Sweden hosts N. Korean official amid speculation
Summit with U.S. could be planned
Associated Press
STOCKHOLM — North Korea’s foreign minister arrived in Sweden on Thursday for talks with his Swedish counterpart. The surprise trip could be a step toward a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leaderKim Jong Un.
Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho landed at Stockholm Arlanda Airport on a direct flight from Beijing. Mr. Ri was to meet with Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom at an undisclosed location, the Swedish ForeignMinistry said.
Sweden has had diplomatic relations with North Korea since 1973 and is one of the few Western countries with an embassy in Pyongyang. It provides consular services for the United Statesin North Korea.
“If the key actors want Sweden to play a role, facilitate [talks], be a forum or a link or whatever it may be, then we are prepared to do that,” Prime Minister Stefan Lofven told Sweden’s TT news agency earlier Thursday.
“We shouldn’t be naive and believe it is Sweden that solves these problems,” Mr. Lofven added.
Sweden’s foreign ministry said the talks between Ms. Wallstrom and Mr. Ri “will focus on Sweden’s consular responsibilities as a protecting power for the United States, Canada and Australia,” but also will address the security situation onthe Korean Peninsula.
The ministry referred to the U.N. Security Council’s condemnation of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs, saying the U.N. “emphasized the need for intensified diplomatic efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.”
The Swedish ministry said a statement summarizing the talks will be made available Friday.
Mr. Ri, a former diplomat in Stockholm and London and an ex-nuclear envoy with broad experience in negotiating with rivals South Korea and the United States, was tapped as Pyongyang’s foreignminister in 2016.
In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last month, he urged the U.N. not to remain silent about what he called “the U.S. dangerous game of aggravating [the] situation in and around the Korean peninsulaand driving the whole world into a possible disasterof nuclear war.”
The trip by Mr. Ri is being closely watched because there remains a huge amount of preparation that needs to be done and relatively little time before Mr. Kim is supposedly planning to sit down for summits with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump has agreed to meet Mr. Kim by May. So far, North Korea has yet to comment on what it hopes to gain from the summits, adding an extra element of mysteryand skepticism.
Sweden has been rumored as a possible site for the summit between Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump, though a truce village on the South Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone between the Koreas is seen as more likely.
Senior South Korean officials who traveled to Pyongyang earlier this month and met with Mr. Kim say he is willing to discuss the North’s nuclear weapons program.