North Korea rejects South Korea's conciliatory approach as "pipe dream"
Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and a senior ruling party official, said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, "We have never removed loudspeakers installed on the border area and are not willing to remove them," adding Seoul is "misleading the public opinion."
Soon after his inauguration in June, Lee ordered the South Korean military to stop propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts along the border with North Korea in an effort to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Last week, Seoul said it has begun dismantling the loudspeakers.
The broadcasts had been resumed after a six-year hiatus under Lee's predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol, who adopted a hard-line stance on Pyongyang.
"Whether the ROK withdraws its loudspeakers or not, stops broadcasting or not, postpones its military exercises or not and downscales them or not, we do not care about them and are not interested in them," Kim Yo Jong said. ROK is an acronym for the Republic of Korea, South Korea's official name.
The sister said large-scale U.S.-South Korea joint military drills scheduled to start next Monday will "undoubtedly bring the light to the hostile nature" of Seoul.
She also stressed that Pyongyang has "no will to improve relations" with South Korea, calling it "the U.S. faithful servant and ally," and said, "This conclusive stand and viewpoint will be fixed in our constitution in the future."
The Lee government's expectation for a change in North Korea's stance is "no different than the wish for a flower in the desert," Kim Yo Jong said, describing South Korea as "the most hostile state."
She also dismissed South Korean media speculation that North Korea may try to send its message to the United States via Russia during talks between President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, saying, "We have nothing to do with the U.S."
In late July, North Korea said the United States must recognize it as a nuclear weapons state if bilateral talks are to resume.
North Korea and Russia have been strengthening military cooperation since Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The upcoming Trump-Putin summit will be held to discuss how to end the Ukraine war.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Japan Today
an hour ago
- Japan Today
Judge denies Trump administration request to end a policy protecting immigrant children in custody
By VALERIE GONZALEZ A federal judge ruled Friday to deny the Trump administration's request to end a policy in place for nearly three decades that is meant to protect immigrant children in federal custody. U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles issued her ruling a week after holding a hearing with the federal government and legal advocates representing immigrant children in custody. Gee called last week's hearing 'déjà vu' after reminding the court of the federal government's attempt to terminate the Flores Settlement Agreement in 2019 under the first Trump administration. She repeated the sentiment in Friday's order. 'There is nothing new under the sun regarding the facts or the law. The Court therefore could deny Defendants' motion on that basis alone," Gee wrote, referring to the government's appeal to a law they believed kept the court from enforcing the agreement. In the most recent attempt, the government argued they made substantial changes since the agreement was formalized in 1997, creating standards and policies governing the custody of immigrant children that conform to legislation and the agreement. Gee acknowledged that the government made some improved conditions of confinement, but wrote, 'These improvements are direct evidence that the FSA is serving its intended purpose, but to suggest that the agreement should be abandoned because some progress has been made is nonsensical.' Attorneys representing the federal government told the court the agreement gets in the way of their efforts to expand detention space for families, even though Trump's tax and spending bill provided billions to build new immigration facilities. Tiberius Davis, one of the government attorneys, said the bill gives the government authority to hold families in detention indefinitely. 'But currently under the Flores Settlement Agreement, that's essentially void,' he said last week. The Flores agreement, named for a teenage plaintiff, was the result of over a decade of litigation between attorneys representing the rights of migrant children and the U.S. government over widespread allegations of mistreatment in the 1980s. The agreement set standards for how licensed shelters must provide food, water, adult supervision, emergency medical services, toilets, sinks, temperature control and ventilation. It also limited how long U.S. Customs and Border Protection could detain child immigrants to 72 hours. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services then takes custody of the children. The Biden administration successfully pushed to partially end the agreement last year. Gee ruled that special court supervision may end when HHS takes custody, but she carved out exceptions for certain types of facilities for children with more acute needs. In arguing against the Trump administration's effort to completely end the agreement, advocates said the government was holding children beyond the time limits. In May, CBP held 46 children for over a week, including six children held for over two weeks and four children held 19 days, according to data revealed in a court filing. In March and April, CPB reported that it had 213 children in custody for more than 72 hours. That included 14 children, including toddlers, who were held for over 20 days in April. The federal government is looking to expand its immigration detention space, including by building more centers like one in Florida dubbed ' Alligator Alcatraz,' where a lawsuit alleges detainees' constitutional rights are being violated. Gee still has not ruled on the request by legal advocates for the immigrant children to expand independent monitoring of the treatment of children held in U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities. Currently, the agreement allows for third-party inspections at facilities in the El Paso and Rio Grande Valley regions, but plaintiffs submitted evidence showing long detention times at border facilities that violate the agreement's terms. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
The Mainichi
an hour ago
- The Mainichi
No deal to end Russia's war in Ukraine after Trump rolls out red carpet for Putin
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska (AP) -- President Donald Trump failed to secure an agreement from Vladimir Putin on Friday to end Russia's war in Ukraine, falling short in his most significant move yet to stop the bloodshed, even after rolling out the red carpet for the man who started it. "There's no deal until there's a deal," the U.S. president said, after Putin claimed they had hammered out an "understanding" on Ukraine and warned Europe not to "torpedo the nascent progress." Trump said he would call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders to brief them on the talks. Trump, who for years has balked at American support for Ukraine and expressed admiration for Putin, had pledged confidently to bring about an end to the war on his first day back in the White House. Seven months later, after berating Zelenskyy in the Oval Office and stanching the flow of some U.S. military assistance to Kyiv, Trump could not bring Putin even to pause the fighting, as his forces make gains on the battlefield. Trump had offered Putin both a carrot and a stick, issuing threats of punishing economic sanctions on Russia while also extending a warm welcome at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, but he appeared to walk away without any concrete result on ending the war in Ukraine, now in its fourth year. Instead, he handed Putin long-sought recognition on the international stage, after years of Western efforts to make him a pariah over the war and his crackdown on dissent, and forestalled for Putin the threat of additional U.S. sanctions. In a sign that the conversations did not yield Trump's preferred result, the two leaders ended what was supposed to be a joint news conference without taking questions from reporters. During a subsequent interview with Fox News Channel before leaving Alaska, Trump called it a "very warm meeting" but declined to give details about what he and Putin discussed. He said, "It's not a done deal at all." "A lot of points were negotiated," Trump said, but added, "As far as I'm concerned there's no deal until there's a deal. But we did make a lot of progress." Trump also insisted that the onus going forward might be somehow on Zelenskyy "to get it done" but said there would also be some involvement from European nations. The U.S. president had wanted to show off his deal-making skills, while Putin wanted to negotiate a deal that would cement Russia's gains, block Kyiv's bid to join the NATO military alliance and eventually pull Ukraine back into Moscow's orbit. "We had an extremely productive meeting, and many points were agreed to," Trump said during their joint appearance. "And there are just a very few that are left. Some are not that significant. One is probably the most significant, but we have a very good chance of getting there." He continued: "We didn't get there." Excluded from Trump and Putin's discussions, Zelenskyy was left posting a video address before the meeting in which he expressed his hope for a "strong position from the U.S." Putin thanks Trump for his 'friendly tone' For Putin, just being on U.S. soil for the first time in more than a decade was validation after his ostracization following his invasion of Ukraine. His meeting with Trump may stall the economic sanctions that the U.S. president had promised unless Moscow worked harder to bring fighting to a close. It may now simply lead to more meetings, giving his forces more time to make progress on the battlefield. Putin thanked Trump for the "friendly" tone of their conversation and said Russia and the United States should "turn the page and go back to cooperation." He praised Trump as someone who "has a clear idea of what he wants to achieve and sincerely cares about the prosperity of his country, and at the same time shows understanding that Russia has its own national interests." "I expect that today's agreements will become a reference point not only for solving the Ukrainian problem, but will also mark the beginning of the restoration of businesslike, pragmatic relations between Russia and the U.S.," Putin said. Despite not reaching any major breakthrough, Trump ended his remarks by thanking Putin and saying, "we'll speak to you very soon and probably see you again very soon." When Putin smiled and offered, "next time in Moscow," Trump said "that's an interesting one" and said he might face criticism but "I could see it possibly happening." Trump and Putin had greeted each other with warm handshake, chatting almost like they were old friends., and gripped hands for an extended period of time on a red carpet rolled out at the military base. As they chatted, Putin grinned and pointed skyward, where B-2s and F-22s -- military aircraft designed to oppose Russia during the Cold War -- flew overhead. The two then shared the U.S. presidential limo known as "The Beast" for a short ride to their meeting site, with Putin offering a broad smile as the vehicle rolled past the cameras. It was the kind of reception typically reserved for close U.S. allies and belied the bloodshed and suffering in the war Putin started in Ukraine. Although not altogether surprising considering their longtime friendly relationship, such outward friendliness before hours of closed-door meetings likely raised concerns from Zelenskyy and European leaders, who fear that Trump is primarily focusing on furthering U.S. interests and not pressing hard enough for Ukraine's. Not a one-on-one meeting White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said shortly before Air Force One touched down that the previously planned one-on-one meeting between Trump and Putin would be a three-on-three discussion including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff. Putin was joined by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov. The change seemed to indicate that the White House was taking a more guarded approach than it did during a 2018 meeting in Helsinki, where Trump and Putin met privately with their interpreters and Trump then shocked the world by siding with the Russian leader over U.S. intelligence officials on whether Russia meddled in the 2016 campaign. Zelenskyy's exclusion was also a heavy blow to the West's policy of "nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine" and invites the possibility that Trump could agree to a deal that Ukraine does not want. War still raging Russia and Ukraine remain far apart in their demands for peace. Putin has long resisted any temporary ceasefire, linking it to a halt in Western arms supplies and a freeze on Ukraine's mobilization efforts, which are conditions rejected by Kyiv and its Western allies. The meeting comes as the war has caused heavy losses on both sides and drained resources. Ukraine has held on far longer than some initially expected since the February 2022 invasion, but it is straining to hold off Russia's much larger army, grappling with bombardments of its cities and fighting for every inch on the over 600-mile (1,000-kilometer) front line. Alaska is separated from Russia at its closest point by just 3 miles (less than 5 kilometers) and the international date line. Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson was crucial to countering the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It continues to play a role today, as planes from the base still intercept Russian aircraft that regularly fly into U.S. airspace.
Yomiuri Shimbun
2 hours ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Trump Says No Agreement on Ending Russia's war in Ukraine as Putin Says There Was an ‘Understanding'
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska (AP) — President Donald Trump said he and Vladimir Putin didn't reach a deal to end Russia's war in Ukraine after meeting on Friday — despite Putin saying they had come to 'an understanding' — as the two leaders offered scant details on what was discussed while heaping praise on each other. In brief remarks as they shared a stage after meeting for about 2 ½ hours in Alaska, Putin said he and Trump had reached an 'understanding' on Ukraine and warned Europe not to 'torpedo the nascent progress.' But Trump then said, 'There's no deal until there's a deal' and said he planned to speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders soon, to brief them on the discussions. 'We had an extremely productive meeting, and many points were agreed to,' Trump said. 'And there are just a very few that are left. Some are not that significant. One is probably the most significant, but we have a very good chance of getting there.' He continued: 'We didn't get there.' The high-profile summit ended without a deal to end, or even pause, the brutal conflict — the largest land war in Europe since 1945 — which has raged for more than three years. The two were expected to hold a joint news conference but instead took turns giving brief remarks. Putin went first and then Trump, but both left without taking questions. Just getting back to the U.S. for the first time in a decade was a win for Putin, whom the U.S. and much of the world had long been attempting to isolate. Agreeing to come to Alaska to meet with Trump also stalled economic sanctions that Trump had promised unless Moscow worked harder to bring fighting to a close. The outcome could also benefit Russia's leader since Friday may simply lead to more meetings in the future. Russia's forces are making fair progress on the battlefield, and more discussions with Trump gives them more time to keep that up while avoiding sanctions. Putin thanked Trump for the 'friendly' tone of their conversation and said Russia and the United States should 'turn the page and go back to cooperation.' He praised Trump as someone who 'has a clear idea of what he wants to achieve and sincerely cares about the prosperity of his country, and at the same time shows understanding that Russia has its own national interests.' 'I expect that today's agreements will become a reference point not only for solving the Ukrainian problem, but will also mark the beginning of the restoration of businesslike, pragmatic relations between Russia and the U.S.,' Putin said. Trump ended his remarks by thanking Putin and saying, 'we'll speak to you very soon and probably see you again very soon.' When Putin smiled and offered, 'next time in Moscow,' Trump said 'that's an interesting one' and said he might face criticism but 'I could see it possibly happening.'
