Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
S. Korea accepts Kim’s talks idea
U.S. skeptical, sees it as move to drive wedge between allies
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea on Tuesday responded to an overture from the North and proposed holding high-level talks between the countries on their border next week.
North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, suggested Monday that the countries open dialogue on easing military tensions and on the possibility of the North’s participating in the Winter Olympics in the South.
Cho Myoung-gyon, the South’s point man on the North, proposed that the Korean governments hold their meeting Tuesday in Panmunjom, a village straddling the border north of Seoul, the South Korean capital.
“We hope the two sides sit down for frank talks,” Cho, the unification minister, said at a news conference.
If the North responds positively, it will set in motion the first official dialogue between the Koreas in two years. South Korean officials hope the talks will lead to a thaw after years of high tensions between the countries and threats of war over the North’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Heather Nauert did not express opposition Tuesday to South Korea holding talks with North Korea, but voiced deep skepticism about Kim’s intentions, saying he may be “trying to drive a wedge of some sort” between the U.S. and its ally, which hosts 28,000 American forces.
On Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump said on Twitter: “Sanctions and ‘other’ pressures are beginning to have a big impact on North Korea. Soldiers are dangerously fleeing to South Korea. Rocket man now wants to talk to South Korea for first time. Perhaps that is good news, perhaps not — we will see!”
Speaking at the United Nations on Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley appeared to dismiss the potential for bilateral negotiations between North and South Korea.
“We won’t take any of the talks seriously if they don’t do something to ban all nuclear weapons in North Korea,” she said. “We consider this to be a very reckless regime, we don’t think we need a Band-Aid; we don’t think we need to smile and take a picture. We think we need to have them stop nuclear weapons and they need to stop it now.”
Cho said the South was closely consulting with Washington on its dealings with the North.
Panmunjom has long been a contact point for the Koreas, with both sides exchanging messages through a telephone hotline there. But the North has not used the hotline since President Moon Jae-in’s conservative predecessor, the impeached President Park Geun-hye, shut down a joint industrial complex in the North Korean town of Kaesong in early 2016.
On Tuesday, Cho urged the North to restore the hotline so that both sides could discuss the agenda for the high-level talks. The governments held their last high-level dialogue in December 2015.
North Korea’s offer to send a delegation to the Winter Olympics, which are to begin in February in the South Korean town of Pyeongchang, represented a breakthrough for Moon, a dogged champion of dialogue and reconciliation with the North.
Moon has repeatedly urged North Korea to join the Pyeongchang Olympics, hoping it would ease the military tensions over the North’s nuclear and missile programs. Moon said the North’s participation would compel the Koreas to open talks, which he hoped would lead to broader negotiations, involving Washington and others, for the North’s denuclearization.
After ignoring Moon for months, calling his South Korean government a U.S. stooge, Kim used his New Year’s speech Monday to embrace the South Korean leader’s overture.
“I appreciate and welcome the North’s positive response to our proposal that the Pyeongchang Olympics should be used as a turning point in improving South-North relations and promoting peace,” Moon said early Tuesday, instructing his Cabinet to move swiftly to open dialogue with North Korea.
Information for this article was contributed by Matthew Pennington of The Associated Press.