N. Korea No. 2 visits South for rare talks

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea’s presumptive No. 2 led members of Pyongyang’s inner circle in a rare trip Saturday to South Korea for the close of the Asian Games, with the rivals holding their highest level face-to-face talks in five years.

After months of tensions, including a steady stream of insults between the divided neighbors and an unusual number of North Korean missile and rocket test firings, expectations for any breakthrough weren’t high, but even the visit itself was significant, allowing valuable contact between confidants of North Korea’s authoritarian leader and Seoul’s senior official for North Korean affairs.