Pence would consider meeting with North Koreans at Olympics

HONG KONG — Vice President Mike Pence refused late Monday to rule out contact with North Korean officials when he attends the Winter Olympics in South Korea this week, saying, “I have not requested a meeting, but we’ll see what happens.”

The comments — the second day in a row that the White House publicly signaled it would consider a meeting with North Korea on the sidelines of the Olympics — came as North Korean athletes, artists and officials were descending on South Korea for the Games in Pyeongchang. Among them is Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of North Korea’s Parliament, who serves as a nominal head of state and will lead a 22-member delegation of its officials making a rare visit to the South.

Speaking to reporters in Alaska during a stopover on his way to Japan and South Korea, Mr. Pence reiterated the administration’s stance that “all options are on the table” in confronting North Korea about its nuclear weaponsand missile programs.

“We’re traveling to the Olympics to make sure that North Korea doesn’t use the powerful symbolism and the backdrop of the Winter Olympics to paper over the truth about their regime,” he said, calling it “a regime that oppresses its own people, a regime that threatens nations around the world, a regime that continues its headlong rush to develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.”

In a diplomatic breakthrough, the two Koreas had agreed to march together in the opening ceremony Friday and field a joint team in women’s hockey, the first ever inter-Korean Olympic team.