Officials from North, South Korea begin rare formal talks
SEOUL, South Korea (AP/AFP) – Senior officials from North and South Korea began the rivals’ first formal talks in about two years Tuesday to discuss how to cooperate in next month’s Winter Olympics in the South and how to improve their long-strained ties.
The talks in the border village of Panmunjom were arranged after North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un recently made an abrupt push for improved ties with South Korea and are closely watched by the outside world after a year of elevated tensions over North Korea’s expanding nuclear and missile programs.
“I think we should be engaged in these talks with an earnest, sincere manner to give a New Year’s first gift – precious results (of the talks) to the Korean nation,” chief North Korean delegate Ri Son Gwon said at the start of the negotiations, accord- ing to media footage from the venue.
A high-level South Korean delegation left Tuesday for rare talks with North Korea after months of tensions over the North’s nuclear weapons programme, with Seoul’s chief delegate vowing to work towards improving long-strained ties.
The talks come after the North’s leader Kim Jong-Un indicated in his New Year’s speech that Pyongyang was willing to send a delegation to the Winter Olympics in the South.
Seoul responded with an offer of a high-level dialogue, and last week the hotline between the neighbors was restored after being suspended for almost two years.
Moments before Seoul’s five-member delegation left for the talks at the border truce village of Panmunjom, Unification Minister Cho Myung-Gyun said the two sides would focus on the North’s participation in the Pyeongchang Games but the agenda would also include ways to thaw frosty ties.
“Today, we will discuss North Korea’s participation in the Pyeongchang Olympics and Paralympics and the issue of improving inter-Korean relations as well,” Cho, who led the South’s delegation, told journalists.
He said relations between the two Koreas had been in limbo for a long time.
“We will do our best to ensure that the Pyeongchang Olympics and Paralympics will take place as a peace festival and that this meeting will serve as the first step for improving South-North ties,” he added.
Seoul has been keen to proclaim the Games in Pyeongchang, just 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two countries, as a “peace Olympics” in the wake of missile and nuclear tests by the North – but it needs Pyongyang to attend to make the description meaningful.
If the North agrees, one of the top agenda items will be whether the two Koreas’ sportspeople make joint entrances to the opening and closing ceremonies, as they did for Sydney 2000, Athens 2004 and the 2006 Winter Games in Turin.