North Korean leader takes a 3rd China trip
Source: Agencies |
May 21, 2011, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
NORTH Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who rarely travels abroad, made an unusual third trip to China in just over a year yesterday, news agencies reported.
The trip set off a media frenzy because many initially reported it was his son and heir apparent Kim Jong Un who had crossed the border - a reflection of the difficulty of getting information from or about North Korea.
Later, South Korea's Yonhap News agency and others, citing anonymous government sources, backtracked and said they now believed it was the father. It was not clear whether the younger Kim was with him.
North Korean state media made no mention of any state visit to China, and China's Foreign Ministry also said they didn't know anything about a North Korean leader visit.
In the past, China only confirmed such visits after they had ended.
Kim Jong Il visited China in May and August of last year.
Despite the confusion in Seoul, it was obvious that a high-profile visitor was in China.
In Mudanjiang, a northeastern Chinese city near the North Korean border that the senior Kim visited last year, security on the street was high, the director of the main office of the city's Beishan Park, surnamed Liu, said.
He said Heilongjiang provincial leaders gathered at a government guesthouse known locally as the VIP Building, where visiting dignitaries are entertained, on Thursday night. The Jingbo Lake Hotel was closed and its customers ordered to leave, according to a woman who was part of the skeleton staff that remained.
The security measures were lifted by mid-afternoon yesterday, she said, but she did not know if any North Korean dignitaries had visited the lake.
Kim Jong Un, who is in his late 20s, made his international public debut in October last year after being promoted weeks earlier to four-star general and receiving the position of vice chairman of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea's central military commission.
The elder Kim, 69, who himself inherited power from his father, reportedly suffered a stroke in 2008.
He appears to have recovered and has resumed his steady round of visits to factories and farms.
The trip set off a media frenzy because many initially reported it was his son and heir apparent Kim Jong Un who had crossed the border - a reflection of the difficulty of getting information from or about North Korea.
Later, South Korea's Yonhap News agency and others, citing anonymous government sources, backtracked and said they now believed it was the father. It was not clear whether the younger Kim was with him.
North Korean state media made no mention of any state visit to China, and China's Foreign Ministry also said they didn't know anything about a North Korean leader visit.
In the past, China only confirmed such visits after they had ended.
Kim Jong Il visited China in May and August of last year.
Despite the confusion in Seoul, it was obvious that a high-profile visitor was in China.
In Mudanjiang, a northeastern Chinese city near the North Korean border that the senior Kim visited last year, security on the street was high, the director of the main office of the city's Beishan Park, surnamed Liu, said.
He said Heilongjiang provincial leaders gathered at a government guesthouse known locally as the VIP Building, where visiting dignitaries are entertained, on Thursday night. The Jingbo Lake Hotel was closed and its customers ordered to leave, according to a woman who was part of the skeleton staff that remained.
The security measures were lifted by mid-afternoon yesterday, she said, but she did not know if any North Korean dignitaries had visited the lake.
Kim Jong Un, who is in his late 20s, made his international public debut in October last year after being promoted weeks earlier to four-star general and receiving the position of vice chairman of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea's central military commission.
The elder Kim, 69, who himself inherited power from his father, reportedly suffered a stroke in 2008.
He appears to have recovered and has resumed his steady round of visits to factories and farms.
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