N. KOREA RESTORES HOTLINE WITH SOUTH
South Korean media say North Korea has restored a military hotline with the South, in the second reopening of a suspended inter-Korean communication channel in about a week.
All major inter-Korean communication channels had been shut down amid animosities over the North’s nuclear program in recent years. But North Korea reopened one of the channels last week as signs emerged of improving ties.
The two Koreas were holding rare talks at the border village of Panmunjom on Tuesday to discuss how to cooperate in next month’s Olympics in South Korea and improve their long-strained ties.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency cited an unidentified Seoul official as saying the North Korean delegation to the talks told South Korean negotiators that it had restored another communication channel.
South Korea also said North Korea has agreed to send a delegation to next month’s Winter Olympics in the South.
South Korea’s Vice Unification Minister Chun Hae-sung said the North Korean officials who attended their talks informed them that the delegation would include officials, athletes, cheerleaders and journalists.
Chun says South Korea proposed the two Koreas conduct a joint march during the Game’s opening and closing ceremonies.
He says South Korea also proposed resuming temporary reunions of families separated by war and offering talks designed to reduce animosities in front-line areas.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been making an apparent push for improved ties with the South after a year of elevated tension over his country’s nuclear and missile tests.
Critics, though, say Kim may be trying to divide Seoul and Washington to weaken international pressure and sanctions over the tests.
North Korea has slammed President Donald Trump’s claim that his strong position toward Pyongyang set the stage for the first high-level North-South talks in more than two years.