanctions needed to bring N. Korea back to dialogue: Mark Lippert

Maintaining sanctions against North Korea is necessary to get it back to the negotiation table, a former US ambassador to Seoul has said, stressing the need for working-level talks to learn exactly what Pyongyang is willing to trade for sanctions relief.Negotiations on North Korea's nuclear programs have been stalled since February, when the second summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Hanoi broke down due to their failure to narrow gaps over the scope o

June 12, 2019

N. Korean leader believes summit with Putin will bear 'rich fruit'

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un expressed strong confidence Wednesday that the agreements he reached with Russian President Vladimir Putin in April will bear "rich fruit," and further advance their strategic and traditional relations, Pyongyang's state media reported. In a message of greeting sent to Putin on the occasion of Russia's national day, Kim also said that it is the two countries' "common responsibility" to "put the precious centuries-old tradition of friendshi

June 12, 2019

Kaesong complex unlikely to reopen before NK denuclearization: US lawmaker

A ranking Democratic congressman on Tuesday expressed doubt that the inter-Korean industrial complex in North Korea will reopen before the regime's denuclearization.Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asia, met with a group of South Korean businessmen who used to operate factories at the Kaesong industrial park. The eight-member delegation was in the US to seek public and government support for the reopening of the complex that was shuttered in Februar

June 12, 2019

N. Korean fishing boat stranded in East Sea, returned home

A North Korean fishing boat was found adrift in South Korean waters off the East Coast on Tuesday and was sent back to its country on humanitarian grounds, Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.The boat carrying six crewmen was spotted by a South Korean naval vessel in waters some 5 kilometers south of the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the East Sea, or some 161 km northeast of the country's eastern port city of Sokcho, at around 1:15 p.m. due to an engine problem, according to the JCS. As

June 11, 2019

Will North Korea send condolence delegation to former first lady Lee’s funeral?

The question of how North Korea will respond to the death of former first lady Lee Hee-ho, who along with her late husband, President Kim Dae-jung, devoted her life to improving inter-Korean relations, is the focus of attention as Pyongyang has been lukewarm for months toward Seoul’s offers of cross-border cooperation. 　The Unification Ministry said Tuesday it had delivered the news of Lee’s death to the North in the morning through the inter-Korean liaison office in the North’

June 11, 2019

N. Korea to hold elections to choose deputies for local assemblies

North Korea will hold elections next month to choose new deputies for local assemblies of provinces, cities and counties across the country, Pyongyang's state media reported Tuesday.The elections will be held July 21, the Korean Central News Agency reported.In the previous elections in July 2015, 28,452 deputies were elected for a four-year term. Elections in North Korea are considered a formality. The official voter turnaround in 2015 was 99.9 percent, with 100 percent voting for their candidat

June 11, 2019

[Feature] ‘Contributing to South Korean society in the way we can’

PAJU, Gyeonggi Province -- Crossing armed borders alone to flee a poverty-stricken life in North Korea was one of the biggest challenges 29-year-old Lee Kang has faced. Starting life over in South Korea, entirely different from his former home, was another. In the beginning, everything was surreal, as if he were living in two different worlds. He would be in South Korea when awake, but he would return to the North in his dreams at night, Lee told The Korea Herald.But thanks to the help he receiv

June 10, 2019

North Korea pushes for completion of Wonsan-Kalma tourist zone

Tens of thousands of young North Koreans have been forced to join work brigades to build a huge resort complex in Wonsan, with leader Kim Jong-un harboring ambitions of transforming the port city into a source of foreign currency, British paper the Times reported Sunday. Located on the southeastern coast of North Korea, the Wonsan region has been the focus of the North Korean regime’s tourism push, with an aim to complete the project by October 2020.  After a rare trip by Western medi

June 10, 2019

Vice unification minister expected to visit inter-Korean liaison office this week

Vice Unification Minister Suh Ho is expected to visit a joint inter-Korean liaison office later this week for the first time since he was appointed the new South Korean head of the office last week, the ministry said Monday.Suh was appointed Friday as the South Korean chief of the liaison office located in North Korea's border town of Kaesong. The appointment came after he replaced Chun Hae-sung last month as vice unification minister, who also serves as Seoul's liaison office chief. "He ne

June 10, 2019

UN soldier's body found during war remains excavation in DMZ

A body, believed to be of a United Nations soldier who fought in the 1950-53 Korean War, has been found during excavation work inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on the border with North Korea, Seoul's defense ministry said Sunday.Bone fragments were found on Wednesday during an excavation and demining project on Arrowhead Ridge, a former battle site inside the DMZ that separates the two Koreas, the ministry said.The ministry said it marks the first time that the remains of a U.N. soldier have

June 9, 2019

Hard to make predictions about fourth inter-Korean summit: unification minister

Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul said Sunday that the government is making a concerted effort to restart talks between the United States and North Korea at the earliest possible date.“Following the meeting in Hanoi, restarting the US-North Korea summit has become very crucial. From that perspective, President Moon Jae-in proposed holding an inter-Korean summit (in order to support the US-North Korea talks),” Kim said on a KBS television show. As US President Donald Trump will

June 9, 2019

[Herald Interview] US-China trade war limits Seoul's ability to advance nuke talks

While the trade war between the United States and China is reshaping the global economy, it is also leaving little room for South and North Korea to move the denuclearization process forward, according to John Park, director of the Korea Project at the Harvard Kennedy School. “If the US and China have a truce or suspend the application of tariffs, that could provide political space for South Korea’s diplomatic role to increase. But, in this environment, South Korea’s impact is

June 9, 2019

N. Korea denounces S. Korea's scaled-down military exercise

A North Korean propaganda outlet on Sunday slammed South Korea's recent civilian-military exercise, calling it tantamount to a hostile act against the North.   Following up on its military agreement with Pyongyang last year, Seoul abolished its annual springtime joint military exercises with the US armed forces, the Ulchi Freedom Guardian, to launch the Ulchi Taegeuk exercise this year.  Around 480,000 South Korean civilians, government officials and armed service members joined t

June 9, 2019

Third NK-US summit is possible despite lack of progress on denuclearization: analysts

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump could meet for a third summit later this year even without much progress toward dismantling the regime's nuclear weapons program, analysts here said.At their earlier summits, the first of which took place a year ago on June 12 in Singapore, Kim and Trump sought to strike a deal that would lead to the dismantlement of North Korea's weapons of mass destruction programs in exchange for the lifting of crippling sanctions on the regime. Ex

June 9, 2019

N. Korea‘s missile launches didn’t warrant suspension of talks: FM

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said her country and the United States determined that North Korea‘s short-range missile launches in May did not “deserve” suspending talks with the regime.　Speaking Friday at a security forum in Bratislava, Slovakia, Kang said South Korea and the US analyzed the launches in early May and “decided to take a cool headed approach about this.”　“We said this doesn’t deserve breaking the momentum

June 8, 2019

Top nuclear envoys of S. Korea, US to jointly address forum

WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- The top nuclear negotiators of South Korea and the United States will jointly address a public forum in Washington later this month, organizers said Friday, amid a protracted stalemate in talks with North Korea.Lee Do-hoon, Seoul‘s special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, and his US counterpart, Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun, will deliver keynote remarks at the Atlantic Council-East Asia Foundation Strategic Dial

June 8, 2019

NK, Russian officials discuss cooperation to enhance economic, trade relations

Senior North Korean and Russian officials met on Friday to discuss bilateral economic cooperation and trade relations, Pyongyang's official news agency reported.North Korea's Minister for External Economic Affairs Kim Yong-jae met his Russian counterpart, Alexander Kozlov, who was visiting Pyongyang, according to the Korean Central News Agency. "The talks discussed matters of further revitalizing the work of the DPRK-Russia Intergovernmental Committee for Cooperation in Trade, Economy, Scie

June 7, 2019