North Korea wipes traces of Kim Jong Un after Beijing assembly with Putin

By Ju-min Park and Josh Smith

SEOUL (Reuters) -After Kim Jong Un met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing, North Korean staffers rigorously wiped off gadgets touched by the nation’s supreme chief, in what analysts say is a part of a collection of safety measures to counter international spies.

Even with the looks of budding friendship between Kim and Putin, footage on Wednesday confirmed the reclusive state’s extraordinary measures to hide any clues about Kim’s well being.

In a put up on Telegram, Kremlin reporter Alexander Yunashev shared video of Kim’s two workers members meticulously cleansing the room within the Chinese language capital the place Kim and Putin met for greater than two hours.

The chair’s backrest and armrests had been scrubbed and a espresso desk subsequent to Kim’s chair was additionally cleaned. Kim’s ingesting glass was additionally eliminated.

“After the negotiations had been over, the workers accompanying the pinnacle of the DPRK rigorously destroyed all traces of Kim’s presence,” the reporter mentioned, referring to North Korea.

After talks within the room, Kim and Putin left for a tea assembly and bid a heat farewell to one another.

As throughout earlier international journeys, Kim packed his personal bathroom on a signature inexperienced practice that took him to Beijing to cover well being clues, Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported, citing South Korean and Japanese intelligence companies.

Such measures are normal protocol because the period of Kim’s predecessor, his father Kim Jong Il, mentioned Michael Madden, a North Korea management skilled with the U.S.-based Stimson Middle.

“The particular bathroom and the requisite rubbish baggage of detritus, waste and cigarette butts are so {that a} international intelligence company, even a pleasant one, doesn’t purchase a pattern and take a look at it,” Madden mentioned.

“It might present perception into any medical circumstances affecting Kim Jong Un. This could embrace hair and pores and skin tags,” he mentioned.

In 2019, after a Hanoi summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, Kim’s guards had been noticed blocking the ground of his lodge room to scrub the room for hours, and taking out gadgets together with a mattress mattress.

Kim’s group has been noticed meticulously cleansing gadgets earlier than he makes use of them as effectively.

Throughout his 2018 assembly with then South Korean President Moon Jae-in, North Korean safety guards sprayed a chair and a desk with sanitizer and wiped it down earlier than Kim got here to take a seat.

Earlier than he sat at one other summit with Putin in 2023, his safety group wiped his chair down with disinfectant, and vigorously checked to ensure the chair was secure, with one of many guards utilizing a steel detector to scan the seat, video footage confirmed.

(Reporting by Ju-min Park and Josh Smith; Modifying by Lincoln Feast.)