SEOUL: South Korea on Saturday requested North Korea to explain why it abruptly canceled plans to send a delegation over the weekend to prepare for a visit by an art troupe during next month’s Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon said that the countries could hopefully reschedule a visit soon.
North Korea also hasn’t responded to the South Korean proposal to send a 12-member delegation to the North on Tuesday to inspect preparations for a joint cultural event at the North’s scenic Diamond Mountain and a training session between non-Olympic skiers at the North’s Masik ski resort ahead of the Olympics.
“Since we are fully ready for the visit of the North Korean advance team and their activities, it would be possible for the South and North to set up a new schedule and carry on (with the preparations), ” Cho told reporters at the ministry in capital Seoul.
The ministry said North Korea didn’t explain why it was “suspending” the visit by the seven-member advance team that was agreed just hours earlier on Friday through a cross-border hotline. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the two-day visit, which was to begin on Saturday, was canceled or just postponed.
It was supposed to be led by the art troupe’s leader Hyon Song Wol. She also heads the hugely popular girl band Moranbong that’s hand-picked by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The rival Koreas earlier this week agreed that the 140-member Samjiyon art troupe, which will include singers, dancers and orchestra members, will perform twice in South Korea during the games in a sign of warming ties between the countries. It will be part of a North Korean Olympic delegation that will also include athletes, officials, state media reporters, a cheering group and a taekwondo demonstration team.
Hyon has been the focus of intense South Korean media interest since she attended inter-Korean talks at the border on Monday that reached agreement on the troupe’s visit. Hyon’s gestures during the talks as well as her makeup, looks, navy blue suit and green shoulder bag received widespread coverage.
The reconciliation mood between the Koreas began after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said in a New Year’s speech that he was willing to send a delegation to the Olympics. While South Korea hopes to use the games to improve relations with its rival after a year of animosity over North Korea’s rapidly expanding nuclear program, some experts view Kim’s overture as an attempt to weaken US-led international sanctions against the North and buy time to further advance his nuclear weapons program.
South Korea asks North to explain canceled visit
South Korea asks North to explain canceled visit
Rubio meets Orbán in Budapest as US and Hungary are to sign a civilian nuclear pact
- Trump has been outspoken in his support for the nationalist Orbán in the Hungarian leader’s bid for reelection in two months
BUDAPEST, Hungary: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in the Hungarian capital on Monday for meetings with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his government during which they plan to sign a civilian-nuclear cooperation agreement heralded by US President Donald Trump.
Trump has been outspoken in his support for the nationalist Orbán in the Hungarian leader’s bid for reelection in two months. Orbán and his Fidesz party are facing their most serious challenge in the April 12 vote since the right-wing populist retook power in 2010.
The stop in Hungary’s capital follows Rubio’s visit to Slovakia on Sunday, after he previously attended the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
Led by Euroskeptic populists who oppose support for Ukraine and vocally back Trump, Slovakia and Hungary represent friendly territory for Rubio as he pushes to shore up energy agreements with both Central European countries.
Widely considered Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most reliable advocate in the European Union, Orbán has maintained warm relations with the Kremlin despite its war against Ukraine while currying favor with Trump and his MAGA — short for the 2016 Trump campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” — movement.
Many in MAGA and the broader conservative world view Hungary as a shining example of successful conservative nationalism, despite the erosion of its democratic institutions and its status as one of the EU’s poorest countries.
In a post on his Truth Social site earlier this month, Trump endorsed Orbán for the coming elections and called him a “truly strong and powerful Leader” and “a true friend, fighter, and WINNER.”
Trump has praised Orbán’s firm opposition to immigration, exemplified by a fence his government erected on Hungary’s southern border in 2015 as hundreds of thousands of refugees fled Syria and other countries in the Middle East and Africa.
Other US conservatives admire Orbán’s hostility to LGBTQ+ rights. His government last year banned the popular Budapest Pride celebration and allowed facial recognition technology to be used to identify anyone participating despite the ban. It has also effectively banned same-sex adoption and same-sex marriage, and disallowed transgender individuals from changing their sex in official documents.
Orbán has remained firmly committed to purchasing Russian energy despite efforts by the EU to wean off such supplies, and received an exemption from US sanctions on Russian energy after a November meeting in the White House with Trump.
Apparently trusting that his political and personal affinity with the US leader could pay even greater dividends, Orbán and his government have sought to woo Trump to Hungary before the pivotal April 12 elections — hoping such a high-profile visit and endorsement would push Orbán, who is trailing in most polls, over the finish line.
Budapest has hosted several annual iterations of the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, and another was hastily rescheduled this year to fall in March, just before Hungary’s elections.
