One thing can be said with absolute certainty about the latest mission to Moscow being undertaken by reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-il: it is right on track.
After midnight the lights went out in the Khabarovsk railroad station, and Russian guards with rifles stood on the ready.
Then, just before 2 a.m. the Moscow-bound train pulled in, carrying the mysterious Kim.
In an era when world leaders speed from one appointment to another by limousine and aircraft, Kim has chosen to travel by rail, a manner more suited to the 19th century.
The train ride from North Korea to the capital of Russia will take up to 3 days, with many stops along the way.
Exactly why the leader of one of the world's most isolated nations has chosen the slow, low method for international travel is not clear.
Historians believe Kim was born near Khabarovsk, but if the 20-minute stop had any sentimental meaning, he kept it to himself. The train took on supplies and Kim never left it.
The 59-year-old leader, rumored to hate flying, prefers to ride the world's longest rail track for his third foreign trip in seven years as leader.
When the Trans-Siberian train brings Kim to Moscow, he will have left Asia for the first time as the leader of communist North Korea.
But the historic occasion almost passed without notice. Word of the visit leaked out only a day before the start of the trip, and Russian officials had little information about his itinerary.
Secrecy is part of Kim's manner. One of his two official trips to China, in 2000, was announced only after he returned home.
Although Kim didn't step out Friday, he did emerge to greet Russian officials in the Russian border town of Khasan where the olive green, 21-carriage train stopped Thursday.
Among those present was Larisa Denezhko, a Khasan woman who also welcomed Kim's father, Kim Il Sung, on a trip to the Soviet Union 13 years ago.
Meeting with Putin
The younger Kim, wearing a dark gray leisure suit, chuckled as he looked at a picture of the occasion. Russian officials say Kim is eager to see places associated with his father and predecessor as leader, who died in 1994.
Russian news reports say Kim is expected in Moscow on August 4 for meetings with President Vladimir Putin, who has sought to renew Russia's relationship with North Korea that withered after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.
Kim's next announced stop is four days away in Omsk, in Western Siberia. Igor Spiridonov, a spokesman for the Omsk regional government, said local officials would entertain him during his one-day stopover with a military band, a folk ensemble, and a visit to a local factory.
It was unclear why Omsk had been chosen for the stop.
Before becoming leader, Kim visited China at least once in the 1980s and the ITAR-Tass news agency said he accompanied his father on trips to the Soviet Union in 1957 and 1959.
According to ITAR-Tass, Kim said in an interview on the eve of the trip that his country's missile program is peaceful, dismissing U.S. claims that the threat of nuclear attack from "rogue nations" such as North Korea justify building a missile defense system that Russia strongly opposes.
Kim's million-man army -- one of the world's largest -- is equipped with Soviet designed hardware. But the North's extreme poverty may limit the interest of Russia's cash-strapped weapons manufacturers.
North Korea is largely out of kilter with the norms of 21st century behavior, but there may be one simple reason for Kim's trip: perhaps he just likes trains |
