2 Koreas discuss Northern art troupe’s visit during Olympics

Officials from the two Koreas met Monday to work out details about North Korea’s plan to send an art troupe to the South during next month’s Winter Olympics, as the rivals tried to follow up on the North’s recent agreement to cooperate in the Games in a conciliatory gesture following months of nuclear tensions.

In a development that still shows their bitter animosities, the North issued a veiled threat on Sunday indicating it could cancel its plans to send an Olympic delegation to protest what it called South Korea’s “sordid acts of chilling” the prospect for interkorean reconciliation. The warning is relatively milder than the North’s typical fiery, bellicose rhetoric and it didn’t appear to put the recent signs of warming Korean ties in imminent danger.

“They should know that train and bus carrying our delegation to the Olympics are still in Pyongyang,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said. “The South Korean authorities had better ponder over what unfavorable results may be entailed by their impolite behavior.”

KCNA criticized the remarks by South Korean President Moon Jae-in last week that credited President Donald Trump for getting the North to sit down with the South. It also accused Seoul of letting Washington deploy strategic assets like an aircraft carrier near the Korean Peninsula on the occasion of the Olympics. The United States is beefing up its presence around the peninsula in what it describes as routine training and scheduled upgrades.

During Monday’s talks at the border village of Panmunjom, the two Koreas discussed when and where the North’s art troupe would perform in South Korea and under what specific stage conditions, Seoul’s Unification Ministry said in a statement. The talks were to continue later Monday, it said.