Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accepted an invitation extended by Ri Yong Ho, his North Korean counterpart, to visit Pyongyang at some point in the future, an indication of the close ties that still exist between the two countries despite the international pressure on the regime of Kim Jong Un.

Ri issued the invitation during talks in Moscow on Tuesday, where Lavrov said in a press conference that Russia welcomes the "gradual normalization" of the situation on the Korean Peninsula, as well as plans for direct negotiations between North Korea and the United States to resolve longstanding security problems in the region.

Read more: Russia 'ready to mediate' between North Korea and US

Analysts point out that despite Russia supporting a series of resolutions in the United Nations that have imposed increasingly tough sanctions on North Korea over its development of nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles, bilateral relations have been good in recent years as both Moscow and Pyongyang have been ostracized by the international community to varying degrees.

While North Korea's nuclear and missile programs have been cause for widespread concern, Russia has been broadly condemned for its intervention in the Ukraine, its ongoing support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and allegations that it interfered in the US election as well as in other votes in Western nations.

"I see clear similarities in this trip by Ri to Kim Jong Un's recent visit to Beijing to meet Xi Jinping," said James Brown, an associate professor at the Japan campus of Temple University and an expert on North Korea-Russia relations.

Read more: Russia's Sergei Lavrov slams US for ignoring 'multipolar' world

"In the lead up to the summit between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in and, ultimately, President [Donald] Trump, North Korea is doing everything in its power to make sure it is in the strongest possible position," he told DW.

"The North wants to make sure that both China and Russia — who have been their traditional allies — are still on their side," he said. "Beijing still has a security guarantee arrangement and although Russia no longer has the security guarantee that existed in the Soviet era, it is clear that Pyongyang's ties with Moscow have been improving in recent years."

Read more: Russia 'ready to mediate' between North Korea and US

That relationship has even improved in the last couple of years at a time when Beijing was "pulling back" from its previously close links with Pyongyang, Brown said.

"But in this recent frenzy of diplomacy, I think that Russia has felt a bit left out and there are suggestions that President [Vladimir] Putin wants a summit with Kim," the analyst said, adding that Moscow and Tokyo could be feeling marginalized by suggestions that negotiations on security issues in Northeast Asia be between four nations — North and South Korea, China and the US.

"It is partly a question of prestige for Russia because they do like to be seen to be involved in international issues, to have that ‘great power' status, plus they have a fairly strong card that they can play later with the US. If Putin can claim to have influence over Pyongyang, it could be used to his benefit when he wants support elsewhere."

Leonid Petrov, head of postgraduate studies at the International College of Management in Sydney and the former chair of Korean Studies at the Sciences Po University in Paris, said the North Korean foreign minister's visit is "very telling, because it demonstrates the level of interest that Russia has in its neighbor in the Far East and, at some time in the future, potentially a summit between Putin and Kim."

And he agrees that North Korea has once again been remarkably skillful in playing one country off against another in order to achieve a positive outcome for Pyongyang.

Read more: Kim Jong Un pledges 'denuclearization' in talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping

"The six-party talks were started in 2003 out of paranoia that North Korea might just start to cut deals with other nations on a bilateral basis, leaving out other countries with a stake in the region," he said. "Those talks collapsed, but here we are again in a series of bilateral discussions, which I always thought had the greatest chance of being effective and fruitful."

Brown said pitting other nations against each other is a tried-and-tested North Korean tactic, but one that still seems to work.

"This is what a regime has to do when it does not have much economic strength and is surrounded by larger and more powerful nations," he said. "It turns to diplomacy and is as cunning as it can be. It plays each side off against the other, and even though China and Russia are largely on Pyongyang's side against the US and Japan, that has still not stopped Pyongyang from playing Moscow off against Beijing.

"It is the way they have survived — against the odds — for all these years and it is a necessity for regime survival because they do not have a great deal else going for them," he said.</s>SEOUL (AFP) - South Korea's national security adviser has flown to Washington to meet his newly appointed US counterpart John Bolton, an official said on Thursday (Apr 12) in Seoul, where concerns are growing over the American's hardline stance on the nuclear-armed North.

Mr Chung Eui Yong, who personally delivered North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's summit offer to US President Donald Trump last month, returned to the US capital unannounced on Wednesday.

The two allies and are planning their upcoming summits with Mr Kim separately.

Mr Chung is due to meet Mr Bolton on Thursday, the official at the South's presidential Blue House told reporters.

He added that the meeting was a courtesy call aimed at "coordinating opinions ahead of the inter-Korean and US-North Korea summits".

The rare inter-Korean summit is scheduled to take place in just over two weeks, while the second meeting between Mr Trump and Mr Kim is expected as early as May.

The appointment this week of Mr Bolton - a former United Nations ambassador and strong defender of a US first-strike option against North Korea - has raised concerns in Seoul over the prospects of the diplomatic thaw on the Korean peninsula.

Mr Bolton's stance on Pyongyang diverges sharply from the more dovish South Korean government, which had pushed hard for an early meeting with him, the South's Yonhap agency reported.

"Bolton does not even mention the possibility of a peace treaty with Pyongyang" which is sought by the South, said Professor Koo Kab Woo at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

"If Bolton intervenes in the current diplomatic process (with North Korea), the need for coordination becomes much bigger," Prof Koo added.

In a growing rapprochement on the Korean peninsula kickstarted by the South's Winter Olympics, Mr Kim is set to meet South Korean President Moon Jae In on Apr 27.

Mr Trump has agreed to meet Mr Kim to discuss denuclearisation as soon as next month, though no venue or specific date is agreed.

The South Korean embassy in Washington and the US State Department have agreed to set up a hotline in the build-up to the summits, Yonhap reported.

The South's presidential office is also set to launch a new situation room to monitor the preparations for its upcoming summit on a daily basis, it said on Thursday.</s>Seoul, South Korea - The agenda for the third inter-Korean summit scheduled for April 27 is unlikely to have North Korean human rights issues despite calls for the inclusion by more than 200 NGOs earlier this week.

The NGOs, including Human Rights Watch, sent a joint letter to South Korean President Moon Jae-in earlier this week to urge his North Korean counterpart to follow the UN's human rights recommendations and facilitate human rights talks between the two Koreas.

The letter also pushed for regular reunions of separated families and increase inter-Korean people-to-people contact.

However, South Korea's Ministry of Unification confirmed human rights in North Korea was not on the agenda.

"The main agenda will be denuclearisation, establishment of peace on the Korean Peninsula and improving North-South relations. Nothing more, nothing less," Baik Tae-hyun, spokesperson for the ministry, told Al Jazeera.

This will be the first inter-Korean summit since 2007 and only the third since the 1950-1953 Korean War.

It is scheduled to be attended by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon.

The human rights issues will not be given high priority because it is a sensitive issue and may cause "a psychological discomfort" at the summit, according to Hong Min, director of the North Korean studies division at the Korea Institute for National Unification.

"The meeting is a tight one-day event. There won't be enough time to talk about everything. The focus will be on confirming each other's stance on denuclearisation," said Hong.

"North Korean human rights issues are likely to be discussed later at a wider international level with the participation of the international community."

The joint letter sent to President Moon reflects the NGOs' concerns that human rights issues have been sidelined due to other major political issues.

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"The South Korean government has been reluctant to talk about North Korean human rights," said Ahn Myeong-cheol, head of the Seoul-based NK Watch which consists of survivors of North Korea's political prison camps and one of the 40 organisations that signed the letter.

"President Moon was a human rights lawyer who had been fighting for democracy and human rights in the country.

"North Korean human rights are as equally important as human rights in South Korea. It will be an irony if he doesn't bring up North Korean human rights in the summit."

The Korean War Abductees Family Union estimates that between 82,000 and 100,000 South Korean citizens were abducted across the border during the Korean War.

Family members of those individuals signed the letter sent to President Moon and urged North Korea to report the records of abductees and to return them.

"Time is ticking by to resolve the human rights-related issues," said Hwang In-cheol, head of the 1969 KAL Abductees' Families Association, whose father was kidnapped along with around 50 passengers on-board a Korean Air flight in 1969.

"The inter-Korean talks will only have sincerity when it touches on the issues that North Korea feels uncomfortable with."</s>The South Korean government said Wednesday that the issue of human rights will not be discussed at the summit with Pyongyang, to be held late April, since the focus of this meeting is denuclearization of the North.

Seoul ruled out discussions on the human rights situation in the neighboring country between the South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, contrary to what more than 40 NGOs had called for a day earlier, including Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW).</s>SEOUL/PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un invited South Korean President Moon Jae-in for talks in Pyongyang, South Korean officials said on Saturday, setting the stage for the first meeting of Korean leaders in more than 10 years.

 Any meeting would represent a diplomatic coup for Moon, who swept to power last year on a policy of engaging more with the reclusive North and has pushed for a diplomatic solution to the standoff over North Korea's nuclear and missile program.

 The recent detente, anchored by South Korea's hosting of the Winter Olympic Games that began on Friday, came despite an acceleration in the North's weapons programs last year and pressure from Seoul's allies in Washington.

 The personal invitation from Kim was delivered verbally by his younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, during talks and a lunch Moon hosted at the presidential Blue House in Seoul.

 Kim Jong Un wanted to meet Moon "in the near future" and would like for him to visit North Korea "at his earliest convenience", his sister told Moon, who had said "let's create the environment for that to be able to happen," Blue House spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom told a news briefing.

 A Blue House official said Moon "practically accepted" the invitation.

 "We would like to see you at an early date in Pyongyang", Kim Yo Jong told Moon during the lunch, and also delivered her brother's personal letter that expressed his "desire to improve inter-Korean relations," the Blue House said.

 The prospect of two-way talks between the Koreas, however, may not be welcomed by the United States. 

 Washington has pursued a strategy of exerting maximum pressure on Pyongyang through tough sanctions and harsh rhetoric, demanding it give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons first for any dialogue to occur.

 "This is the strongest action yet by North Korea to drive a wedge between the South and the United States," said Kim Sung-han, a former South Korean vice foreign minister and now a professor at Korea University in Seoul.Moon asked the North Korean delegation during Saturday's meeting to more actively seek dialogue with the United States, saying that "early resumption of dialogue (between the two) is absolutely necessary for developments in the inter-Korean relations as well," the South said.

 It said the two sides held "a comprehensive discussion ... on the inter-Korean relations and various issues on the Korean peninsula in an amicable atmosphere," but did not say whether the North's weapons program was mentioned.

 A visit by Moon to the North would enable the first summit between leaders from the two Koreas since 2007, and would mark only the third inter-Korean summit to take place. 

 

 EXTREME PRESSURE

 Pyongyang conducted its largest nuclear test last year and in November tested its most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile that experts said has the range to reach anywhere in the United States.

 U.S. President Donald Trump and the North Korean leadership traded insults and threats of nuclear war as tensions rose, with Trump repeatedly dismissing the prospect or value of talks with North Korea. 

 U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, also in South Korea for the Olympics, has said the United States and South Korea were closely aligned in their approach to dealing with North Korea.

 "I am very confident, as President Trump is, that President Moon will continue to stand strongly with us in our extreme-pressure campaign," Pence told NBC in an interview on Friday, maintaining all options were open to deal with the crisis.

 "Make no mistake about it, the United States of America has viable military options to deal with a nuclear threat from North Korea but, that being said, we hope for a better path," he said.

 Pence said he would seek to counter North Korea's attempt to use the Olympics for propaganda and invited the father of Otto Warmbier, an American student who died last year after being imprisoned in North Korea for 17 months, to the Games in Pyeongchang.

 Before leaving South Korea on Saturday evening, Pence watched short track speed skating games, with Fred Warmbier seated behind him.

 Moon, who returned to the Games venue, joined Pence in the arena and sat next to him, turned around to greet Warmbier, according to a White House pool report.

 Later, Moon watched the joint Korean women's ice hockey team - the first ever combined team at the Olympics - take on Switzerland, joining Kim Yo Jong and Kim Yong Nam, the North's nominal head of state, who is also visiting the South for the Games. [L4N1Q007Q]

 North and South Korea are technically still at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty. The United States fought with South Korea and maintains tens of thousands of troops and an "ironclad" agreement to protect its ally.

 North Korea has spent years developing its military, saying it needs to protect itself from U.S. aggression.

 

 SACRED BLOODLINE

 Moon hoped to use the Olympics to ease tensions and North Korea agreed to send high-profile officials as well as athletes.

 Pence and the North Korean delegation, who both attended the Games opening ceremony, had no contact with each other. 

 Kim Yo Jong, 28, is the first member of the ruling Kim family bearing the bloodline of the sacred Mount Paektu, a centerpiece of the North's idolization and propaganda campaign, to cross the border into the South since the 1950-53 Korean War.

 At the Blue House meeting, the delegations shared a lunch of dried pollack dumpling soup, a regional speciality of the only divided province on the Korean peninsula, and soju, a spirit popular on both sides of the heavily militarized border.

 

 (Reporting by Hyonhee Shin in SEOUL and Soyoung Kim in PYEONGCHANG; Additional reporting by Haejin Choi in SEOUL and James Pearson, Hyunjoo Jin in PYEONGCHANG, Writing by Lincoln Feast, Editing by Paul Tait and Richard Balmforth)</s>South Korean President Moon Jae-in called on Thursday for the North Korean nuclear crisis to be "managed stabley", so that peace can be maintained. Rough Cut (no reporter narration).</s>South Korean president on Thursday appealed for the support of the country to ensure the success of the upcoming summit with Pyongyang, calling it a rare opportunity to achieve the denuclearization of North Korea.

Moon Jae-in's appeal came during a meeting held in Seoul with a group of government advisers and other officials where he stressed the need for collective determination in the face of a summit that has led to some mistrust among the conservative parties and some segments of South Korean society.</s>SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean President Moon Jae-in will meet members of North Korea's Olympics delegation on Saturday, including North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's sister, the Blue House said on Thursday.

Moon will also hold a lunch with the North Korean delegation, his spokesman, Kim Eui-kyeom, told a media briefing. The location has yet to be confirmed, according to a Blue House official who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.

 (This version of the story corrects to clarify location has not been confirmed)

 

 (Reporting by Christine Kim and Hyonhee Shin; Editing by Nick Macfie)</s>South Korean President Moon Jae-in attends his New Year news conference at the Presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea, January 10, 2018. Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters
• A U.S. university institute that studies North Korea says that South Korea has cut its funding.
• The university alleged that it had its funding cut after it refused a request from South Korean officials to dismiss academic personnel.
• But others say that South Korean lawmakers took issue with the institute's poor audit reports, lack of transparency in selecting visiting scholars and internships, and the "excessively long" tenure of the institute's director.

A U.S. university institute at the cutting edge of research on North Korea says the South Korean government has terminated its funding, forcing it to close after it rejected demands to change its leadership.

Robert Gallucci, chairman of the U.S.-Korea Institute at John Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, said it will close in May after rejecting "utterly inappropriate meddling" in its academic affairs.

The institute conducts graduate studies on Korean affairs but is best known for the website 38 North, an authoritative source of information and analysis on North Korea. It often uses commercial satellite imagery to shed light on the secretive nation's nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The institute had received about $1.8 million annually from the South Korean government-funded Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, or KIEP.

The decision to cut funding was met with surprise in Washington. The U.S. institute includes a number of prominent advocates of U.S. diplomatic engagement with North Korea, a cause that has been championed by the liberal South Korean government of President Moon Jae-in. He is due to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un late this month and has paved the way for a planned U.S.-North Korea summit in May or June.

Gallucci, a former U.S. diplomat and veteran of nuclear negotiations with Pyongyang, said it was a setback for research on North Korea and Korean studies in one of the two top U.S. universities that prepares students for a career in international affairs.

"This is a peculiar time to decide to screw with an institute whose purpose is ROK-U.S. relations, just when you have got two summits coming up," Gallucci said, referring to the Republic of Korea, the official title of South Korea. "I mean, could you take any more careful aim at your foot?"

In a press release announcing the funding cut, KIEP said that both ruling and opposition South Korean lawmakers had taken issue with poor audit reports, lack of transparency in selecting visiting scholars and internships and the "excessively long" tenure of the institute's director, who was appointed in 2007.

Gallucci, a former dean at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, rejected those allegations. He said the institute's financial reporting was very thorough and there was no mismanagement of funds. He said he had asked the South Korean government for evidence and had "gotten zero."

South Korean protesters burn placards of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un during a anti-North Korea rally on January 7, 2016 in Seoul, South Korea. Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

Gallucci said South Korean government officials had made clear in conversations and in writing that they wanted the institute's director and assistant director to be replaced, although they had no authority to demand that. He said the university dean had rated both individuals' performance highly.

An official with South Korea's presidential office maintained it had not requested the U.S. institute's director, Jae Ku, to be replaced. The official requested anonymity, citing office rules. KEIP said in its statement that it intends to keep funding Korea studies at John Hopkins.

Officials at the institute said up to eight people could lose their jobs. The website 38 North has alternative sources of funding so will be able to continue its operations beyond May.

It wasn't immediately clear why the ouster of particular staff at the institute was sought, or whether pulling funding that could impact its research might be viewed as a way of placating North Korea ahead of Moon's summit with Kim, planned for April 27.

Conservative politicians and media in South Korea have accused Moon's government of trying to tame critical voices.

Ku has conservative leanings, but he was primarily involved in administration, not research. Others at the institute, including Gallucci and assistant director Jenny Town, have long advocated U.S. engagement with North Korea, rather than isolation, to address its nuclear weapons program.

The conservative newspaper Munhwa Ilbo questioned whether Moon was running a "blacklist."

"If the government had tried to forcibly pressure the institute into firing certain individuals, that just shows how clueless it was about the culture of American think tanks," the paper said in an editorial. "It's more than just a blacklist controversy — it's a matter of damaged national image."

Moon's conservative predecessor, Park Geun-hye, now jailed for corruption, was accused of blacklisting thousands of South Korean artists deemed as unfriendly to her government, denying them state support.

Associated Press writer Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.</s>In his joint statement with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, President Trump said, "The era of strategic patience with the North Korean regime has failed. ... Frankly, that patience is over."
A joint letter from more than 200 NGOs urge South Korean president Moon Jae-in to discuss North Korean human rights at the April 27 summit.