Cuban president meets Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel - both hoping to get out from under US economic sanctions - have agreed to expand and strengthen their strategic relations, North Korea's state media reported on Monday. Diaz-Canel, who is in Asia on his first international tour since assuming office in April, arrived in Pyongyang with his wife on Sunday.
The meeting with Kim could be seen as a shot across the bow for Washington, which has run into increasing difficulty in its efforts to wrest significant progress from the North on the denuclearisation issue.
Pyongyang, which has also been quietly cozying up to Moscow recently, has been hardening its rhetoric ahead of a meeting in New York later this week between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the North's main negotiator, Kim Yong Chol.
Over the weekend, Pyongyang used its official media to criticise the US for its continued support of sanctions - a political tool Washington has also used extensively on Cuba and Russia - and hinted it may resume nuclear development if Washington doesn't change is tune. Sanctions-busting has been high on Diaz-Canel's agenda.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/cuban-president-meets-kim-jong-un-in-pyongyang-20181105-p50e4t.html
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