Small Tree Stumps

Ri Son Gwon, came to Panmunjeom today with a North Korean delegation to meet working level South Korean negotiators. The military talks will resume on June 14 at PMJ. A facility is to be established in Kheseong, NK, for communications between North and South. Education talks were set for June 18. Red Cross talks for June 22. The Red Cross talks apparently will take place at Gumgangsan in North Korea.

Ri was a bit irritated and sarcastic with reporters, as he regarded the meeting of the day, as related to inter-Korea affairs, and not related to the upcoming summit with the US. Apparently, he is not accustomed to stupid questions.

There were a number of replies like this to questions. "Are talks in session with the US in the Unification House?" "That has nothing to do with me."

They asked him about the Trump summit. "...this is Panmunjeom....go to Singapore and ask there."

A reporter asked him, what is the prospect for the talks (here) today? He replied that they will turn out well, "...did you reporters want them not to turn out well?"

They asked Ri about the prior indefinite delay in the talks. He gave a response that suggested they knew where the serious situation had originated, so was it appropriate to ask him about the solution? It is already in the past, it would be best not to bring it up (make that mistake) in the future.

His response implied that the fault lay with others. Really, what was the point of such questioning? He criticized the reporters for asking questions not in the spirit of reconcialition and cooperation inspired by the Panmunjeom summit of North and South, but rather aimed at sowing distrust. He said he regarded such questions as rude if they were to continue.

Apparently, the subject of the earlier sudden cancellation of the talks came up again at the beginning of the meeting itself, where Ri said something like this to Unification Minister Cho, Chief of the South Korean delegation, in the respectful voice, " let's not engage in self criticism, and get over this." He also made reference to an old adage, "small tree stumps turn over the big cart." After his barbed comments to the press outside, Lee wanted the meeting to be open to the press. Minister Cho wanted the meeting closed to discuss the matters at hand for the meeting. Initially Lee objected, but Cho said we'll bring the press in right after.

I think maybe that Cho didn't appreciate Lee being so riled up at the time, and wanted to remove the press that played a role in the problem so they could get down to business. A writer for the Seattle Times suggested that the reporters questions should have been anticipated by Ri.

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/senior-north-korean-official-chastises-south-korean-reporter/

Fortunately, it appears that President Trump's meeting with Vice Chairman Chol went a lot better than this. Credit to A Channel for the information here which I have translated at the reader's risk.