Kim extends invitation to S. Korea for talks
North’s rare gesture met with caution, optimism by Moon
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea’s reclusive leader, Kim Jong Un, extended an extremely rare invitation to a foreign head of state on Saturday, using the diplomatic opening created by the Olympics in South Korea to ask its leader, President Moon Jae-in, to visit the North for a summit meeting.
Kim’s unusual invitation, which was received by Moon with both caution and optimism, was the latest sign of growing closeness between the two rival governments after an exceptionally tense period over the North’s nuclear weapons program.
But the overture by the North also risked driving a wedge between South Korea and the United States, its main military ally, which has been campaigning for “maximum sanctions and pressure” against North Korea.
Vice President Mike Pence, who was visiting South Korea for the Olympics, has used increasingly hostile language against the North in recent days, calling it the most tyrannical regime on the planet and steadfastly avoiding interactions with North Korean delegates at the games.
Kim sent the invitation to the South through a particularly close and trusted envoy: his only sister, Kim Yo Jong. She is one of the reclusive leader’s closest advisers and met with Moon at the presidential Blue House in the capital, Seoul, on Saturday in the highest-level contact between the two Koreas in years.
The Trump administration is wary of engagement with the North, which has been subjected to increasingly tough international sanctions, unless it shows clear signs of giving up its nuclear weapons program. Pence has also been critical of the North’s participation in the Olympics, seeing it as an attempt to create a division between the United States and the South.
South Korea’s president, Moon, welcomed the possibility of a meeting with the North Korean leader, saying the two Koreas should “work together to create the environment to make it happen,” a spokesman said.
But Moon has also said that he would be willing to meet Kim only if he received assurances from the North that it would help resolve the crisis over the North’s nuclear weapons program.
“The South and North shared an understanding that they should continue the positive mood for peace and reconciliation created by the Pyeongchang Olympics and should promote inter-Korean dialogue, exchanges and cooperation,” Moon’s office said in a statement.