President Moon to lunch with top Pyongyang figures
SEOUL: South Korean President Moon Jae-in scheduled lunch with high-ranking North Korean officials tomorrow, an announcement that came as Kim Jongun oversaw a massive military parade in Pyongyang.
Mr Moon’s government didn’t say which officials would attend the meeting. Kim Jong-un’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, will join the North Korean delegation at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Pyeongchang on Friday, becoming the first member of the Kim dynasty to set foot below the 38th parallel dividing the nation still technically at war.
Kim Jong-un rallied North Korea’s soldiers on Thursday, smiling widely in a black coat and fedora as goose-stepping troops marched around a main square in Pyongyang. In a rousing speech, he said the parade “shows North Korea’s status as a global military power”.
Mr Kim has stolen the spotlight at the biggest Winter Games in history, with media from around the world fixated on the nuclear-armed nation rather than the athletes. While North Korea’s participation has raised hopes of peace talks, the regime has refused any discussions about getting rid of its nuclear arsenal.
Mr Kim’s sister was promoted by her brother last year to the ruling party’s political wing. Analysts have speculated that she may bring a message to Mr Moon from her brother, and potentially an invitation to travel north for a rare inter-Korean summit.
“This move to send the young sister is brilliant,” said Brad Glosserman, a visiting professor at Tama University in Tokyo who has written books about regional security. “It sends the right message, shows willingness to send someone who’s actually got some juice.”
Analysts also see a possibility the warmer ties between the two Koreas could lead to a further postponement of planned US-South Korea military exercises around the peninsula —drills that North Korea uses as justification for its weapons programme.
Mr Moon’s administration was clearly seeking to extend the current detente and isn’t overly keen to conduct the drills, according to John Delury, an associate professor of Chinese studies at Yonsei University in Seoul. “President Moon has been very clear, that this is designed ... to change the dynamics,” Me Delury said. “So just saying, ‘Oh great, the Olympics are over and we can go back to the military exercises’ — that’s not the goal.”