North Korea keeps quite on summit invite
Any summit between the two Koreas would be a coup for Moon, who has been pushing for a diplomatic solution to the standoff over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes
SEOUL: North Korea’s delegation sent to the Winter Olympics held “frank and candid” talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, the North Korean news agency said on Sunday, but it made no mention of the North’s invitation to Moon to Pyongyang for a summit.
The delegation, the highestranking to visit the South and led by the younger sister of the North’s leader Kim Jong Un, concludes its visit on Sunday after charming and intriguing the South Korean public, but still faces deep scepticism over Pyongyang’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 North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes.
In a rare honour for visiting foreign guests, Moon met Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, four times during the delegation’s three-day visit. Moon’s chief of staff held a farewell dinner for the delegation before the delegation attended a performance by a North Korean orchestra, the last item on their itinerary before heading home.
“I never thought I would visit (the South) so suddenly and believed much would be strange and different but I saw many things that were similar or the same,” said Kim Yo Jong in a toast during Sunday’s dinner, adding she hoped to meet the “friendly faces” before her later in Pyongyang.
Earlier South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon had hosted a lunch for the Pyongyang delegation at a five-star hotel.
On Saturday Kim Yo Jong “courteously” handed over a personal letter from the North Korean leader to Moon and told him of her brother’s “intention”, North Korea’s state news agency KCNA said, without elaborat- ing what that was. South Korean officials said Moon had been invited to Pyongyang to speak with Kim Jong Un during the talks and lunch that Moon hosted at the presidential Blue House in Seoul on Saturday.
Such a meeting, if it came about, would mark the first interKorea summit since 2007.
US Vice President Mike Pence, who has returned to Washington after attending the opening of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, said the United States, South Korea and Japan were in complete agreement on isolating North Korea over its nuclear weapons programme.
“There is no daylight between the United States, 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 to the US. Full story @ timesofoman.com/world