After the games, a chance for diplomacy: North Korea wants to meet with U.S.
SEOUL, South Korea — President Moon Jae-in of South Korea said on Sunday that high-ranking officials from North Korea told him their country was willing to start a dialogue with the United States, a potential diplomatic victory for Moon, who has been urging the two countries to talk.
Kim Yong Chol, a vice chairman of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, expressed that willingness when he met with Moon shortly before the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Moon’s office said. Kim led an eight-member North Korean delegation to the ceremony, in the latest sign that the two Koreas were working toward a political détente after years of rising tensions over the North’s nuclear weapons program.
“President Moon noted that North Korea-United States dialogue must take place soon in order to improve South-North Korean relations and to find a fundamental solution to the Korean Peninsula issue,” said Moon’s spokesman, Kim Eui-kyeom. “To this, the North Korean delegates responded that the North was quite willing to start talks with the United States and agreed that relations between North and South Korea and those between the North and the United States should develop simultaneously.”
But it was too early to take the North’s comments as a major breakthrough.
Moon’s office did not reveal, for example, whether North Korea had attached any preconditions for starting talks with the United States like the suspension of joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises, which it calls a rehearsal for invasion. The North threatened the United States with nuclear attacks just a few weeks ago.
On Friday, Washington announced harsh new sanctions against North Korea, and President Donald Trump alluded to the threat of military action, saying, “If the sanctions don’t work, we’ll have to go Phase 2.”
On Sunday, North Korea called the news sanctions an “act of war.”
Later on Sunday the White House said in a statement that “denuclearization must be the result of any dialogue with North Korea.”
“We will see if Pyongyang’s message today, that it is willing to hold talks, represents the first steps along the path to denuclearization,” said the statement from the office of the White House press secretary. “The maximum pressure campaign must continue until North Korea denuclearizes.”
Moon has been working tirelessly to steer the United States and North Korea away from what he considered a collision course, urging them to open talks.
His efforts received a boost when he met with Vice President Mike Pence, who led a U.S. delegation to the opening ceremony of the Olympics. U.S. officials has said that they were open to holding preliminary talks with North Korea — but only to explain that sanctions — and that pressure would not let up until the North starts denuclearizing.
Even if talks begin between the two sides, differences remain wide. North Korea insists on being recognized as a nuclear state. It says it will discuss its nuclear weapons programs only if Washington agrees to discuss broader arms reduction around the Korean Peninsula, which analysts say could include a demand for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea.
The statement from Moon’s office on Sunday indicated that both Moon and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, were eager to use the diplomatic opening created by the Olympics to improve inter-Korean ties.
“President Moon emphasized that South-North Korea relations must be expanded and improved widely,” the statement read. The North Korean delegates had said that Kim Jong Un “shared the same desire,” it added.
The statement did not mention a potential inter-Korean summit meeting. Kim Jong Un has invited Moon to Pyongyang, relaying his proposal through his sister, Kim Yo Jong, who attended the Olympics’ opening ceremony.