China's President Xi Jinping looks on during the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, July 26, 2018. Gulshan Khan/Pool via REUTERS

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to visit Pyongyang next month at the invitation of North Korea leader Kim Jong Un to attend the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of North Korea’s founding, Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper reported.

It will be the Chinese leader’s first visit to the North Korean capital since he took power in 2012, and 13 years after the last visit by a Chinese President, when Xi’s predecessor Hu Jintao visited in 2005, the newspaper said on Saturday.

The Straits Times did not say where it obtained the information and the Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

North Korea’s celebrations are set to take place on Sept. 9 and the Straits Times said that Xi’s visit could still be subject to last-minute changes.

China is the reclusive country’s most important trading partner and Kim has visited China three times so far this year during which he has held talks with Xi on improving cooperation between the two countries and economic reforms.

The United States has stepped up sanctions on North Korea to pressure Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program. This week, the United States imposed sanctions on Chinese firms for exporting alcohol and cigarette products to North Korea in breach of those sanctions.</s>Reportedly Xi, at the invitation of North Korea leader Kim Jong Un, will attend celebrations of 70th anniversary of North Korea's founding.

Kim has visited China thrice this year and held talks with Xi on improving cooperation between the two countries and for economic reforms. (Photo: AFP)

Shanghai: Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to visit Pyongyang next month at the invitation of North Korea leader Kim Jong Un to attend the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of North Korea's founding, Singapore's Straits Times newspaper reported.

It will be the Chinese leader's first visit to the North Korean capital since he took power in 2012, and 13 years after the last visit by a Chinese President, when Xi's predecessor Hu Jintao visited in 2005, the newspaper said on Saturday.

The Straits Times did not say where it obtained the information and the Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

North Korea's celebrations are set to take place on September 9 and the Straits Times said that Xi's visit could still be subject to last-minute changes.

China is the reclusive country's most important trading partner and Kim has visited China three times so far this year during which he has held talks with Xi on improving cooperation between the two countries and economic reforms.

The United States has stepped up sanctions on North Korea to pressure Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program. This week, the United States imposed sanctions on Chinese firms for exporting alcohol and cigarette products to North Korea in breach of those sanctions.</s>Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit Pyongyang next month as ties between China and its close neighbour North Korea improve, The reported on Saturday.

The reported last month that North Korea had invited Xi to Pyongyang to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the country’s founding on September 9.

The Singapore-based newspaper’s report, which did not cite a source, also said that Xi would attend at the invitation of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

If confirmed, the visit will be the first by a top Chinese leader to North Korea since his predecessor Hu Jintao’s trip in 2005.

Kim has already visited China three times this year.</s>Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to visit North Korea next month, accepting Kim Jong Un’s invitation to attend the country’s 70th anniversary of its founding, a report said Friday.

Xi’s visit to Pyongyang would be his first to the North Korean capital since 2012 when he took power, Reuters reported, citing Singapore’s Straits Times.

The trip would also be 13 years after the last visit by a Chinese president, the report said. Hu Jintao, Xi’s predecessor, visited in 2005.

North Korea’s celebrations are scheduled for Sept. 9, the paper reported. But Xi’s visit could still be subject to last-minute changes, the report said.

The Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately respond for comment.

Kim has visited China three times so far this year — twice before the Singapore summit with President Trump and the third time a week after. Their discussions primarily involved economic reform and cooperation between the two nations, according to Reuters.

China is North Korea’s only major ally, although trade between them has plummeted in recent months as Beijing enforces United Nations economic sanctions in response to the North’s nuclear bomb and ballistic missile tests.

Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Russia, China and other nations against any violation of international sanctions on North Korea.

Pompeo had said Washington would take seriously any action that reduces pressure on the North to abandon its nuclear weapons.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.</s>SHANGHAI: Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to visit Pyongyang next month at the invitation of North Korea leader Kim Jon-Un to attend the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of North Korea´s founding, Singapore´s Straits Times newspaper reported. It will be the Chinese leader´s first visit to the North Korean capital since he took power in 2012, and 13 years after the last visit by a Chinese President, when Xi´s predecessor Hu Jintao visited in 2005, the newspaper said on Saturday. The Straits Times did not say where it obtained the information and the Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. North Korea´s celebrations are set to take place on Sept. 9 and the Straits Times said that Xi´s visit could still be subject to last-minute changes. China is the reclusive country´s most important trading partner and Kim has visited China three times so far this year.</s>(Bloomberg) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to visit Pyongyang next month as ties between the two countries improve amid mounting U.S.-China trade tensions, The Straits Times reported, without citing anyone.

Xi has been invited by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the country’s founding on Sept. 9, the paper said. The visit would be the first by the Chinese leader to the North Korean capital since Xi took power in 2012, it said.

North Korea also asked South Korean President Moon Jae-in to visit for the celebrations during high-level talks earlier this month, Asahi Shimbun has reported, citing people familiar with inter-Korean relations.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jungah Lee in Seoul at jlee1361@bloomberg.net;Jihye Lee in Seoul at jlee2352@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Stanley James at sjames8@bloomberg.net, James Poole</s>North Korea is planning a party. Next month, the reclusive country will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the country, officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. And there are signs that the event, which will take place on Sept. 9, will be a celebration to watch.

Those observing the preparations for the event have spotted practice for a military parade, while tourist visas to the country have apparently been blocked – sparking speculation about who, exactly, the VIP guests could be. According to one report, a close eye is being kept on the finest details: ruling party youth groups have been sent around the country to keep tabs on taboo haircuts, Radio Free Asia reports.

The North Korean state cherishes anniversaries, using them to reinforce the tale of how their small, embattled state fought off bigger foes like Imperial Japan and the United States. It often uses parades on these days to send a message to these foreign rivals. For example, on the 105th anniversary of the birth of the country’s founder Kim Il Sung in April of last year, North Korea used the day to show off a variety of new intercontinental missiles – an early hint of the technological advances testing would later confirm.

On last year’s anniversary in September, Kim held an event where he celebrated the work of nuclear scientists and engineers who had helped the country test its biggest ever nuclear bomb just a few days earlier. Earlier in the year, in February, North Korea had used another military parade to display the recently-tested Hwasong-14 and Hwasong-15 missiles that could theoretically deliver a nuclear weapon to the continental United States.

This year’s DPRK anniversary event will be different however. In many ways, the messaging behind it will be more complex.

North Korea was previously happy to menace the United States and other rivals with visions of military might as tensions escalated rapidly. This June, however, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with President Donald Trump in Singapore, where they agreed to work toward peace. Kim has also held several meetings with his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in, with both sides talking hopefully of greater integration.

The negotiations started with these meetings have been far from conclusive. In particular, North Korea and the United States seem to be at odds over the issue of denuclearization – with Washington seeking progress on North Korea giving up its nuclear weapons before other issues, like the long-awaited official end of the Korean War, while Pyongyang clearly views things differently.

As such, though things are nominally warmer with the United States, a surprise Trump visit to Pyongyang on Sept. 9 looks unlikely at the moment. Instead, many are expecting a different guest – China’s Xi Jinping – whose presence would send a message to Washington that it isn’t the only game in town.

Either way, Sept. 9 is expected to be a big event. Jeffrey Lewis, a nonproliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey who often uses satellite imagery to keep track on North Korea’s weapons program, pointed to images from Aug. 11 that appeared to show people in Pyongyang preparing their choreography for the day.

More satellite imagery analysis published by NK News suggested that the events of Sept. 9 would indeed include a military parade, with an apparent buildup of military assets at an airfield in east Pyongyang that had been used as a preparations ground for previous military parades. It is unclear from the imagery what sort of weaponry might be included in the parade.

On another practical note, tour groups have said that Pyongyang has stopped issuing tourism visas for September. One group, Koryo Tours, wrote on their website that they had been information “by our partners in Pyongyang that they had been instructed from above that all tourist visa applications currently underway are to be frozen.” Koryo later wrote that this applied only to tours up until Sept. 9.

Koryo speculated that the frozen visa applications suggested that Pyongyang was still working out who the VIP foreign guests attending the events on Sept. 9 might be. “A higher power in the country is simply pressing pause on tourism until it is clear to them who is coming in such delegations and how many people,” they wrote in their statement.

Chinese tour groups have also said they have had their packages blocked – with North Korean authorities apparently citing “renovation” at all hotels in Pyongyang for the rest of August. There had been rumors in the South Korean press that Xi would attend the games. South Korean leader Moon is also expected to visit North Korea at some point in September.

With little official confirmation and outside access to the country limited, reports are still largely limited to rumors and speculation. Radio Free Asia cited one unnamed source in the country that the government had given out special instructions to “root out nonsocialist phenomena, such as fashion choices and hairstyles that do not fit the socialist lifestyle.”
• That lump in her eyelid? The contact lens she lost 28 years ago Previous reports a few years ago that North Korea was mandating the haircuts of young men were largely met with suspicion from experts, who suggested that a trend toward copying Kim Jong Un’s hairstyle was just that: A trend. But there’s no denying that North Korea will be image conscious this September – it certainly knows the world will be watching.</s>When dealing with the Kim Jong-un conundrum, watch out for premature Yoko Ono-like “war is over” declarations.

False diplomatic progress is an underappreciated obstacle. Like belligerent threats, it, too, can lead to disaster. So, are our diplomats pushing too hard when they should be tapping the breaks?

President Moon Jae-in of South Korea is leading the forward charge. He’s planning a third Pyongyang summit with Kim in September. On Wednesday, he announced plans for joint-economic zones and expressed a desire to connect the Koreas by rail line. Reunification, anyone?

Also, Moon “unofficially” sent a message to Washington this week, an unnamed Seoul official told The Korea Times: Next month, as world leaders gather for their annual United Nations gabfest, he hopes to sign a pact to “end the war with North Korea and China.”

America may be skeptical, the Seoul official cautioned, but a “roadmap” to Pyongyang’s denuclearization could get Washington on board.

Maybe. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will visit Pyongyang for the fourth time in August. “The US and the #ROK remain in close cooperation to ensure the final, fully verified denuclearization of the #DPRK. We believe progress can be made,” he tweeted Tuesday.

Not to be left out, Chinese President Xi Jinping reportedly plans a Pyongyang visit as well. And at the UN, Russian diplomats are pushing for formal easing of Security Council sanctions on North Korea. With the exception of China, the other council members are unlikely to bite. But that’s almost beside the point: sanctions violations are already rampant.

So are we there yet? Is war over?

Remember President Trump’s June tweet? That, “President Obama said that North Korea was our biggest and most dangerous problem. No longer — sleep well tonight!”

A good night’s sleep is healthy, but the NoKo nightmare’s still here — and Seoul’s dreamy diplomacy can make things worse.

Moon’s a big believer in the theory that once exposed to the world, and with an improved economy, the North will mellow out. The Clinton-era Sunshine Policy is his Moonshine.

For some of his top advisers, US troops’ presence on the 38th parallel is a bigger threat than the cruel dictatorship to its north. If they overcome domestic defenders of the old ways, Seoul may abrogate our mutual-defense treaty and give the Yankee troops a year to pack up.

All music to Kim’s ear. He’d love to replace the 1953 ceasefire agreement with a formal treaty that’d immediately force US troops out of the peninsula.

And then what? Even more than his father and grandfather, the 33-year-old Kim is surrounded by yes-men. “None of his advisers are professional, military advisers, they’re all political appointees,” says Colonel (ret.) David Maxwell, who’s served five tours in Korea.

If these advisers are asked, says Maxwell, now a keen Korea watcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, they’d probably tell Kim that his mighty army can win a war against the South after a US withdrawal.

Yes, Trump is eager for a legacy-building diplomatic victory. As the November elections approach, politics will add pressure to show progress on North Korea, even if none exists. But beware premature end-of-war declarations.

Pyongyang “will remain a nuclear threat until they disarmed all their nuclear weapons,” a UN Security Council diplomat said Wednesday, adding sanctions shouldn’t be eased until then.

True: Trump’s early threats, and then the Singapore summit thaw, resulted in a lull as North Korea ceased launching long-range ICBMs. Also, Pyongyang partially dismantled facilities and returned the remains of several Korean War-era MIAs.

Yet, to date the North hasn’t “taken the steps we feel are necessary to denuclearize,” National Security Adviser John Bolton told Fox News.

And that’s really all that matters. On Wednesday the Treasury Department listed new Russian and Chinese firms that’ve violated North Korea sanctions. The administration’s Korea hawks, it seems, are so far holding the line.

Yet South Korea, China and others are whispering in Trump’s ear that appeasement will soon bring peace.

It won’t. Trump’s predecessors eagerly fell for false promises, which is how we got here.</s>Rumors were racing everywhere I went in Beijing this July. Had a secret coup toppled the government? Was the Chinese economy on the verge of collapse? Had popular discontent, triggered by U.S. tariffs, reached the point of explosion?

One deeper question lurked beneath these others: Had Xi Jinping—China's top leader, who presents himself as all but omnipotent—overstepped his limits thanks to overconfidence in the inevitability of China's rise?

At the center of this question are not simply the facts that fill headlines about China under Xi.

The "personality cult" that Xi has built up since coming to power in 2013 is extraordinarily visible—on posters, on websites, in competitions to read the president's work with the most sincerity—and some observers criticize it as reminiscent of the Mao era's fervid devotion to the "Great Helmsman."

The intensified repression that Xi has overseen across China, especially in the western province of Xinjiang, which has become an unprecedented "digital police state," has been condemned around the world.

Nor is the problem just U.S. President Donald Trump's erratic trade actions, which have imposed hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs on Chinese goods and threatened other economic punishments.

The core uncertainties are rooted in concern arising from Xi's worldview about governing China—and how that worldview collides with reality.

For the leader of an opaque political system, Xi is remarkably forthright about how he sees the world and has taken actions in line with this worldview. He and his team of obedient officials constantly trumpet a set of ideas about how China should be governed and how China fits into a changing world.

To borrow a phrase from Mao Zedong, Xi believes that politics should be in command. Xi envisions China becoming a self-reliant superpower with the Chinese Communist Party firmly in control over all aspects of life.

He intends to lead China to become the world's largest economy with a mixed socialist market system, a global leader in technological innovation with a modernized military, and the major force in Asia and beyond.

He sees this as restoring its historic stature, the "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation" that only the CCP can produce.

These sprawling ambitions are carefully arranged into an ideological architecture—one that has been honed to a startling degree at a time when so many other world leaders appear erratic and unfocused.

This ideology was recently written into the Chinese Constitution. It's called "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era,"or Xi Jinping thought for short.

Xi Jinping and Donald Trump in Beijing in November 2017. Thomas Peter/Getty

This ideology is both backward-looking and forward-looking. It draws most directly on traditional Chinese culture and Marxist dialectical materialism, presenting Xi as the heroic avatar who can unite and carry forward those lineages.

It seeks to adapt them to the 21st century—becoming what the Chinese scholar Jiang Shigong calls a "guide to action"and the basis of a newfound "cultural self-confidence and political maturity."

Xi has been explicit that policy work (whether economic policy, foreign policy, or beyond) is meaningful only if it is built on this ideological foundation.

His ideology aims to strengthen his individual mandate, identify the party with a set of principles, guide the development of policy, and foster values and beliefs in party members and the Chinese people. In other words, it aims to affect reality.

There are two big questions here. One is whether Xi Jinping thought will actually be able to strengthen the party and Xi himself or will have little to no effect.

The other is whether strengthening the party and Xi will, in turn, facilitate or undermine the real-world success of the numerous policy goals that are part of China's "great rejuvenation."

These challenges are playing out in technological innovation, one of Xi's central objectives. Innovation is bound up in both the Marxist and cultural lineages that Xi invokes.

Xi has called technological innovation "the primary driving force behind development,"a materialist assessment that echoes Marx's views about productive technology.

Technology itself is, for Xi, an "advanced productive force,"and innovation means the material capacity to stand, self-reliant, at "the frontiers of science and technology." But technological innovation is also proudly invoked as a central quality of traditional Chinese culture.

Xi often praises ancient China's "four great inventions"—paper, printing, the compass, and gunpowder—when he speaks about his country's greatness.

But this means that Xi's ideology isn't just an abstraction—it's supposed to manifest itself in real technological innovation. If China doesn't manage to become a world leader in innovation, Xi Jinping thought hits a wall.

And within this worldview, that means the entire project of rejuvenation might collapse. The tenets of "Mao Zedong thought"were discarded in a prior era because they didn't deliver on their promises, and the same fate could befall Xi Jinping thought. So, Xi's China must innovate.

Of course, innovation arises not just from the top-down provision of resources but from individual creativity and society's bottom-up ferment. In the real world, there are plenty of reasons to innovate—from curiosity and obsession to the pursuit of fame and fortune—that exist in China well beyond the central leadership's control.

But Xi is aiming to change the balance. The party-state is now oriented toward managing innovators, seeing their work as adding to the ledger of rejuvenation and attesting to the validity of Xi Jinping thought. A 2017 report in China Today described the Chinese Academy of Sciences' 100 Talents Program, which funds overseas Chinese scientists to return to China, as "an important force in the construction of a new innovative country. "In 2018, Xi was even more explicit, telling a meeting of scientists and engineers: "Party leadership is the fundamental political guarantee of advances made in the cause of scientific innovation with Chinese characteristics. "In other words, that might be: "What you do is only possible and meaningful because of what I do." Moreover, for Chinese researchers, an enormous amount of time must now be devoted to genuflecting before Xi Jinping thought. Centers for the study of Xi Jinping thought are opening on campuses across the country, and research on Xi Jinping thought was the No. 1 "hot research topic"of 2017, according to one official report. More seriously, increasing ideological strictures on Chinese academia and a new emphasis on "political and ideological performance"mean that international collaboration and cooperation face new impediments, in what is a clear tightening after several decades of significant, if limited, space for independent inquiry. (Of course, new barriers to cooperation also exist on the U.S. side, including in the form of more restrictive visa policies on Chinese scholars.) And a CCP campaign has just been launched to increase "patriotism"and "political consciousness"among intellectuals, suggesting that these trends will intensify further. Whether Xi's approach will foster actual breakthroughs or distort the processes of innovation is a powerful test of what happens when Xi Jinping thought hits the real world. Then there's the all-important realm of economics. Xi's expressed confidence in the economy is immense, despite serious problems, including debt burdens, demographic challenges, and trade conflict with the United States. Chinese President Xi Jinping waits for the arrival of US National Security Adviser Susan Rice (not pictured) for their meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, July 25, 2016. Reuters Xi Jinping thought even suggests that China's economic model is "blazing a new trail for other developing countries to achieve modernization"and "offers Chinese wisdom and a Chinese approach to solving the problems facing mankind." But reality is confronting Xi's visions for the economy, too: There are numerous troubling indicators of a domestic slowdown, and there's a trade war underway with the world's largest economy. A significant number of observers believe that the economy is far weaker than party officials claim. Reality can quickly deflate ideological confidence if it begins to falter. The centrality of economics to Xi's vision has caused intense politicizing of economic debate, producing severe constraints on dissenting opinions there, as in other areas of Chinese society. The risks to the economy of this approach are too infrequently discussed. Ideology cannot solve economic problems by itself—that requires engaging with complicated and often conflicting data and analysis, and debating policy options. In July, for example, members of the independent Unirule Institute of Economics were locked in their offices and told that they were being evicted. When I interviewed Mao Yushi, the outspoken founder of Unirule, in 2016, he told me, "The new leader [Xi] has given up Deng Xiaoping's road and tried to take his own road."This road evidently does not have room for economists advocating liberal ideas. By contrast, economists who have praised Xi's favored policies are finding ready audiences—and others are adapting their views to the new political reality. This is doesn't necessarily mean they're acting in bad faith; many may genuinely support the policies that Xi advocates. But we now know what happens to economists who don't. Indeed, with intensifying political control, individuals and organizations that might once have provided critical feedback on policy choices, or even just participated in open discussion, face much stronger deterrents. The risks of criticizing a policy that has been chosen by Xi are enormous: Xi Jinping thought is now written into the constitution. The chilling effect on intellectual debate and risk-taking is already apparent. The economist Sheng Hong, Unirule's director, told reporters last month, "We should be able to look at problems from a number of different angles." But many problems "of great importance to society … aren't being discussed within the system. "It seems almost inevitable that China's leadership will make mistakes that more vigorous and open debate could have helped to avoid. This, too, is part of Xi Jinping thought in the real world. Above all, the uncomfortable question for Xi is whether his signature ideology can actually help achieve his goal of China's "great rejuvenation." It certainly may be able to help achieve elements of that goal—justifying pouring huge sums of money into technological innovation that will at a minimum make China more self-reliant and produce short-term economic gains, or bringing new investment to developing countries along with "Chinese wisdom" about how to modernize. But these alone do not constitute the broader achievements to which it aspires, including guiding action, serving to "inspire society," and "ensuring that the party's great vitality and strong ability are forever maintained." Xi Jinping thought raises expectations to the loftiest levels. It's trying to be, in part, a self-fulfilling prophecy. One advantage of this approach is that it may be able to motivate and unite the party behind Xi—aided, of course, by repression and discipline. But it is extremely uncertain whether it will be able to inspire more broadly. What's at stake here is far more than the vagaries of elite politics or the niceties of ideological debate. China has a population of 1.4 billion people, all of whom have their own memories, communities, and dreams for what the future may hold. Far beyond the inventors or economists who make up China's intellectual elite, Xi's ideology is designed to shape ordinary people's lives, too. The CCP makes claims about not only their public behavior but also their values, opportunities, and private imaginations. But will they believe in these ideas? Will they tolerate another decade of "politics in command"? The future of this ideology in China may depend most of all on how it will be received by a vast and diverse society. This will depend on many factors. Successes may help legitimate the ideology and the leader who is claimed to be the source of those successes. But greater prosperity for the Chinese people will also raise the prospect, long predicted but not yet materialized, that a wealthier Chinese populace will demand broader political participation in ways that could challenge the CCP's monopoly on political power. Xi's ideological hyping of China's power may be creating an alarmed reaction from other countries, which will produce new problems for China—and may also create damaging pushback against this shift away from Deng Xiaoping's cautionary assertion that China should "keep a low profile." And if, instead of grand domestic economic successes there are significant setbacks for China and its people—even temporary ones—then Xi, his ideology, and his party will likely receive significant blame, even as they try to place blame elsewhere. The potential dynamic of Xi's "self-fulfilling prophecy"may instead become harsh feelings of unmet expectations. For now, it's clear that observers trying to understand China today and tomorrow must be careful not simply to accept Xi's ideas and utterances at face value. We must try to understand how they interact with the real world. And we must see that for China's leaders, seeking daily to impose party ideology on unruly events, reality itself is a great source of pressure.</s>SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea pressed its demand Friday that the United States agree to declare an end to the 1950-53 Korean War, as South Korea’s leader indicated that the U.S. secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, was preparing for his fourth visit to the North.

Pompeo, the point man in President Donald Trump’s efforts to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, has been struggling to follow up on the agreement reached between Trump and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, when they met in Singapore in June in the first summit between their nations.

In Singapore, Kim committed to work toward the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” But the summit agreement lacked details on how to achieve that goal, and Pompeo and his team of negotiators has struggled since then to win concrete action on this front from their North Korean counterparts.

When he met with representatives of political parties in Seoul on Thursday, President Moon Jae-in of South Korea said that negotiations between the United States and North Korea have recently gained “speed,” with Pompeo planning to visit North Korea again, according to Yun So-ha, an opposition leader, who briefed reporters on the meeting.

On Thursday, Pompeo said his team was “continuing to make progress” with the North Koreans, and said he hoped that “we can make a big step here before too long.”

“We’re continuing to engage in conversation with them about a path forward to a brighter future for the North Koreans,” Pompeo said Thursday during a Cabinet meeting at the White House. He also commended the North for not conducting any nuclear or missile tests since late last year.

Pompeo first met with Kim in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, on Easter weekend and again in May to help prepare for Trump’s summit with Kim. He again visited Pyongyang last month to urge North Korea to carry out the Singapore summit deal by moving quickly toward denuclearization, but notably failed to meet with Kim. At the end of this visit, North Korea called his demands for denuclearization “gangster-like.”

The State Department has yet to announce whether and when Pompeo planned to visit North Korea again.

But South Korean officials have said that Moon has scheduled his own visit to Pyongyang in September to discuss improving inter-Korean relations with Kim after Pompeo’s fourth trip to the North. On Wednesday, Moon proposed a bold expansion of economic cooperation with North Korea, including reconnecting the rail systems of the two Koreas, should the North denuclearize.

The latest hitch in negotiations has been over North Korea’s demand that the United States join the two Koreas in declaring an end to the Korean War. The conflict was halted with an armistice that was signed in 1953, but for decades the North has demanded that the United States negotiate a peace treaty to formally end the war.

Recently, it has renewed its push for a political statement in which the two Koreas and the United States — and perhaps, China too — jointly declare an end to the war, as a prelude to complex negotiations for replacing the armistice with a peace treaty.

Moon supports the proposal, arguing that such a statement will help ease tensions and encourage North Korea to denuclearize. When he met with Kim in April for their first summit, the two Korean leaders agreed to push for such a declaration this year.
• North Korea asks U.S. to lift sanctions after killer heatwave threatens food production
• North Korea is building new missiles at facility on outskirts of Pyongyang: U.S. spy agencies

But U.S. officials fear that North Korea may be seeking such a declaration to undermine the rationale for the U.S. military presence in South Korea without getting any commitment by Pyongyang to relinquish its nuclear weapons. They insist that North Korea take meaningful steps toward dismantling its nuclear weapons program before Washington makes any such concessions.

But the North on Friday pushed back.

“There is no reason to ignore a declaration to end the war,” said a commentary in the Rodong Sinmun, North Korea’s main state-run newspaper, on Friday. “It is a preliminary and essential process to pave the ground for easing tensions and building permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula.”

The North’s government, state-run news media and propaganda websites have issued a steady stream of similar statements in recent weeks, indicating that the declaration of an end to the war was the North’s latest negotiating goal.

When Pompeo visited Pyongyang early last month to seek more concrete steps toward denuclearization, North Korea indicated that it was willing to take steps in exchange for the end-to-the-war declaration. One of the first things North Korea should do is to declare all its nuclear weapons-related facilities, U.S. officials say.

North Korea insists that it will move toward the complete denuclearization of the peninsula only in phases and will do so only if Washington matches them with corresponding measures to improve ties and provide security guarantees for the North.

“The United States must implement phased and simultaneous measures, like the end-of-war declaration, to build mutual trust,” the Rodong commentary said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to visit Pyongyang to attend the celebration of the 70th anniversary of North Korea's founding.