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| Former NBA basketball player Dennis Rodman sits next to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a the taping of the new HBO series, "VICE." (VICE) |
SEOUL,
South Korea – Flamboyant former NBA star Dennis Rodman, known as “the Worm”
during his pro career, sat with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang
watching an exhibition basketball game today becoming the first American to
meet the leader of the nuclear state.
“You have a
friend for life,” Rodman told Kim while chatting without any translators as
three visiting Harlem Globetrotters
competed together with 12 North Korean players. Rodman, wearing dark
glasses and a black baseball cap with USA on it, sat to the left of Kim. Both
were in large red chairs that were topped with white covers, not a typical
courtside seat.
The North
Korean leader later dined and drank with the Americans.
Kim, 30, is
known to have been a Rodman fan since his teenage years at a Swiss boarding
school before assuming power after his father Kim Jong-Il’s death in December
2011.
North
Korean cheerleaders wearing traditional costumes and miniskirts performed during
halftime. Foreign diplomats were invited to watch the game. Foreign journalists
were not invited to cover it.
The game,
which mixed the Harlem Globetrotters and the 12 North Korean players into two
teams, ended diplomatically in a 110-110 draw.
After the
game, Rodman thanked the North Korean leader for the invitation.
“Although
relations between the two countries are regrettable, personally I am a friend
of Marshal Kim Jong Un and the DPRK people,” he said, according to Chinese news
agency Xinhua.
The 51
year-old winner of five NBA championships arrived in Pyongyang on Tuesday with
Harlem Globetrotters and a VICE television crew to shoot a documentary about
North Korea for HBO. Their agenda includes a children’s basketball camp hoping
the visit will engage in a bit of “basketball diplomacy.”
VICE
released a statement saying that correspondent Ryan Duffy invited Kim to visit
the U.S., an invite that was met with
laughter from Kim.
Relations between the two countries are tense as the
U.S. is imposing tough sanctions on North Korea which has pressed ahead with a
nuclear weapons program and a missile program, and saying bluntly it is aimed
at the U.S.
VICE also
said that Kim dined and drank with the Americans after the game. It was put
less diplomatically by VICE producer Jason Mojica who tweeted, “Um… so Kim Jong Un just got the #VICEonHBO
crew wasted… no really, that happened.”
Rodman, who
has been known for his wild outfits that have included a wedding dress, was
conservatively attired in a dark jacket along with his trademark lower lip and
nose piercings which North Koreans would not have ever seen due to restrictions
and customs in terms of dress code. On his arrival in North Korea, Rodman
tweeted: “I’m not a politician. Kim Jung Un & North Korean people are
basketball fans. I love everyone. Period. End of story. #WORMinNorth Korea.”
Rodman is
to visit Panmunjom bordering South Korea before leaving on March 5.
Rodman’s
visit came a month after Google CEO Eric Schmidt and former New Mexico governor
Bill Richardson visited North Korea. But despite Kim’s eagerness to project a
more modern and technologically advanced country, neither Schmidt nor
Richardson met with Kim.
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