US ex-basketballer heads to North Korea to “open door”
By
Peter Symonds
15 June 2017
Amid acute tensions on the Korean Peninsula, US ex-basketball star Dennis Rodman returned to North Korea on Tuesday to meet with the country’s leader Kim Jong-un. While the US State Department downplayed the trip as being undertaken in a private capacity, Rodman’s visit has all the hallmarks of a last-ditch attempt to open up a channel of communications between the two leaderships.
Rodman, an unlikely diplomatic go-between, travelled to Pyongyang in 2013 and 2014 and met with Kim Jong-un, even staging a basketball match for the North Korean leader, who is reportedly a basketball fan. Rodman, who was undoubtedly debriefed by the State Department and US intelligence agencies, opened up no diplomatic channels at the time and was heavily criticised in the American media.
The Trump administration has pressured China to force North Korea to abandon its nuclear and missile programs, and repeatedly threatened to use military measures against the Pyongyang regime. According to the Washington Post, “multiple people involved in unofficial talks with North Korea say the Trump administration has been making overtures toward the Kim regime,” including efforts to set up a secret back channel to the North Korean leader using “an associate of Trump’s.”
While a strange choice to facilitate talks, Rodman is an acquaintance and supporter of Trump, and endorsed the billionaire in 2015 for the US presidency. Rodman appeared on Trump’s reality TV show, “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2009 and 2013.
North Korean analyst Daniel Pinkston told the Washington Post that Rodman had a “long-standing invitation” to return to Pyongyang. “I heard that the North Korean Foreign Ministry had a…