North Korea has agreed to South Korea’s proposal for “high-level” inter-Korean talks at the truce village of Panmunjeom next Tuesday, Jan. 9, as a series of rapid rapprochement moves ahead of the Winter Olympics gain momentum.
The North Korean acceptance was delivered early Friday, the morning after South Korean President Moon Jae-in and US President Donald Trump agreed, during a late-night (Korea-time) phone call Thursday to suspend military exercises during the Winter Olympics, set for Pyeonchang, South Korea, in February.
Seoul’s Unification Ministry announced in a briefing Friday morning that North Korea had agreed to the talks, and the agenda would include how to improve inter-Korean ties and the North’s participation in the upcoming Games.
The development is the latest in a string of events which follows the North’s re-opening of an inter-Korean telephone hotline on Wednesday, the South’s proposal of talks on Tuesday, and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s broadcast of a conciliatory New Year’s message on Monday.
Trump said yesterday that the South Korean and US militaries would “de-conflict the Olympics and our military exercises.” Moon said that he would “closely consult” with the United States during upcoming inter-Korean talks. He added, “We are confident that South-North Korea dialogue helps create an atmosphere for dialogue between the US and North Korea on resolving the North Korean nuclear issue.”
According to reports from the presidential Blue House in South Korea, the White House in Washington and newswires, the two spoke in a call requested by Moon late Thursday night, Korea-time. Trump also told Moon he would send a senior level delegation to the Olympics. Reuters reported it could include Trump’s high-profile daughter, Ivanka.
Prior to the call, the US President had taken credit for the apparent North Korean reversal in policy. “With all of the failed ‘experts’ weighing in, does anybody really believe that talks and dialogue would be going on between North and South Korea right now if I wasn’t firm, strong and willing to commit our total ‘might’ against the North. Fools, but talks are a good thing!” he tweeted.
Even though the two agreed to maintain maximum pressure on Pyongyang, the concession from Trump – whose military advisors had been wary about halting drills – is a boost for Moon, who has consistently held out for inter-Korean dialog since coming to power. The South Korean president suggested, in December, the suspension of winter drills during the Winter Games in February as a gesture toward Pyongyang.
Moon has also argued that tentative contacts at the Pyeongchang Olympics, which take place in mountainous eastern South Korea, close to the border with the North, could provide a springboard for broader inter-Korean talks. The Winter Olympics run from Feb. 5-29; the Winter Paralympics run from March 9-18.
Speaking after the Moon-Trump call, US Defence Secretary James Mattis said the delay in exercises was “a practical matter” – part of “the normal give and take,” and that drills would resume after the Paralympics end in March.
Spring, when the US and South Korea conduct a series of military drills in Korea, are always tense times on the peninsula. Pyeongyang routinely claims the exercises – which involve local South Korean troops, Korea-deployed US troops reinforced by US forces which rotate in for the drills, and small contingents from nations such as Australia and the United Kingdom – are preparations for an invasion. Seoul and Washington assert they are purely defensive in nature, but last year’s drills included forces tasked with “decapitating” North Korean leaders, and neutral observers have previously questioned their “defensive” focus.
With North Korean leader Kim Jong-un apparently having made no headway in winning concessions from the United States in 2017, his surprise turn toward Seoul in his annual New Year’s broadcast has raised the eyebrows of some observers. They are concerned that Pyongyang’s apparent offer of inter-Korean rapprochement could be designed to drive a wedge between Seoul and Washington, on in the wider international community, which has approved United Nations sanctions against North Korea.
Those concerns were voiced in a rare speaking appearance at a Seoul university earlier Thursday – prior to the two presidents’ phone discussion – by General Vincent Brooks, who commands the 28,500-strong US forces in Korea.
Brooks mentioned that while “recent overtures are to be welcomed,” there was a risk that Pyongyang was engaging in a diplomatic ploy. Referring to the five nations that had taken part, along with North Korea, in currently dormant six-party talks – China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States – he said they should act together, Yonhap reported. Likening them to the fingers of a hand, Brooke said the countries were most effective “when operating close together and in harmony” – like a fist.
Lock up the yankee cowboy in a cellar, North Kim wont using his missles and nukes out of a blue so calm down. Slowly build dialogue and security trusth with north and slowly convince them to go down the economic development path and less be militaristic+ belligerent, eventually NK will be more open up. Oh and make sure yankee cowboy is locked up tight in the cellar all this time,drip feed just enough so he won’t have energy to shout "yeehaw" and screw up the peace & quietness and ruin everyone’s fun.
For the sake of peace, China and/or Russia must introduce a resolution to the UNSC asking USA to end its invasion of Korea by removing all American soldiers and American military equipment out of Korea.
No doubt Deep State USA is seriously unhappy about this development. ‘We won’t allow it’, says Zionist slave Nikki Haley. The Divide and Rule evil men and women of USA will be plotting to undermine the talks to ensure there is no peace in Korea.
There is no enmity between North Korea and South Korea. All Koreans want a unified Korea. There is enmity between USA, the invader and murderer, and Korea, the invaded country.
I know quite a few Koreans———–beside members of the Korean press getting roughed up and one ending up in a Chinese hospital———-besides Xi are his leadership not there when Moon’s plane landed besides many Chinese Travel compamies cutting South Korea out of the luner New Year————it was just dandy!!
Hmm who says his trip was a diaster the N.Y.T’S or Washington Journal for the Middle Kingdom has very,very good relations with S.K as Russia does with N.K. Don’t suck up the propaganda instead look at the facts…
As long as the U.S. is involved the talks will go no where for they are the spoiler in any game,if it wasen’t for the U.S. there would have been no war in Nam and if it haden’t been for the U.S. the Koreas would have been re-united years ago…
A great development! Brooks is wrong saying that all outside parties should be involved in talks. If the two parties concerned can’t solve their differences only then they should ask for outside help. However I agree that Trump’s pressure may well have led to the dialogue between Kim and Moon, and full credit to Moon for his peace efforts.
I don`t for a minute believe that there is a single South Korean that has to be told that the US is the problem. The domination of the South Korean military by the US is evident to all.
Another point. The US will not willingly give up it,s foothold in South Korea. it wants it,s military right on China,s doorstep.
Also I think that talks could have results between the two parts of the country but the US will sit scowling in the shadows and as Haley recently did in the UN threaten South Korea if it makes so much as a single move at reconciliation.
However if talks do take place I do believe that Kim Jung Un is now in the strongest position he has ever been in to exact consiliatory jestures from the South and the US be damned. Kim understands that he does not have to be able to defeat the US in a war, he only needs to be able to cause unacceptable damage to the mainland USA. This is the real deterrant. The US has not experienced war on it`s own turf since the Civil war, and that was trivial as compared to the damage a couple of dozen nukes would cause not only to the major cities in the US but to the very psycological core of American concienciousness. to have even two or three of their major cities wiped out would cause the American public who have been brainwashed into believing that they are an invincible nation, that can`t be touched by war,, and all of the trillions spent on ensuring that, to turn on their government big time. In my opinion it would be the great unravelling of the US as a country. And what would Americans think if tiny North Korea could exact such great damage on the country with possibly millions of deaths, just what war with Russia and or China result in.
To sum up, I think the talks will take place. Trump has painted the US into a corner and so i think that with my previous remarks in mind the US is hoping that the issue of North Korea will just go away. Even the crazies in the Pentagon realize that if they gamble and say lose New York, Chicago, Washington and a couple of other major cities, that they would have more to fear from the American population than they would from North Korea and or any other nation.
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Talks are good, but the north would be stupid to give up its nukes and missiles. So we will see. Did name calling really work, and is Trump smarter, or luckier, than everyone gives him credit for.
It is a good move by Presidernt Moon whose visit to the Middle Kingdom last month was a disaster———-lets hope there is a small victory in President Moon’s back pocket.
After PyeongChang Olympics, there will be annual US-ROK joint military exercises, and inter-Korean relations will again be frozen. NK will launch again new IRBM and/or ICBM, perhaps a new nuclear bomb test!
The US is worried that peace may break out. If the two Koreas decide to end the emnity which has consumed the peninsula since the end of WWII leading to a peace treaty, there would be no more need for US forces in SK. From the US perspective, this is very bad. Being able to station forces on the doorstep of Russia and China is a integral element of US geopolitical strategy.
USA can give a helping hand to the talk between North Korea and South Korea by removing all its soldiers and its military equipment out of Korea. The occupation of South Korea by American soldiers is an impediment to peace in the Korean Peninsula.