Kim Jong-un didn’t meet Mike Pompeo. North Korea’s leader did visit a potato farm though
North Korea’s state media did not say when the trip was made, but Kim Yong-chol, Kim’s powerful right-hand man, said last week that the leader was away for a trip to a ‘local region’
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un may have been too busy visiting a potato farm to meet US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Pyongyang’s state media implied Tuesday.
The North’s state media normally lead their television bulletins and front pages with Kim’s doings, but a seven-day absence from the headlines, including during Pompeo’s visit, had prompted speculation on his whereabouts among Korea-watchers.
The mystery was resolved Tuesday when the official news agency KCNA put out no fewer than four reports on his trip to far-flung Samjiyon county, on the border with China, most of them far more detailed than its usual accounts of his “field guidance” visits.
At the Junghung potato farm, it said, he instructed staff not only to plant high-yield varieties but also to “introduce various species good to taste and ensure the quality of processed potato foods in production and thus raise the quality of potato production”.
He praised officials of the county, which is close to Mount Paektu, the spiritual home of the Korean people and claimed by Pyongyang’s propaganda to be the actual birthplace of his father and predecessor Kim Jong-il.
It was “a sacred land of the revolution”, Kim said, which authorities were seeking to build “into a model of the country and fairyland of communism”.
KCNA did not say when the trip was made, but Kim Yong-chol, Kim’s powerful right-hand man, told a visiting Seoul official last week that the leader was away for a trip to a “local region”.