Korean foes on brink of talking

South Korean President Moon Jae-in has announced he is willing to meet North Korea’s ‘Supreme Leader’ Kim Jong-un for talks.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Picture: Kim Hong-Ji/ AP.

The Korean détente gathered pace yesterday after South Korean President Moon Jae-in announced he is willing to meet North Korea’s “Supreme Leader” Kim Jong-un for talks.

The offer came a day after the breakthrough 11-hour negotiations between senior officials from North and South.

Mr Moon said the talks were the first step, “and I think we had a good start”.

“Bringing North Korea to talks for denuclearisation is the next step we must take,” he said.

He would be available to participate in a summit with Kim “at any time” — but it would need to be “under the right conditions … It cannot be a meeting for meeting’s sake. Certain outcomes must be guaranteed”.

The South Korean leader stressed that “we have no difference in opinion with the US … I think President Trump’s role in the realisation of inter-Korean talks was very big”.

Pyongyang agreed on Tuesday to send a team — including athletes, officials and supporters — to the Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang, in South Korea, on February 9. The countries also pledged military-to-military talks.

North Korea restored yesterday the military hotline between the countries, in the Yellow Sea district to the west of the peninsula, a week after the civilian one was reopened.

South Korea’s officials proposed — without an initial response — a round of reunions between families divided since the Korean War of 1950-1953, for next month’s Lunar New Year. Fewer than 60,000 South Koreans remain registered as eligible for such meetings, most now more than 80 years old.

The talks ended a two-year deep-freeze in ties. During this time, the North ramped up its nuclear program, provoking global concern and triggering waves of UN sanctions.

But the North’s chief negotiator, Ri Son-gwon, stressed on Tuesday that the nuclear program would remain off the agenda for talks with the South. “All our weapons, including atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs and ballistic missiles are only aimed at the United States, not our brethren, not China and Russia,” he said.

The other key parties in confronting North Korea have all welcomed the negotiations and their outcome, including the US, Russia, China and Japan.

Jin Canrong, professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said: “I think the North Korean nuclear issue has entered a critical point this year.

“Through either negotiations or war, we shall see a result in 2018. But whether direct negotiations between the US and North Korea, or a war, both scenarios are out of China’s control.”

This frustration and anxiety also framed Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, who while welcoming North Korea’s Olympic participation, added that its “nuclear and missile development is an unprecedented, imminent and grave threat to the peace and security in this region, including Japan”.

Meanwhile, the “long game” of Kim remains convince the world, especially Washington, to accept that he commands a state with full nuclear capacity.

Whether Kim has chosen to participate in the Olympics because he now feels more confident of the North’s nuclear capacity, or because he is worried by the economic sanctions and the prospect of military strikes, the détente reduces regional tensions significantly. The initial beneficiaries include North Korea’s athletes, who despite qualifying for the Winter Olympics, have been kept on ice, waiting to hear whether they could compete.

North Korea has participated in most Winter Olympics since its first, in 1964. Its women speed skaters won a silver medal that year and a bronze in 1992.

It participated in Vancouver, Canada, in 2010 but not in Sochi, Russia, in 2014.

Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, which has held open the door for North Korean participation, said Tuesday’s announcement marked “a great step forward in the Olympic spirit”.