On warming ties
Seoul gets flexible with Pyongyang for games
North Korea access to the international financial system and facilitating sanctions evasion.
Administration officials said they had long expected the North would seek to use the Olympics as an opportunity to put a softer face on the regime, and painted Pence’s visit as a counterbalance to those efforts. At the same time, the Vice-President has deliberately left the door open to a possible encounter with North Korean officials expected to be in attendance.
On Wednesday night, the North announced that Kim Yo Jong, the sister of Kim Jong Un, would attend the games, joining the country’s nominal head of state, Kim Yong Nam.
Kim Yo Jong, believed to be around 30, will be the first member of the ruling Kim family to visit South Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War ended.
Her inclusion in the Olympic delegation has been viewed as an attempt by North Korea to use the Olympics to break out from the diplomatic isolation imposed by the international community.
In Washington, Defence Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters that Pence is “quite capable of making the call” on whether to meet with North Korean officials at the Olympics. Asked if war with North Korea is closer than when Trump took office a year ago, Mattis said US policy is “firmly in the diplomatic lane”. He added that the policy is backed by “viable military options”. From smartphones to ship fuel, South Korea is wrestling how to balance international sanctions on North Korea with its desire to show the Olympic spirit as it welcomes hundreds of North Koreans for the Winter Games.
South Korea sent a chartered plane to bring North Korean skiers. It allowed North Korea to use a 9700-tonne ferry to transport more than 100 artists to perform at the Olympics and says it’s considering whether to accept the North’s request to supply fuel for the ship. The plane The Koreas agreed to open their conciliatory gestures over the Pyeongchang Games with joint practices and friendly competitions between their skiers at North Korea’s Masik winter resort.
But the January 31 trip wasn’t official until less than two hours before the chartered Asiana Airlines flight carrying the South Korean skiers took off for the North’s Kalma Airport.
Seoul needed until the last minute to persuade Washington to consider the flight an exception to sanctions announced by President Donald Trump’s Administration in September that include banning vessels and aircraft that have visited North Korea from travelling to the US within 180 days.
The South Koreans were accompanied by a 32-member North Korean delegation on their return flight the next day.
It was the first direct South Korean flight to North Korea since 2015. The ferry South Korea accepting North Korea’s offer to send its artists to the games by sea has triggered debate in the South, where conservatives saw the move as a sure-fire sign that the North is trying to use the Olympics to ease pressure against the country. The Mangyongbong-92 arrived at an eastern South Korean port with 114 members of an art troupe that will perform in Gangneung and Seoul.
To allow the ship to travel to the South, Seoul treated it as an exception to sanctions. Critics say Seoul is sending the wrong message to North Korea and also the international community. South Korea’s Unification Ministry said that the Government is reviewing whether to meet North Korea’s request to provide fuel to the ferry. The phones The Pyeongchang Organising Committee is refraining for now from giving out a premium smartphone to athletes from North Korea and Iran, not to step over the global sanctions designed to pressure their governments from developing nuclear weapons.
Olympic sponsor Samsung Electronics donated 4000 Galaxy Note 8 to all athletes and International Olympic Committee officials.
But the United Nations bans sending luxury items to North Korea or to North Korean nationals. The IOC advised the Organising Committee that North Koreans can use the Samsung phone during the games and return them before their departure. But the organiser decided not to give out the devices, rather than risking violating sanctions. The sister North Korea informed the South that leader Kim Jong Un’s sister, an increasingly prominent figure in the country’s leadership, will be part of a high-level government delegation travelling for the Olympics.
South Korea expressed delight that Kim Yo Jong’s coming, saying it shows North Korea’s sincerity for improving relations.
Neither Kim Yo Jong nor nominal head of state Kim Yong Nam are among the North Korean officials blacklisted under UN sanctions. Kim Yo Jong is on a US list of blacklisted officials. — AP