By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--March 7, 2018
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Mr. Kim, who is just 34, surprised the much older South Korean diplomats not only by accepting joint South Korean-United States military drills but also by expressing his willingness to start negotiations with Washington on ending his nuclear weapons program. He also told them he would suspend all nuclear and ballistic missile tests while talks were underway. It was an eye-catching debut for Mr. Kim in international diplomacy. It was also a remarkable shift coming from Mr. Kim just months after he raised fears of war on the Korean Peninsula by launching a barrage of nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests. Considered by many to be a ruthless dictator with a reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons, Mr. Kim was now breaking the usual protocols in hosting the South Korean envoys, who came to appeal to him to change course.
For the first time, the South Korean officials were invited into the headquarters of Mr. Kim’s ruling Workers’ Party, where he maintains an office. He beamed across the negotiating table, while the South Korean officials appeared to hang on his every word. His wife, Ri Sol-ju, was the first North Korean first lady to be introduced to South Korean guests. When it was time for the guests to leave after more than four hours of talking and dining, Mr. Kim walked them out and sent them off with smiles and waves. “As a leader of a rogue state, he is a tough case to deal with,” said Kim Sung-han, a former vice foreign minister of South Korea who teaches at Korea University in Seoul, the South’s capital. “He has the guts but also is very strong in details. He is ambitious and has a desire to win.” His father, Kim Jong-il, ruled North Korea as a secretive and dour dictator until his death in 2011. The younger Mr. Kim, who attended a Swiss boarding school, has cast himself as a smiling, outgoing and youthful leader even as he has consolidated his totalitarian power with bloody purges of elites. This week, he played the seasoned diplomat by presiding over a roomful of reverential negotiators from the South — a point the North’s propaganda-filled state media did not miss in highlighting with front-page articles and large color photographs. Mr. Kim is set to travel to the border with South Korea for a summit meeting in late April with the South’s president, Moon Jae-in.So Bowl Cut Jr. shows up for the meeting, smiles, shakes hands, poses for pictures and indicates his openness to do everything his South Korean counterparts want him to do. That's all you need to earn a five-star review of "eye-catching" from the New York Times? Maybe the Times editors could check a little history of this regime. When backed into a corner, they always indicate their openness to pull back on their nuclear development. They always say they're willing to talk. They always offer to make a deal. And they never deliver anything they promise.
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