North Korean leader Kim Jong Un personally greeted a top Chinese official in Pyongyang and called for stronger ties with Beijing, state media said on Sunday, as the traditional allies seek to heal battered relations.<\/p>\n
Kim met with Song Tao, head of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee\u2019s international department, who was leading an art troupe to attend a spring festival in the North\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n
The delegation arrived just weeks after Kim made a surprise visit to Beijing and met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, signalling an attempt by both leaders to shore up a key alliance ahead of a period of high-stakes diplomacy.<\/p>\n
Kim is expected to hold summits with South Korean President Moon Jae-in this month and US President Donald Trump in the following weeks.<\/p>\n
The North\u2019s official KCNA news agency said Kim welcomed Song and his delegation in a meeting on Saturday, where Song conveyed Xi\u2019s \u201cwarm greetings\u201d.<\/p>\n
The two exchanged \u201cprofound views on the important matters of mutual concern\u201d between their parties and the international situation, KCNA said, without providing details.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Supreme Leader said that he would positively carry forward and develop the traditional DPRK-China friendship into a fresh phase of development as required by a new era,\u201d it added, using the North\u2019s official acronym.<\/p>\n
Beijing is North Korea\u2019s sole major ally, an alliance dating back to the 1950-1953 Korean War, but relations deteriorated after China backed United Nations sanctions to punish Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons programme.<\/p>\n
More high-level exchanges and cooperation will follow between Beijing and Pyongyang, the report cited Kim as saying.<\/p>\n
In response, Song vowed to make \u201ca fresh contribution to promoting the prolonged and stable development of the China-DPRK relations\u201d.<\/p>\n
Song is leading a Chinese art troupe attending a spring art festival in Pyongyang held as part of the commemorations for the anniversary of the birth of the North\u2019s founder Kim Il Sung on April 15, 1912.<\/p>\n
Both North Korean and foreign artists take part, and this year\u2019s week-long event includes concerts, dance performances and acrobatics.<\/p>\n
KCNA also issued a rare separate report on Kim\u2019s wife who attended a performance by the Chinese art troupe yesterday in the absence of her husband.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un personally greeted a top Chinese official in Pyongyang and called for stronger ties with Beijing, state media said on Sunday, as the traditional allies seek to heal battered relations. Kim met with Song Tao, head of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee\u2019s international department, who was leading an art […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28117,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28116"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28118,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28116\/revisions\/28118"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}