Olympic spirit on display
Jong Su Hyon (left) of North Korea and South Korea’s Park Jong-ah carry the Olympic Torch together Friday during the opening ceremony for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, joined Vice President Mike Pence and other dignitaries at the ceremony, which kicked off more than three weeks of competition.
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean President Moon Jae-in met today 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 rivals 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-weapons program.
At the Olympic Stadium’s VIP box, Kim Yo Jong and North Korea’s nominal head of state, 90-year-old Kim Yong Nam, took their place among dignitaries from around the world, including U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, who sat just a few feet away.
South Korean television showed a smiling Moon entering a reception room and shaking hands with the North Koreans, who also included Choe Hwi, chairman of the country’s National Sports Guidance Committee, and Ri Son Gwon, chairman of the North’s agency that deals with inter-Korean affairs.
“You went through a lot of trouble braving the cold until late,” he told them.
Moon was joined by his national security director Chung Eui-yong, chief of staff Im Jong-seok, National Intelligence Service chief Suh Hoon and Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon.
Moon is trying 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 pro- gram.
It was unclear whether today’s luncheon could be used to set up more substantial meetings between the Koreas. Lawmakers from Moon’s liberal ruling party have talked about the possibility of South Korea sending a special envoy to Pyongyang to meet with Kim Jong Un.
Moon has already put a summit offer on the table. The first liberal president in a decade, Moon said during his inauguration speech last year that he would be willing to visit Pyongyang and meet with Kim if that helps solve the nuclear problem.
The North and South held summits in Pyongyang in 2000 and 2007, both hosted by Kim’s late father, 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 said the North’s decision to send her to the Olympics shows eagerness to break out from diplomatic isolation by improving relations with the South, which it could use as a bridge for approaching the United States.Kim’s visit comes as U.S. President Donald Trump has drawn a hard line in its policies concerning North Korea.
As the opening ceremony began, Kim and Moon exchanged a handshake and spoke briefly. They smiled broadly, though it was not immediately known what they said. She and Kim Yong Nam were seated behind Moon and his wife, while Pence and his wife were seated beside the Moons and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Her arrival on Kim Jong Un’s private jet with a coterie of 22 officials was broadcast live on South Korean television.
Kim Yo Jong has been rapidly rising within the North’s power structure and is believed to be in charge of shaping her brother’s public persona. But she has generally remained safely cloaked in her brother’s shadow.
This is her first high-profile international appearance at center stage.
Just before the opening ceremony, Kim Yong Nam attended a dinner for visiting foreign dignitaries hosted by Moon. Pence was also at the dinner and reportedly refused to shake the elderly North Korean’s hand.
A White House official said Pence did not interact with Kim Yo Jong or Kim Yong Nam.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who sat near Kim Yong Nam at the dinner, had a brief exchange with him and “reiterated his expectation and hope that all parties will use dialogue to achieve the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.
Guterres was also in “the same general area” as a number of other North Korean officials including Kim Yo Jong, “but they were never in any personal contact with each other,” Haq said.
For security reasons, few details of Kim Yo Jong’s threeday itinerary have been made public.
After arriving at the South’s Incheon International Airport — the North’s flagship airline is subject to sanctions — she traveled to Pyeongchang for the opening ceremony, where the North and South Korean athletes marched together behind a blue-and-white “unification” flag for the first time in more than a decade.
Security for anything involving the North Koreans has been exceptionally tight.
The North’s participation has been generally welcomed, but right-wing protesters have shown up at several venues to burn North Korean flags and tear up portraits of Kim’s brother. The group is fringe, but their demonstrations have generated irate reactions in North Korea’s staterun media.