Seoul, Jan 5: North Korea has accepted South Korea’s offer for talks next week, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry, which oversees relations with Pyongyang. North and South Korea will hold official talks on January 9. The meeting will take place in Panmunjom, the truce village in the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula, reports sbs.com.au.
The announcement comes a day after Seoul proposed high-level inter-Korean talks on January 9 to discuss North Korea’s possible participation in the PyeongChang Winter Olympics slated to be held from February 9 to 25, and ways to improve ties. Pyongyang accepted the offer two days after North Korea opened its hotline to South Korea for the first time in almost two years.
On New Year’s Day, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said that Pyongyang was willing to send a delegation to the Olympics in South Korea and is open to inter-Korean talks over the matter. The North cut off two inter-Korean communication channels — a hotline installed at the liaison office at the truce village and a military channel — in February 2016 in protest of Seoul’s shutdown of a joint industrial complex.
Considering the positive development, US President Donald Trump agreed with South Korea there would be no joint military drills, which North Korea bitterly opposes, during next month’s Winter Olympics. Trump also took credit for renewed communications between the two hostile countries.
“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,” Trump tweeted Thursday morning. He added, “Fools, but talks are a good thing!”