SEOUL, South Korea — Reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il is expected to meet top Beijing officials today, a day after he arrived in China for his first journey abroad in years, reports said.
Kim’s trip comes amid mounting tension on the divided Korean peninsula over speculation his impoverished communist regime may have torpedoed a South Korean warship.
China’s leadership has also been trying — so far unsuccessfully — to persuade North Korea’s absolute ruler to come back to the negotiating table in talks to end its nuclear weapons program.
A luxury 17-car train carrying Kim pulled into the Chinese border town of Dandong on Monday morning, according to South Korean and Japanese media reports. Kim then headed to the Chinese port city of Dalian aboard a passenger vehicle and is believed to have spent the night there, they said.
In Dalian, Kim reportedly toured an automobile-manufacturing factory, a shipbuilding yard and port facilities, and is believed to have met Vice Premier Li Keqiang at a banquet Monday night. He is expected to travel on to Beijing aboard his train for talks with top Chinese leaders, including President Hu Jintao, as early as tonight, Seoul’s mass-circulation Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported citing an unidentified diplomatic source in Beijing.
Kim’s visit comes at an awkward time for Beijing.
The Chinese leadership has been trying to get Kim to agree to return to six-nation nuclear disarmament talks stalled now for a year and believed that it had won the North Korean dictator’s assent last fall. Since then, however, prospects for negotiations have dimmed.
Pyongyang has been unwilling to comply with requests from the U.S. to resume the talks, and tensions have risen between North Korea and South Korea, partly over the mysterious ship sinking in late March in which South Korean 46 sailors were killed.
Bloomberg News contributed to this report.
