No mention made regarding Trump, any offer of talks
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made his first public appearance in over a week to inspect a hospital construction site on the outskirts of Pyongyang, according to photos released by the state news agency a day after US President Donald Trump departed South Korea.
According to the Korean Central News Agency on Friday, Kim visited the nearly completed construction site of Gangdong-gun Hospital on Thursday, marking his return to public activities following a brief hiatus during Trump’s visit to South Korea for talks with President Lee Jae Myung and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the occasion of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
It marked Kim’s first public appearance since his visit on Oct. 24 to a cemetery for Chinese soldiers killed in the 1950-53 Korean War.
Though Trump had repeatedly mentioned that he was open to meeting and talking with the North Korean leader during his two-day visit to Korea on Wednesday and Thursday, Kim did not comment on such requests and instead remained out of the public eye throughout the US president’s visit to Korea.
The KCNA report on Kim’s public appearance did not comment on Trump’s calls to meet, nor did it mention why Kim had remained silent regarding the US president’s repeated proposals.
Meanwhile, during the visit to the hospital site, Kim emphasized that “safeguarding the lives and health of all citizens must be placed above all other state affairs,” calling health care a “top national priority,” according to the KCNA.
He also set a goal of building modern hospitals in 20 cities and counties a year as part of plans to modernize the public health sector, adding that measures must be made to expand the workforce for building public health facilities.
lee.jungjoo@heraldcorp.com
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