World News
U.S. Looks to Moscow for Help with Isolating North Korea
Russia has urged a peaceful resolution as Kim and President Donald Trump trade personal insults and threats of war.
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WASHINGTON – China’s increasingly icy posture is thrusting Russia forward as North Korea’s preferred diplomatic partner, forcing the Trump administration to turn to Moscow for help in isolating the rogue, nuclear-armed nation.
Beijing’s close ties to Pyongyang have been strained since leader Kim Jong Un ordered the 2013 execution of his uncle who had been the countries’ chief liaison. Since then, the allies once said to be as “close as lips and teeth” have moved further apart over China’s adoption of U.N. sanctions designed to starve North Korea of revenue for its nuclear and missile programs.
But China isn’t North Korea’s only traditionally friendly neighbour. And for the United States, Russia’s increased importance comes at an uncomfortable time. The State Department on Friday warned countries and companies around the world they risk being blacklisted if they do business with dozens of Russian firms. Investigations also continue into allegations Russia interfered in last year’s U.S. presidential election.
“Russia could play a useful diplomatic role,” Joseph Yun, the U.S. envoy to North Korea, said in an Associated Press interview. “If Russia delivers a unified message with the U.S., China, South Korea and Japan that the U.S. is not interested in regime change but rather we want to resolve the WMD issue, they can help better than anyone else to convince them of that.”
Yun said he and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson want Moscow to support the international pressure campaign against North Korea by implementing U.N sanctions, and to urge the isolated, often inscrutable government to engage in diplomatic efforts. Washington also wants to prevent transfers of weapons technology, amid disputed assessments that North Korea may have acquired a high-performance missile engine through illicit networks in Russia or Ukraine.
Like China, Russia has urged a peaceful resolution as Kim and President Donald Trump trade personal insults and threats of war. CIA Director Mike Pompeo recently said Pyongyang is only months away from a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike the United States, a timeline that has raised American alarm and escalated fears of a resumption of the 1950-53 Korean War.
In the meantime, Russia has cast itself as a potential go-between.
Choe Son-hui, director-general of the North America bureau at North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, has visited Moscow twice in the past month — most recently to attend a nonproliferation conference where she spoke on a panel alongside a nongovernmental American expert and a senior Russian diplomat. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov opened the event. Choe also met with Russia’s ambassador to North Korea in Pyongyang last month.
“They seem to be communicating, which is good,” Yun said.
Suzanne DiMaggio, the American expert who sat on the panel with Choe, said: “If you look at all the major players in this crisis, the only one with a working relationship with Pyongyang is Moscow.”
“Moscow appears to be positioning itself to play an intermediary role,” she said. “Whether that’s looked upon favourably by the U.S. administration remains to be seen.”
Choe told the conference that North Korea wants to develop its nuclear and missile capabilities until they reach a “balance of power” with the United States. But DiMaggio said it was also apparent the North Koreans want to keep channels of communication open.
That’s where Russia could come in. It has participated in past nuclear diplomacy and was among six nations involved in aid-for-disarmament talks that collapsed almost a decade ago.
While the North’s ties with China have slumped, relations with Russia remain comparatively smooth. Although Russia, too, has endorsed U.N. sanctions, it maintains fraternal ties with North Korea dating back to when the Soviet Union trained and supported Kim Il Sung, who later founded North Korea. The U.S.S.R. then provided economic and military assistance through the Cold War.
Russia’s influence goes only so far, however. Its commerce with the North is minimal compared to China, which accounts for 90 per cent of North Korea’s external trade and has agreed to cutting off crucial imports of coal, iron ore and textiles. Such actions prompted rare North Korean criticism of China in state media this year.
China doesn’t want war. Nor does Russia. And Trump’s repeated threats of military action have put him at odds with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who advocates dialogue. Last week, Putin warned: “North Korea should not be backed into a corner.”
Trump responded this week by criticizing Russia’s level of co-operation, saying it has hurt U.S. efforts while China had helped. With improved U.S.-Russian relations, Trump told Fox Business Network, “I think that North Korean situation would be easier settled.”
Putin’s spokesman told the AP Putin sees things similarly. Better ties could help “crises including North Korea,” Dmitry Peskov said.
So far, Moscow hasn’t threatened to stymie co-ordinated efforts over separate gripes with Washington. But as relations sours — involving even staff eliminations at each other’s diplomatic offices — it’s unclear if they can continue compartmentalizing their co-operation. One bone of contention concerns the North Korean labourers in Russia that send significant money back to their government.
A larger question is how Russia might bridge the U.S.-North Korean divide. Both reject Chinese and Russian proposals for North Korea to stop nuclear and missile tests if the U.S. and South Korea abandon joint military exercises.
H.R. McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser, also recently addressed Russia’s importance with North Korea, saying it maintained “considerable influence.” At a security forum last week, he urged Moscow to help “convince Kim Jong Un and his regime to move toward denuclearization of the peninsula as really a last chance to avoid severe consequences.”
Andrei Lankov, a veteran Russian scholar of Korean policy at Kookmin University in Seoul, said Moscow wants to avoid a conflict and reinforce its prestige as an international player.
“Russia is a status quo power when it comes to the Koreas, and the war is its worst nightmare,” he said.
By Matthew Pennigton
The Associated Press
Exit polls in France showed that Marine Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally (RN) party made huge gains to win the first round of election on Sunday. However, the final outcome will depend on how people trade votes in the days before next week’s run-off.
Exit polls from Ipsos, Ifop, OpinionWay, and Elabe showed that the RN got about 34% of the vote. This was a big loss for President Emmanuel Macron, who called the early election after his party lost badly in the European Parliament elections earlier this month.
The National Rally (RN) easily won more votes than its opponents on the left and center, including Macron’s Together group, whose bloc was predicted to get 20.5% to 23% of the vote. Exit polls showed that the New Popular Front (NFP), a hastily put together left-wing alliance, would get about 29% of the vote.
The results of the exit polls matched what people said in polls before the election, which made Le Pen’s fans very happy. But they didn’t say for sure if the anti-immigrant, anti-EU National Rally (RN) will be able to “cohabit” with the pro-EU Macron in a government after the runoff election next Sunday.
Voters in France Angry at Macron
Many French people have looked down on the National Rally (RN) for a long time, but now it is closer to power than it has ever been. A party known for racism and antisemitism has tried to clean up its image, and it has worked. Voters are angry at Macron, the high cost of living, and rising concerns about immigration.
Fans of Marine Le Pen waved French flags and sang the Marseillaise in the northern French district of Henin-Beaumont. The crowd cheered as Le Pen said, “The French have shown they are ready to turn the page on a power that is disrespectful and destructive.”
The National Rally’s chances of taking power next week will rest on what political deals its opponents make in the next few days. Right-wing and left-wing parties used to work together to keep the National Rally (RN) out of power, but the “republican front,” which refers to this group, is less stable than ever.
If no candidate gets 50% of the vote in the first round, the top two candidates and anyone else with 12.5% of the registered voters immediately move on to the second round. The district goes to the person who gets the most votes in the runoff.
France is likely to have a record number of three-way runoffs because so many people voted on Sunday. Experts say that these are much better for the National Rally (RN) than two-way games. Almost right away on Sunday night, the horse trade began.
Macron asked people to support candidates who are “clearly republican and democratic.” Based on what he has said recently, this would rule out candidates from the National Rally (RN) and the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party. Leaders on the far left and the center left both asked their third-placed candidates to drop out.
Minority government
Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of France Unbowed, said, “Our rule is simple and clear: not a single more vote for the National Rally.” But the center-right Republicans party, which split before the vote when some of its members joined the RN, didn’t say anything.
The president of the RN party, Jordan Bardella, who is 28 years old, said he was ready to be prime minister if his party gets a majority of seats. He has said he won’t try to make a minority government, and neither Macron nor the communist NFP will work with him.
“I will be a “cohabitation” Prime Minister, respectful of the constitution and of the office of President of the Republic, but uncompromising about the policies we will implement,” he said.
A few thousand anti-RN protesters met in Paris’s Republique square on Sunday night for a rally of the leftist alliance. The mood was gloomy.
Niya Khaldi, a 33-year-old teacher, said that the RN’s good results made her feel “disgust, sadness, and fear.”
“This is not how I normally act,” she said. “I think I came to reassure myself, to not feel alone.”
Election Runoff
The result on Sunday didn’t have much of an effect on the market. In early Asia-Pacific trade, the euro gained about 0.23%. Fiona Cincotta, a senior markets expert at City Index in London, said she was glad the outcome “didn’t come as a surprise.”
“Le Pen had a slightly smaller margin than some of the polls had pointed to, which may have helped the euro a little bit higher on the open,” she noted. “Now everyone is waiting for July 7 to see if the second round supports a clear majority or not. So it does feel like we’re on the edge of something.”
Some pollsters thought the RN would win the most seats in the National Assembly, but Elabe was the only one who thought the party would win all 289 seats in the run-off. Seat projections made after the first round of voting are often very wrong, and this race is no exception.
On Sunday night, Reuters reported there were no final results for the whole country yet, but they were due in the next few hours. In France, exit polls have usually been very accurate.
Voter turnout was high compared to previous parliamentary elections. This shows how passionate people are about politics after Macron made the shocking and politically risky decision to call a vote in parliament.
Mathieu Gallard, research head at Ipsos France, said that at 1500 GMT, nearly 60% of voters had turned out, up from 39.42% two years earlier. This was the highest comparable turnout since the 1986 legislative vote. It wasn’t clear when the official number of people who voted would be changed.
(CTN News) – Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States, Masood Khan, has urged Washington to provide Pakistan with sophisticated small arms and communication equipment to ensure the success of Operation Azm-e-Istehkam, a newly approved counter-terrorism initiative in the country.
The federal government recently approved the reinvigorated national counter-terrorism drive, which comprises three components: doctrinal, societal, and operational.
Ambassador Khan noted that work on the first two phases has already begun, with the third phase set to be implemented soon.
Addressing US policymakers, scholars, and corporate leaders at the Wilson Center in Washington, Khan emphasized the importance of strong security links, enhanced intelligence cooperation, and the resumption of sales of advanced military platforms between Pakistan and the US.
He argued that this is crucial for regional security and countering the rising tide of terrorism, which also threatens the interests of the US and its allies.
“Pakistan has launched Azm-i-Istehkam […] to oppose and dismantle terrorist networks. For that, we need sophisticated small arms and communication equipment,” said Ambassador Khan.
Pakistan–United States relations
The ambassador observed that the prospects of Pakistan-United States relations were bright, stating that the two countries “share values, our security and economic interests are interwoven, and it is the aspiration of our two peoples that strengthens our ties.”
He invited US investors and businesses to explore Pakistan’s potential in terms of demographic dividend, technological advancements, and market opportunities.
Khan also suggested that the US should consider Pakistan as a partner in its diplomatic efforts in Kabul and collaborate on counterterrorism and the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan.
He stressed that the bilateral relationship should be based on ground realities and not be hindered by a few issues.
“We should not base our engagement on the incongruity of expectations.
Our ties should be anchored in ground realities, even as we aim for stronger security and economic partnerships. Secondly, one or two issues should not hold the entire relationship hostage,” said the ambassador.
China has reassured Taiwanese citizens that they can visit the mainland “without the slightest worry”, despite Taiwan raising its travel alert to the second-highest level in response to Beijing’s new judicial guidelines targeting supporters of Taiwanese independence.
Last week, China published guidelines that could impose the death penalty for “particularly serious” cases involving “diehard” advocates of Taiwanese independence.
In response, Taiwan’s government urged the public to avoid “unnecessary travel” to mainland China and Hong Kong, and raised its travel warning to the “orange” level.
However, Zhu Fenglian, a spokeswoman for a Chinese body overseeing Taiwan affairs, stated that the new directives are “aimed solely at the very small number of supporters of ‘Taiwan independence’, who are engaged in malicious acts and utterances”.
She emphasized that “the vast majority of Taiwan compatriots involved in cross-strait exchanges and cooperation do not need to have the slightest worry when they come to or leave mainland China”.
“They can arrive in high spirits and leave fully satisfied with their stay,” Zhu added.
What’s Behind The China-Taiwan Tensions?
The tensions stem from the longstanding dispute over Taiwan’s status. Mainland China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has refused to rule out using force to bring the democratic island under its control, while Taiwan sees itself as a sovereign state.
Beijing has not conducted top-level communications with Taipei since 2016, when the Democratic Progressive Party’s Tsai Ing-wen became Taiwan’s leader. China has since branded her successor, President Lai Ching-te, a “dangerous separatist”.
“The DPP authorities have fabricated excuses to deceive the people on the island and incite confrontation and opposition,” Zhu said in her statement.
Despite the political tensions, many Taiwanese continue to travel to mainland China for work, study, or business.
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