Korea

By AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE, SEOUL, South Korea, Apr 6 - South Korea's disgraced former president Park Geun-hye was jailed for 24 years Friday for corruption, closing out a dramatic fall from grace for the country's first woman leader who became a figure of public fury and ridicule.

North and South Korea will hold their first summit in more than a decade on April 27, South Korean officials said on March 29, after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pledged his commitment to denuclearization as tensions ease between the old foes.

China has confirmed that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has visited Beijing, where he met the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and pledged his commitment to denuclearising the Korean peninsula.

Confirming several reports over the last two days, Xinhua state news agency said Kim had been in China on an "unofficial visit" from Sunday to Wednesday.

South Korea and the United States will resume joint military exercises on April 1 due to the Winter Olympics in South Korea's Pong Qiang last month, BTA reported on Tuesday, quoting AFP and TASS.

South Korea's foreign minister has said that North Korea's leader has "given his word" that he is committed to denuclearization, a prime condition for a potential summit with President Donald Trump in May.

A senior North Korean diplomat left for Finland on Sunday for talks with former U.S. and South Korean officials, Yonhap News Agency reported, amid a series of diplomatic encounters ahead of a possible U.S.-North Korean summit, Reuters reported. 

North Korea’s silence on its upcoming summits with the United States and South Korea is likely due to caution over organising its stance regarding the meetings, South Korea’s Ministry of Unification said on March 12.

The news of the planned meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has shocked the world, but North Korean state media have so far reported nothing of it, the Associated Press reported.

Pyongyang is surprisingly silent after a series of important, perhaps even historic, events of recent months.

President Donald Trump has accepted an invitation to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by May, setting in motion the most significant development in years of intermittent negotiations about North Korea's nuclear weapons program, reports CNBC. 

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in said yesteday sanctions on North Korea will not be eased for the sake of a summit with Pyongyang, but China’s state media warned nuclear North Korea will not be intimidated and that talks were the only solution.