[USFK Forums] Kim Jong-il returns home after eight-day trip to China [Yonhap]

[C. Y. Lee]

Uploaded by C. Y. Lee on Wednesday, January 18, 2006

2006/01/18 14:12

Kim Jong-il returns home after eight-day trip to China

BEIJING, Jan. 18 (Yonhap) -- A top U.S. envoy flew to Beijing Wednesday, a day after North Korean leader Kim Jong-il returned home, ending a secretive eight-day visit to China which included talks on his country's nuclear weapons program, U.S. officials and diplomatic sources said.

The U.S. State Department confirmed that its assistant secretary, Christopher Hill, was in Beijing but gave no other details, including why he was there, only a week after he had visited the Chinese capital as part of his eight-nation Asian tour.

State Department officials said only that Hill had changed his schedule last week to revisit Beijing this week. The change came as the North's leader began his China trip with a study tour of hi-tech facilities in southern regions.

Hill's trip back to Beijing has immediately aroused speculation that he might have scheduled a meeting with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, who reportedly accompanied his leader on the China trip.

If the meeting takes place, Hill will be able to get the latest North Korean position on the stalled six-nation talks. The North vows to stay away from the negotiating table, citing fresh U.S. financial sanctions related to its alleged currency counterfeiting.

There was no official Chinese or North Korean confirmation of Kim's trip which began on Jan. 10 but Beijing, in keeping with its past practice, was expected to announce it after he has returned home.

Diplomatic sources in Beijing said the North Korean leader left Beijing on his own train late Tuesday evening after a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao. His train was seen crossing into North Korea at about 10 a.m. (0200 GMT) after a 20-minute stop at the Chinese border city of Dandong.

It was Kim's first trip to China since 2004. His two previous trips to China came in 2000 and 2001. Hu made a rare visit to North Korea in October. China is North Korea's only remaining communist ally and its main food and energy provider.

Diplomatic sources in Beijing said Kim Jong-il's meeting with Hu dealt with nuclear and other matters of mutual concern but said no details were available.

China is under international pressure to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program. But Beijing insists that its influence on the North is limited.

Kim Jong-il began his China trip with a study tour of Guangdong Province, a region where the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping initiated capitalistic market reforms more than two decades ago.

China kept Kim's trip under wraps but Japanese television footage showed him touring Shenzen, a high-tech city near Hong Kong, on Sunday. Built as the first Chinese special economic zone, the city is a symbol of the country's spectacular economic development.

Kim's tour of the cradle of China's economic development was seen by observers as North Korea's new willingness to reform its economy. After Kim's 2004 trip to China, North Korea introduced limited capitalist reforms but those measures fell short of expectations.

North Korea's centralized economy is in tatters, and outsiders believe that the country has no future without an infusion of foreign investment. But the prolonged nuclear tension is a big holdup.

The nuclear tension erupted in 2002 after U.S. officials said North Korea had admitted to pushing a secret uranium-enrichment program in violation of international accords. The North denied the allegation.

Subsequently, the U.S. retaliated by halting promised fuel-oil shipments. North Korea responded by kicking out U.N. nuclear monitors and withdrawing from the global Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

As part of the Beijing-based six-way talks, North Korea agreed in September to abandon its nuclear ambitions in exchange for economic aid and a security guarantee but subsequent talks stalled over U.S. financial sanctions against the North.

In September, the U.S. blacklisted a Macau-based bank accused of helping North Korea launder fake U.S. dollars. A month later, it penalized eight North Korean firms suspected of spreading weapons of mass destruction.

North Korea has denied any wrongdoing and vows not to rejoin the multilateral talks unless the U.S. sanctions are lifted. Washington maintains that its law-enforcement action has nothing to do with the talks.

Involved in the six-nation talks are the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia.

North Korea said in early 2005 that it made plutonium-based nuclear weapons but did not disclose the number.

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