Koreas open cross-border direct line

BEIJING — North and South Korea reopened a long suspended cross-border hotline on Wednesday, conducting a brief conversation to pave the way for official talks between the two sides about sending a delegation from the North to next month’s Winter Olympics in the South.

Talks, if they take place, would mark the first formal dialogue between the two sides since December 2015, while the hotline has been dormant since February 2016. The South hopes they will yield an easing of tensions after a year of nuclear and missile tests, hostile rhetoric and the risk of war.

But U.S. officials and experts have reacted cautiously and skeptically, doubting the sincerity of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

North Korea had earlier in the day announced that the channel would be reopened. The South’s Unification Ministry then announced that officials from the North had called using the hotline at the shared border village of Panmunjom on Wednesday afternoon. Officials first tested the line and held a conversation for about 20 minutes, it said, according to news agencies.

The announcement follows Kim’s offer on Monday to open a dialogue with South Korea over the North’s participation in the Winter Olympics, which begin Feb. 9.

South Korea responded by proposing talks as early as Tuesday in Panmunjom, which straddles the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas. The reopening of the hotline is meant to establish arrangements for this formal dialogue.

Separately Wednesday, the White House dismissed criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump’s taunt that his “Nuclear Button” is larger and more effective than North Korea’s arsenal. Democrats and some security analysts warned that the tweet sent Tuesday night by Trump risked needlessly provoking Kim.

“This is a president who is not going to cower down and is not going to be weak and is going to make sure he does what he’s promised to do, and that’s stand up and protect the American people,” said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

AP A South Korean government official talks with a North Korean officer Wednesday during a call on the dedicated hotline at the South Korean village of Panmunjom. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reopened the communication channel on Wednesday.