Former National Basketball Association star Dennis Rodman arrived in Beijing on Saturday after what he said was a “really good” five-day trip to North Korea.
Rodman, 56, said last week before departing for Pyongyang that he was trying to bring sports to the increasingly isolated nuclear-armed country, where he has previously met leader Kim Jong-un.
“Everybody’s going to be happy. It was a good day. It was a good trip. A really good trip,” Rodman said. Wearing black clothing with the PotCoin logo – a crypto-currency used by the legal marijuana industry – Rodman fended off questions from dozens of journalists at the arrival gate.
Asked repeatedly if he had met Kim, Rodman said: “You’ll find out.”
He also declined to answer questions about whether he had played a role in the release of Otto Warmbier, an American student who was returned home on the day of Rodman’s arrival suffering from brain damage and in a state of unresponsive wakefulness, after more than a year in detention in North Korea.
Tensions have escalated on the Korean peninsula over North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests and its vow to develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the US mainland, presenting US President Donald Trump with perhaps his most pressing security worry.