Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

Kim Yong Chol pictured in 2007. Ahn Young-joon/PA Images
Closing Ceremony

North Korean general should be 'hanged in the streets' not going to Olympics, says S. Korean politician

Kim Yong Chol is heading to the closing ceremony but is accused of war crimes.

SOUTH KOREAN LAWMAKERS have protested a visit by a top North Korean general for the Pyeongchang Olympics, labelling him a war criminal over the 2010 sinking of a warship and calling for his execution.

Kim Yong Chol will head an eight-member delegation to arrive on Sunday for the Games’ closing ceremony — which will also be attended by US President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, creating protocol headaches for Seoul officials.

Kim is widely blamed for a spate of attacks against the South including the torpedoing nearly eight years ago of the Seoul’s Cheonan corvette, with the loss of 46 lives.

Some 70 lawmakers of the conservative Liberty Korea Party staged a protest outside the presidential Blue House, urging President Moon Jae-in to scrap the visit.

“Kim Yong Chol is a diabolical war criminal who attacked the South… He deserves death by hanging in the street,” the party’s parliamentary floor leader Kim Sung-tae said in a statement.

Even if the heavens split in two, we cannot allow such a heinous criminal — who must be sliced to death — to be invited to the Olympics closing ceremony.

Unification ministry spokesman Baek Tae-hyun said the South Korean government was aware of widespread misgivings about Kim Yong Chol’s visit to the South, but accepted it as the “chances for improving inter-Korean ties and a peace settlement might be improved”.

Ivanka

At a Blue House dinner this evening with the South Korean president, Ivanka Trump — who is special advisor to her father — said she was there to “reaffirm our commitment to our maximum pressure campaign to ensure that the Korean peninsula is denuclearised”.

Moon however stressed that engagement with the North had defused tensions between the neighbours.

“North Korea’s participation in the Winter Olympic Games has served as an opportunity for us to engage in active discussions between the two Koreas and this has led to lowering of tensions on the peninsula and an improvement in inter-Korean relations,” Moon said.

“I also believe that such developments are thanks to President Trump’s strong support for inter-Korean dialogue,” he added.

The president also told Ivanka Trump in a separate meeting that the US and South Korea “must seize this hard-earned opportunity” to denuclearise the Korean peninsula, Yonhap news agency quoted Moon’s chief press secretary Yoon Young-chan as saying.

© – AFP 2018

Read: US vice president had secret plan to meet the North Koreans – but they cancelled last minute >

Read: US warns against falling for North Korea’s charm offensive as Kim offers olive branch to South >

Your Voice
Readers Comments
23
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic. Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy here before taking part.
Leave a Comment
    Submit a report
    Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
    Thank you for the feedback
    Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.

    Leave a commentcancel