N Korean leader calls for more negotiations with South in 2019
SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sent a letter to South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Sunday calling for more peace talks between the leaders in the new year following their active engagement in 2018, South Korea’s presidential office said.
Moon’s office said Kim also expressed regret that he couldn’t make a planned visit to Seoul, South Korea’s capital, by the end of December as pledged by the leaders during their last summit in September in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. The Blue House didn’t fully disclose Kim’s letter.
Through three summits between Moon and Kim this year, the Koreas agreed to a variety of goodwill gestures and vowed to resume economic cooperation when possible, voicing optimism that international sanctions could end to allow such activity.
The rivals have also taken steps to reduce their conventional military threat, such as removing mines and firearms from the border village of Panmunjom, destroying some frontline guard posts and creating buffer zones along their land and sea boundaries and a no-fly zone above the border.
“Chairman Kim said that the leaders by meeting three times in a single year and implementing bold measures to overcome the long period of conflict lifted our (Korean) nation from military tension and war fears,” Kim Euikyeom, Moon’s spokesman, said in a televised briefing. “Chairman Kim said he will keep a close eye on the situation and expressed strong will to visit Seoul . ... Chairman Kim also expressed his intentions to meet President Moon frequently again in 2019,” the spokesman said. WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump came under criticism for blaming Democrats for the death of two migrant children in US custody as the partial government shutdown entered the ninth day and is likely to continue into next year.
Trump also misrepresented the father of one the children and blamed him for the death.
Earlier in the week, Trump had cited the killing of Indian-origin police officer Ronil Singh in California by an illegal immigrant for garnering support for a border wall. A dispute between him and the Democrats over funding for the wall has shut down a fourth of the federal government.
Jakelin Caal Maquin, a sevenyear-old girl from Guatemala, died on December 6 in the custody of US border authorities just hours after being taken into custody along with her father for crossing into the US illegally through the border with Mexico. On Christmas Eve, Felipe Gómez Alonzo, an eight-year-old boy also from Guatemala, died in US custody. He and his father had been apprehended a week before.
Authorities have said Maquin was badly dehydrated and Felipe was diagnosed with influenza. The girl’s family has alleged that they had been denied water for hours while in custody. Border officials have disputed that account and said food and water were made available to them and the girl had both after days of having none.
As outrage swelled over the deaths, US authorities stepped up medical screening of children in their custody along the border. And the White House initially, after Jakelin’s death, dismissed any responsibility and sought to blame it on those undertaking the long and dangerous journey.
Trump sought to blame Democrats in his first comments on the deaths. “Any deaths of children or others at the Border are strictly the fault of the Democrats and their pathetic immigration policies that allow people to make the long trek thinking they can enter our country illegally. They can’t. If we had a Wall, they wouldn’t even try!” he tweeted.
The two children, he said, were very sick before they were given over to Border Patrol. “The father of the young girl said it was not their fault, he hadn’t given her water in days. Border Patrol needs the Wall and it will all end. They are working so hard & getting so little credit!”
Democrats responded angrily. “Obviously nothing is too low or cruel for you,” Senator Mazie Hirono, a Democrat, tweeted. “A collective New Year’s wish: For the sake of our country, you can stop now.”
US Congressman Joaquin Castro, set to take over the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, tweeted: “You slander Jakelin’s memory and re-traumatise her family by spreading lies about why she died. You don’t deserve to represent our nation at any level.”
The president and Democrats are in a stalemate on funding for the border wall. But the administration is not calling it a wall anymore. Trump has said it will be made of steel slats, and his outgoing chief of staff John Kelly told the Los Angeles Times that the administration gave up on a concrete wall a long time ago.
“The president still says ‘wall’ — oftentimes frankly he’ll say ‘barrier’ or ‘fencing,’ now he’s tended toward steel slats,” Kelly said. “But we left a solid concrete wall early on in the administration.”
“Illegal immigrants, overwhelmingly, are not bad people .... I have nothing but compassion for them, the young kids,” Kelly added.