N. Korea: ‘ Warm talks’ with Moon
> But no mention of invitation to summit in Pyongyang
SEOUL: North Korea’s state news agency said yesterday its delegation sent to the Winter Olympics held “frank and candid” talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-In but there was no mention of the North’s invitation to Moon to Pyongyang for a summit.
The delegation, the highestranking to visit the South, concluded its visit yesterday having charmed and intrigued the South Korean public, but still faces deep scepticism over the North’s sincerity towards improving relations.
Any summit between the two still-officially warring Koreas would be a coup for Moon, who has been pushing for a diplomatic solution to the standoff over the North’s nuclear arms programmes.
Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister of Kim Jong Un, “courteously” handed over a personal letter from the North Korean leader to Moon during talks on Saturday and also told Moon of her brother’s “intention”, KCNA said, without elaborating on what that was.
South Korean officials have said Moon was invited to Pyongyang to speak with Jong Un during the talks and lunch that Moon hosted at the presidential Blue House in Seoul on Saturday.
Such a summit, if it came about, would mark the first time that leaders of the two Koreas have met since 2007.
US Vice-President Mike Pence, who has left South Korea for Washington, said the US, South Korea and Japan were in complete agreement on isolating North Korea over its nuclear missile programme.
“There is no daylight between the US, the Republic of Korea and Japan on the need to continue to isolate North Korea economically and diplomatically until they abandon their nuclear and ballistic missile programme,” Pence told reporters during the return flight.
A White House official said that, although Moon did not discuss the invitation with Pence on Saturday, the South Korean president made it very clear that only when North Korea actually starts to take steps to de-nuclearise would anyone even consider beginning to take the pressure off.
According to the Blue House, Yo Jong told Moon that Jong Un wanted to meet the president “in the near future” and would like for him to visit the North “at his earliest convenience”.
Moon said in response “let’s create the environment for that to be able to happen”, Blue House spokesman Kim Eui-Kyeom told a news briefing.
However, the main opposition Liberty Korea Party warned any talks between the two countries where the scrapping of North Korea’s nuclear programme was not a precondition would only “benefit the enemy”. – Reuters