ICE-BREAKER
SEOUL South Korean President Moon Jae-in yesterday met with senior North Korean officials, including leader Kim Jong-un’s sister, over lunch at Seoul’s presidential palace, in the most significant diplomatic encounter between the rival nations in years.
The luncheon at the Blue House came after Kim Yo-jong and other North Korean delegates attended the opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, which has brought a temporary lull in tensions over the North’s nuclear programme.
At the Olympic Stadium’s VIP box, Kim Yo-jong and North Korea’s nominal head of state, Kim Yong-nam, took their place among dignitaries from around the world, including United States Vice-President Mike Pence – who sat less than a metre away and seemed to make an effort not to acknowledge them.
Moon is desperate to use the games as an opportunity to restore regular communication with North Korea and eventually pull it into talks over resolving the international standoff over its nuclear programme.
It is still unclear whether yesterday’s gathering could be used to set up bigger meetings between the Koreas.
Lawmakers from Moon’s liberal ruling party have talked about the possibility of South Korea sending a special envoy to North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang, to meet with Kim Jong-un. There has even been speculation about a summit between Kim and Moon.
Moon has already put a summit offer on the table. During his inauguration speech last year, Moon – South Korea’s first liberal president in a decade – said he would be willing to visit Pyongyang and meet Kim to help solve the nuclear problem.
The North and South held summits in Pyongyang in 2000 and 2007, both hosted by Kim’s father, the late Kim Jong-il.
Kim Yo-jong, 30, is the first member of North Korea’s ruling family to visit the South since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
Analysts say the North’s decision to send her to the Olympics shows an eagerness to break out from diplomatic isolation by improving relations with the South, which it could use as a bridge for approaching the US.
As First Vice-Director of the Central Committee of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, Kim has been an increasingly prominent figure in North Korea’s leadership, and is considered one of the few people who has earned her brother’s absolute trust.
Yesterday’s meeting was the first time a South Korean president had hosted North Korean officials at the Blue House since November 2007, when late liberal leader Roh Moo-hyun, Moon’s political mentor, invited then-North Korean premier Kim Yong-il for lunch after a meeting with government officials in Seoul.
Moon and Kim Yo-jong broke tino broad smiles as they shook hands ahead before the start of the opening ceremony at Pyeongchang’s Olympic Stadium. Moon had earlier met Kim Yongnam, during a dinner he hosted for visiting dignitaries.
Moon and the two North Korean delegates cheerfully clapped and waved as the athletes from the two Koreas jointly marched during the ceremony, holding a blue and white flag symbolising a unified Korean Peninsula.
Pence and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sat nearby, looking expressionless.
Critics say it is unclear whether the revived dialogue between the Koreas could lead to an immediate breakthrough on the nuclear stalemate, when it seems unlikely that the North would be willing to give up its nuclear weapons under any deal.
As if to drive the point home, Kim Jong-un used the eve of the Olympics to throw a massive military parade in Pyongyang, which was highlighted by several huge intercontinental ballistic missiles rolled out on launcher trucks.
Analysts say that the missiles, which were successfully flight tested three times last year, could potentially reach deep into the US mainland when perfected.
North Korea also last year conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test to date.
In a meeting just hours before the Pyeongchang opening ceremony, Abe warned Moon not to fall for North Korea’s ‘‘smile diplomacy’’ during the Olympics, according to Moon’s office.
Pence has conveyed a similar message during his trip to Japan GETTY IMAGES and South Korea.
Abe discussed North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes and brought up the issue of Japanese nationals who were abducted by the North decades ago when he shook hands and briefly spoke with Kim Yong-nam during the dinner hosted by Moon in Pyeongchang, the Japanese government said.
After the opening ceremony, the North Korean delegates moved to Seoul and spent the night at the Walkerhill hotel, a riverside facility named after late US Army commander Walton Walker, who is considered a Korean War hero in South Korea.
The North Korean delegates were expected to attend the debut of the first inter-Korean Olympic team, at the women’s ice hockey tournament in Gangneung. They are also scheduled to attend a performance by a visiting North Korean art troupe in Seoul tomorrow before flying back to Pyongyang.
The North has sent nearly 500 people to the Pyeongchang Games, including officials, athletes, artists, and also a 230-member state-trained cheering group, after the Koreas agreed to a series of conciliatory gestures for the games. AP