It’s time to talk, N Korea tells US after an icy year

NORTH KOREA is willing to open talks with the United States after a year of icy hostility over nuclear tests, it emerged yesterday.

In a rare step toward diplomacy between the two enemies, a senior envoy of North Korean leader Kim Jongun announced Pyongyang had ‘ample intentions of holding talks’ with Washington. The breakthrough was revealed as the Winter Olympics came to a close in South Korea in what was seen as a victory for Olympic sports diplomacy.

Ivanka Trump, representing the US at yesterday’s ceremony in Pyeongchang, was briefed on the offer. It was extended through Kim’s controversial former intelligence chief and senior party official Kim Yong Chol, who sat just feet from Ms Trump, 36, in the VIP box.

Kim Yong Chol is on a US blacklist and is blamed for orchestrating two devastating attacks against targets in the South.

He made the remarks during a meeting with South Korean president Moon Jae-in, who is eager to engage the North after one of the most hostile periods in recent years on the Korean Peninsula. Mr Moon said that Washington and Pyongyang should quickly meet to ‘fundamentally solve’ the stand-off which has prompted fears of nuclear war. However, there will be widespread scepticism in Washington and among conservatives in Seoul, with many wondering if the North is simply looking for economic relief after a series of increasingly tough international sanctions.

There was no indication that Ms Trump spoke last night with the North Korean delegation.

Outside the Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium, more than 200 anti-Pyongyang protesters, holding signs with messages such as ‘Killer Kim Yong Chol go to hell’, rallied in the streets.

The Pyeongchang Olympics has been viewed not only as a great sporting success, but also a triumph for so-called ‘sports diplomacy’.