N. Korean state media quiet on Kim’s overtures to Trump

SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s sudden overtures to Washington are making headlines around the world. Almost everywhere, it seems, except North Korea.

North Korean media noted a visit by a senior delegation from South Korea earlier this week but it appeared to have had no major coverage of Kim’s invitation to meet US President Donald Trump or South Korean President Moon Jae-in to discuss the future of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme.

South Korea’s National Security Office head Chung Eui-yong told reporters at the White House on Thursday after briefing Trump that Kim had ‘committed to denuclearisation’ and to suspending nuclear and missile tests. However, North Koreans appear to still be in the dark despite such a potentially historic achievement.

Kim’s meeting with South Korean officials made it onto the front page of the Rodong Sinmun, a leading state-run newspaper, but neither his policy concessions, as described by the South Korean government, nor his planned summit with Moon in April appeared to have been reported publicly in the secretive North.

“North Korea has not made an announcement on the two Koreas holding the summit in April yet,” said Kang Mi-jin, a North Korean defector who works at the Seoul-based Daily NK website and regularly speaks to sources in the North. —