SEOUL: The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Tuesday that Washington had “wrong” expectations for dialogue with Pyongyang and was facing “greater disappointment,” state media reported.
Kim Yo Jong’s comments came after US national security adviser Jake Sullivan described her brother’s first reaction to Washington’s recent review of its approach to the North as an “interesting signal.”
The Biden administration has promised a practical, calibrated approach, including diplomatic efforts, to persuade the impoverished North to give up its banned nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
In response, the North’s leader Kim last week said Pyongyang must prepare for both dialogue and confrontation.
Washington considered his comments as interesting, Sullivan told ABC News, adding the administration “will wait to see whether they are followed up with any kind of more direct communication to us about a potential path forward.”
But Kim Yo Jong — a key adviser to her brother — appeared to dismiss the prospects for an early resumption of negotiations.
The US seemed to be seeking “comfort for itself,” she said in a statement reported by Pyongyang’s official KCNA news agency.
It harbored expectations “the wrong way,” she added, which would “plunge them into a greater disappointment.”
Kim’s comments came with the top US diplomat in charge of North Korea negotiations on a five-day visit to Seoul, where he said Monday that Washington was ready to meet with Pyongyang “anywhere, anytime, without preconditions.”
Just hours before Pyongyang released Kim’s statement, US envoy Sung Kim met with the South’s unification minister, reiterating Washington’s willingness to talk with the North.
The North at the weekend admitted it was tackling a food crisis, sounding the alarm in a country with a moribund agricultural sector that has long struggled to feed itself.
It is now under self-imposed isolation to protect itself against the coronavirus pandemic, and as a result trade with Beijing — its economic lifeline — has slowed to a trickle while all international aid work faces tight restrictions.
US has ‘wrong’ expectation for dialogue with North Korea: Kim Jong Un’s sister
https://arab.news/rb8nk
US has ‘wrong’ expectation for dialogue with North Korea: Kim Jong Un’s sister
- The Biden administration has promised a practical, calibrated approach to North Korea
- Kim Yo Jong – a key adviser to her brother – appeared to dismiss the prospects for an early resumption of negotiations
Italian police fire tear gas as protesters clash near Winter Olympics hockey venue
- Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue
MILAN: Italian police fired tear gas and a water cannon at dozens of protesters who threw firecrackers and tried to access a highway near a Winter Olympics venue on Saturday.
The brief confrontation came at the end of a peaceful march by thousands against the environmental impact of the Games and the presence of US agents in Italy.
Police held off the violent demonstrators, who appeared to be trying to reach the Santagiulia Olympic ice hockey rink, after the skirmish. By then, the larger peaceful protest, including families with small children and students, had dispersed.
Earlier, a group of masked protesters had set off smoke bombs and firecrackers on a bridge overlooking a construction site about 800 meters (a half-mile) from the Olympic Village that’s housing around 1,500 athletes.
Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue. A heavy police presence guarded the entire route.
There was no indication that the protest and resulting road closure interfered with athletes’ transfers to their events, all on the outskirts of Milan.
The demonstration coincided with US Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Milan as head of the American delegation that attended the opening ceremony on Friday.
He and his family visited Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” closer to the city center, far from the protest, which also was against the deployment of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to provide security to the US delegation.
US Homeland Security Investigations, an ICE unit that focuses on cross-border crimes, frequently sends its officers to overseas events like the Olympics to assist with security. The ICE arm at the forefront of the immigration crackdown in the US is known as Enforcement and Removal Operations, and there is no indication its officers are being sent to Italy.
At the larger, peaceful demonstration, which police said numbered 10,000, people carried cardboard cutouts to represent trees felled to build the new bobsled run in Cortina. A group of dancers performed to beating drums. Music blasted from a truck leading the march, one a profanity-laced anti-ICE anthem.
“Let’s take back the cities and free the mountains,” read a banner by a group calling itself the Unsustainable Olympic Committee. Another group called the Association of Proletariat Excursionists organized the cutout trees.
“They bypassed the laws that usually are needed for major infrastructure project, citing urgency for the Games,” said protester Guido Maffioli, who expressed concern that the private entity organizing the Games would eventually pass on debt to Italian taxpayers.
Homemade signs read “Get out of the Games: Genocide States, Fascist Police and Polluting Sponsors,” the final one a reference to fossil fuel companies that are sponsors of the Games. One woman carried an artificial tree on her back decorated with the sign: “Infernal Olympics.”
The demonstration followed another last week when hundreds protested the deployment of ICE agents.
Like last week, demonstrators Saturday said they were opposed to ICE agents’ presence, despite official statements that a small number of agents from an investigative arm would be present in US diplomatic territory, and not operational on the streets.
