Retired NBA star in Pyongyang for 2nd visit

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Retired NBA star Dennis Keith Rodman arrived here Tuesday for his second visit to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) at the invitation of the country's Sports Ministry.

"I am happy to come back here again, to meet my friend," said Rodman to the local media upon his arrival.

Here, the "friend" is believed to mean the country's top leader, Kim Jong Un, although a ministry official said it was not clear whether or when they would meet.

A ministry vice minister was at the airport to greet Rodman, who came as a member of the Prince Marketing Group and is accompanied by Michael Peter Spavor, a Canadian NGO official, Joseph Douglas Tervillinger, a Columbia University professor, and Prince manager Christopher Volo.

According to a Sports Ministry source, the delegation is scheduled to give a basketball clinic, watch a Taekwondo performance and a women's football match, and travel to Mount Kumgang during their four-day stay.

"Rodman's visit has nothing to do with the sentenced Korean American Kenneth Bae," the official source said on condition of anonymity.

Rodman previously visited the DPRK in March, when tensions on the Korean Peninsula had soared after Pyongyang conducted its third nuclear test on Feb. 12. During that visit, he attended an exhibition basketball match with Kim and called Kim "an awesome guy" and his "friend."

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