 US official doubts N.Korea role in warship sinking Washington (AFP) March 29, 2010 - A senior US official on Monday doubted that North Korea was involved in the recent sinking of a South Korean warship, in which dozens of crewmen are missing. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg said that while South Korea was leading the investigation into Friday night's maritime explosion, he had heard nothing to implicate any other country. "Obviously the full investigation needs to go forward. But to my knowledge, there's no reason to believe or to be concerned that that may have been the cause," Steinberg told reporters. US naval forces are assisting South Korea in search, recovery and salvage efforts for the warship, 46 of whose crewmen remained missing. South Korean officials said there was no evidence so far that Pyongyang attacked the 1,200-tonne Cheonan, which was torn in half in the Yellow Sea. However, Defense Minister Kim Tae-Young said a drifting North Korean mine dating back to the 1950-53 war might have caused the blast, or the North might have intentionally sent a mine floating towards the ship. |
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that Kim hosted a dinner for Chinese ambassador Liu Hongcai on Monday, "and had a warm talk with him."
The report did not disclose the venue for the dinner, which was attended by four other North Korean officials, KCNA reported.
A brief report on the meeting carried by China's official Xinhua news agency said that Kim and ambassador Liu "had a cordial discussion on the relations between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and China."
Liu "conveyed the regards of Chinese President Hu Jintao to Kim" and Kim said that "the traditional friendship" between the two communist countries "would be further strengthened," Xinhua reported.
Monday's meeting follows a report from South Korea last week which said that the 68-year-old Kim was suffering from increasingly frail health, including kidney failure and partial paralysis following a stroke in 2008.
Nam Sung-Wook, director of the Institute for National Security Strategy, which is linked to South Korea's National Intelligence Service, told a forum in Seoul that photographic evidence confirmed Kim's health was declining.
"Chairman Kim Jong-Il is suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure and we believe he is undergoing kidney dialysis every two weeks," South Korea's Yonhap quoted Nam as saying.
Kim's nuclear-armed regime is under pressure to return to six-nation disarmament talks grouping the two Koreas, China, Russia, the United States and Japan, which it abandoned last April. But Nam foresaw no early progress.
"The date for the next round of the six-party talks is unlikely to be fixed before June, as efforts to resume the talks have not yet led to any concrete results," he said.
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