N. Korea accepts proposal for talks Tuesday
Seoul, Pyongyang may ease tensions
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea accepted a proposal to hold talks with South Korea on Tuesday aimed at reducing tensions ahead of the Winter Olympics next month.
The agenda would include North Korea’s offer to send a delegation to the Games as well as overall inter-Korean relations, South Korea’s Unification Ministry spokesman, Baik Tae Hyun, told reporters Friday. Preparations for what would be the first formal gathering between the two sides since 2015 would be done via letters, he said. President Donald Trump endorsed the talks Thursday, calling them a “good thing” while agreeing to delay military exercises until after the event. During a 30-minute phone call, South Korean President Moon Jae-in assured Mr.Trump that his government would coordinate with the U.S. on the talks.
Mr. Trump on Thursday also sought to claim credit for the potential NorthSouth rapprochement by suggesting his tough talk had brought the two sides together.
“With all of the failed ‘experts’ weighing in, does anybody really believe that talks and dialogue would be going on between North and South Korea right now if I wasn’t firm, strong and willing to commit our total ‘might’ against the North,” Mr. Trump tweeted.
Tensions over North Korea’s nuclear program had threatened to hang over the Games in Pyeongchang, a city about 50 miles from the border dividing the Korean Peninsula. Mr. Moon favors dialogue to reduce tensions with Pyongyang and sees the Olympics as a “groundbreaking chance” to improve ties and achieve peace. (The White House, however, has eyed the contact warily; on Tuesday, Mr. Trump responded to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s claim that he had a “nuclear button” on his desk by tweeting back that his nuclear button “is much bigger and more powerful.”) Mr. Moon’s government is also extremely keen to see the Games go off successfully. The developments have raised hopes that progress can be made toward broader negotiations with North Korea, although significant barriers remain. Both North Korea and the U.S. have continued to threaten each other, with Mr. Kim ramping up production of nuclear warheads and Mr. Trump vowing to keep up his pressure campaign.
Mr. Moon had requested the delay last month and Mr. Trump’s belated agreement came as Seoul and Pyongyang re-established an emergency hotline on the border and moved to start bilateral talks there on Jan. 9, a nascent thaw that largely left the United States on the sidelines.
South Korea expects more talks over the weekend with North Korea via the hotline reopened earlier this week, Mr. Baik said. The two sides would discuss leadership and composition of each delegation participating in the talks, he said.
Regarding the decision to delay scheduled joint exercises, Rob Manning, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement Thursday that “the Department of Defense supports the President’s decision and what is in the best interest of the” U.S.-South Korean alliance. South Korea asked that the annual exercise be rescheduled to avoid exacerbating tensions around the Olympics. In a New Year’s Day statement in which he opened the door to talks, Mr. Kim repeated his standing demand that the U.S. and South Korea halt exercises.
About 17,000 American and more than 300,000 South Korean troops participated in the 2017 exercises, which included drills to preemptively “detect, defend, disrupt and destroy” North Korean nuclear and missile facilities. North Korea views the annual exercises as pretext for an invasion from the South.
Any dialogue between the Koreas is considered a positive step toward easing confrontations, but past breakthroughs to ease Korean tensions have often ended with renewed animosities.