SEOUL, MAY 02,
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, a heavy smoker, refrained from lighting up during a summit with the South’s President Moon Jae-in, but enthusiastically accepted every offer of a drink.
Mr. Kim has often been seen with a cigarette dangling from his fingers — riding a subway train, visiting hospitals or schools, even when inspecting a ballistic missile. But Mr. Kim was not seen smoking throughout Friday’s summit, neither indoors nor out. “Chairman Kim did not smoke even when there were no prying eyes from journalists and photographers around him,” a Moon aide was quoted as telling journalists. “This was probably a gesture of respect towards President Moon who is much older than him,” he said.
‘Drained in one shot’
However, Mr. Kim drank heartily at a dinner after the event, the reports said on Monday. “When South Koreans approached him with a drink, he stood up from his seat, let them pour for him and drained it all in one shot,” according to one participant.
Mr. Kim’s passion for basketball was confirmed when he suggested that the two Koreas focus on it for sports events rather than football.
Also, the two Koreas on Tuesday began dismantling loudspeakers that blared propaganda across their heavily fortified border on Tuesday, South Korea’s Defence Ministry said, fulfilling a promise made at last week’s historic summit.
Mr. Moon, meanwhile, asked that the UN help verify North Korea’s planned shutdown of its Punggye-ri nuclear test site in a phone conversation on Tuesday with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a statement from the presidential Blue House said. Mr. Guterres said the requests need approval from the UN Security Council, but he wanted to cooperate to build peace on the Korean peninsula and would assign a UN official in charge of arms control to cooperate with South Korea, the statement said.
