SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appears to have arrived on an unannounced visit to the Chinese border city of Dandong, a government source in Seoul and South Korean media said on Saturday. Kim crossed via a major border bridge that only officially opened last week — 12 years after its completion — deepening economic ties between China and diplomatically isolated, nuclear-armed North Korea.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un returned home after a day trip to the Chinese border city of Dandong on Saturday, Xinhua news agency said.
China's top political adviser Wang Huning met Kim in Dandong, where Wang conveyed "Chinese President Xi Jinping's cordial greetings and best wishes to Kim", Xinhua said, adding Wang "saw him off at the China-North Korea New Yalu River Bridge".
Neither North Korea nor China disclosed Kim's visit in advance. South Korean lawmaker Youn Kun-young said Kim was "understood" to have met Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Saturday. South Korea's ruling Democratic Party said Youn had been briefed that Kim was likely to return home later the same day. China is North Korea's largest trading partner and a vital source of diplomatic, economic and political support for Pyongyang, although ties have not always been smooth.
The Yonhap news agency first reported Kim's arrival, citing an unidentified South Korean government source. A separate government source said that the North Korean leader appeared to have crossed into China via the recently opened New Yalu River Bridge. Lawmaker Youn said he had been briefed on Friday about the likely visit.
The trip's purpose was unclear, but it could send a "positive signal" about a possible US-North Korea summit, he said in a statement. World leaders are preparing for November's APEC summit in China's Shenzhen, where it has been speculated that Kim may meet US President Donald Trump.
Neither the Chinese foreign ministry nor the North Korean embassy in Beijing immediately responded to AFP's requests for comment on Saturday.
South Korea's government said it could not confirm Kim's itinerary in China. The New Yalu River Bridge was completed in 2014 but its opening was delayed due to a lack of connecting roads and customs facilities on the North Korean side, according to South Korean news reports. Its opening came a little more than a month after North Korea and Russia opened their first road bridge.
By meeting Li in Dandong, Kim "may have sought to reaffirm the economic cooperation agreed during Xi Jinping's visit to North Korea" earlier this year, and "press China to move more quickly on those commitments", Yang Moo-Jin, former president of the South's University of North Korean Studies, said. "He may also have sought Beijing's active support and cooperation ahead of a possible summit with Trump in Shenzhen."
Hours before Yonhap's report, North Korea's state media said he had urged his military at a two-day meeting of company commanders in Pyongyang to train to become the strongest in the world. Kim's call for what he dubbed a "Korean-style military revolution" came the same week Seoul's military proposed talks to clarify the border after an explosion inside the heavily fortified Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) further strained inter-Korean ties.
Seoul's military proposed the talks on Friday after it blamed the blast, which injured South Korean soldiers, on North Korean landmines. Pyongyang strongly rejects the claim. North Korea has not responded to the proposal and previously rejected the South's demand for an apology over the explosion. The countries remain technically at war as their 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. — AFP
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