SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – North Korea’s presumptive No. 2 and other members of Pyongyang’s inner circle made a surprise trip Saturday to South Korea for the close of the Asian Games, a visit that will include the rivals’ highest level face-to-face talks in five years.
After months of tensions, including a barrage of insults between the divided neighbors and an unusual number of North Korean missile and rocket test firings, expectations for any breakthrough aren’t high, but even the visit itself is significant, allowing a valuable meeting between confidants of North Korea’s authoritarian leader and Seoul’s senior official for North Korean affairs.
The North Korean delegation to the games in Incheon was led by Hwang Pyong So, the top political officer at the Korean People’s Army and considered by outside analysts to be the country’s second most important official after leader Kim Jong Un.
The visit comes as rumors swirl in the South about the health of Kim, who has made no public appearances since Sept. 3 and skipped a high-profile recent event he usually attends. A recent official documentary showed footage from August of him limping and overweight and mentioned his “discomfort.”
Unification Ministry spokesman Lim Byeong Cheol told reporters that the North Korean officials plan to hold talks over lunch with South Korean Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae and national security director Kim Kwan-jin before flying back home later Saturday.