Guess who's back in North Korea?
On Tuesday, former NBA star Dennis Rodman returned to North Korea, where he said he planned to see his "friend" Kim Jong-un, the dictator whose country repeatedly threatened to annihilate the United States using nuclear weapons earlier this year.
The basketball legend was greeted by Song Kwang-ho, the vice chairman of North Korea's Olympic Committee, at Pyongyang's airport upon his arrival. During his five-day visit in the country, Rodman announced that he would not try to negotiate the release of Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American Christian missionary who has been held by Kim Jong-un's regime since late last year.
"I'm not going to North Korea to discuss freeing Kenneth Bae," said the Basketball Hall of Fame member to Reuters in a telephone interview. "I'm just going there on another basketball diplomacy tour."
Rodman, aka "The Worm," added that he intends "to meet my friend Kim, the marshal, and start a basketball league over there," reports the Associated Press. "I have not been promised anything. I am just going there as a friendly gesture.
"I'm just going over there to have a good time and try to bridge the gap with Americans and North Koreans," Rodman added. "Just let's let people see in America that it's not a bad thing to go to North Korea and have a good time and meet new people."
During Rodman's first visit in late February, he and Mr. Kim, a fervent basketball fan, watched a game together. The trip came during a time of heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula. After U.N. sanctions imposed in early March over Pyongyang's February nuclear test, North Korea threatened Washington and Seoul with nuclear and missile strikes and shut down a factory in the North shared with the South.