SEOUL (Reuters) -North Korean leader Kim Jong Un left Pyongyang by train on Monday to attend a military parade in China, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency said, the first time he will have taken part in a major multilateral diplomatic event.
The reclusive leader, who rarely leaves North Korea, is expected to arrive in Beijing on Tuesday, Yonhap said.
At the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping, the North Korean leader is due to attend the military parade in Beijing on Wednesday to celebrate the formal surrender of Japan in World War Two, state media said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has cultivated a close relationship with Kim, will also be at the parade.
An official at South Korea’s Unification Ministry declined to comment on the media reports. South Korea’s intelligence agency was not immediately available for comment.
South Korea’s presidential security adviser Wi Sung-lac said last week that Kim may hold separate talks with both Xi and Putin on the sidelines of the event.
A trilateral summit between the three countries, were it to happen, could deepen the divide with the bloc consisting of South Korea, Japan and the United States, he said during a radio interview.
Kim Jong Un seems to want to further bolster relations with Beijing following the latest summit between South Korea and the United States, experts said.
“Unlike his grandfather Kim Il Sung, who attended many diplomatic events, Kim Jong Un and his father Kim Jong Il didn’t show up at any event where many leaders appeared,” said Cheong Seong-chang, vice president of Sejong Institute, a Seoul-based research centre.
South Korea will send National Assembly speaker Woo Won-shik to the Chinese event, the Unification Ministry said.
The ministry said it was unsure whether Woo would be able to hold bilateral talks with Kim on the sidelines of the event.
The defeat of imperial Japan in 1945 and the rise to power of the Communists in China in 1949 were crucial events helping to prepare the way for the 1950-53 Korean War, which resulted in the division of the peninsula into the China-backed Communist North and the U.S.-backed capitalist South.
20-HOUR TRAIN RIDE
The bullet-proof, armoured train is a moving “fortress,” Yonhap News said. It travels only 60 kilometres (37 miles) per hour and is expected to take 20 hours to get to Beijing, the report said.
Last year, Kim was seen near a black Mercedes-Benz sport utility vehicle on the train that he used to visit a flood-hit area near the country’s border with China, according to a photo from state media, KCNA.
Both Kim Jong Un’s grandfather and father used to travel abroad only by train. For his second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Hanoi in 2019, Kim also took a train for a two-and-half-day trip, rather than a five-hour flight from Pyongyang.
(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin, Heejin Kim and Joyce Lee, Additional reporting by Ju-min Park, Editing by Alex Richardson, Gareth Jones and Sharon Singleton)
