North Korea Agrees to Moratorium on Nuclear and Missile Tests if It Holds Talks With U.S.

Admin Tue 06 Mar 2018, 2:14 pm

North Korea Agrees to Moratorium on Nuclear and Missile Tests if It Holds Talks With U.S.
https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/asia-and-australia/north-korea-agrees-to-moratorium-on-nuclear-and-missile-tests-1.5883054?utm_source=Push_Notification&utm_medium=web_push&utm_campaign=General
In talks with the South, North Korea says it has no reason to possess nuclear weapons if it has security guarantee
Reuters Mar 06, 2018 1:25 PM
This picture taken on March 5, 2018 and released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on March 6, 2018 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (L) shaking hands with South Korean chief delegator Chung Eui-yong (R)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (L) shaking hands with South Korean chief delegator Chung Eui-yong (R) on March 5, 2018AFP PHOTO / KCNA
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In talks with the South, North Korea agrees to moratorium on nuclear and missile tests if it holds talks with U.S. says Seoul. North Korean officials added it has no reason to possess nuclear weapons if it has security guarantees.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been thrust into the spotlight as he pursues unprecedented talks with the South. Photos released by North Korean state media on Tuesday showing Kim meeting with the envoys on Monday evening are all the more remarkable coming just months after a barrage of North Korean weapons tests and threats against Seoul and Washington had many fearing war.

North Korean TV later broadcast video from the meetings that showed Kim smiling and laughing during the meeting, proposing a toast at the dinner reception, and waving as two limousines carrying the South Korean delegates left the main building of the ruling Workers’ Party.

It wasn’t immediately clear how the images were reported in North Korea, but they spread rapidly across the southern part of the peninsula a day after the North said Kim had an “openhearted talk” with 10 envoys for South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Kim reportedly expressed his desire to “write a new history of national reunification” during a dinner that the South Korean government said lasted about four hours.

The meeting marked the first time South Korean officials have met with the young North Korean leader in person since he took power after his dictator father’s death in late 2011. It’s the latest sign that the Koreas are trying to mend ties after one of the tensest years in a region that seems to be permanently on edge. The South Korean delegation led by presidential national security director Chung Eui-yong returned to the South on Tuesday, hours before Moon’s office was to hold a media briefing on the outcome of the visit.

Given the robust history of bloodshed, threats and animosity on the Korean Peninsula, there is considerable skepticism over whether the Koreas’ apparent warming relations will lead to lasting peace. North Korea, some believe, is trying to use improved ties with the South to weaken U.S.-led international sanctions and pressure, and to provide domestic propaganda fodder for Kim.

But each new development also raises the possibility that the rivals can use the momentum from the good feelings created during North Korea’s participation in the South’s Pyeongchang Winter Olympics last month to ease a standoff over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and restart talks between the North and the United States.

The role of a confident leader welcoming visiting, and lower-ranking, officials from the rival South is one Kim clearly relishes. Smiling for cameras, he posed with the South Koreans and presided over what was described by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency as a “co-patriotic and sincere atmosphere.”

Many in Seoul and Washington will want to know if, the rhetoric and smiling images notwithstanding, there’s any possibility Kim will negotiate over North Korea’s breakneck pursuit of an arsenal of nuclear missiles that can viably target the U.S. mainland.

The North has repeatedly and bluntly declared it will not give up its nuclear bombs. It also hates the annual U.S.-South Korean military exercises that were postponed because of the Olympics but will likely happen later this spring. And achieving its nuclear aims rests on the North resuming tests of missiles and bombs that set the region on edge.

But there was nothing about the Koreas’ very real differences in the North Korean report. Kim was said to have offered his views on “activating the versatile dialogue, contact, cooperation and exchange” between the countries.

He was also said to have given “important instruction to the relevant field to rapidly take practical steps” for a summit with South Korean President Moon, which the North proposed last month.

Moon, a liberal who is eager to engage the North, likely wants to visit Pyongyang, its capital. But he must first broker better ties between North Korea and Washington, Seoul’s top ally and its military protector.

In the meantime, Moon sent his national security director, Chung, to head the 10-member South Korean delegation. Chung’s trip was the first known high-level visit by South Korean officials to the North in about a decade.

Kim was said to have expressed at the dinner his “firm will to vigorously advance the north-south relations and write a new history of national reunification by the concerted efforts of our nation to be proud of in the world.”

There is speculation that better inter-Korean ties could pave the way for Washington and Pyongyang to talk about the North’s nuclear weapons. The United States, however, has made clear that it doesn’t want empty talks and that all options, including military measures, are on the table.

Previous warming ties between the Koreas have come to nothing amid North Korea’s repeated weapons tests and the North’s claims that the annual U.S.-South Korean war games are a rehearsal for an invasion.

Before leaving for Pyongyang, Chung said he would relay Moon’s hopes for North Korean nuclear disarmament and a permanent peace on the peninsula.

Chung’s delegation included intelligence chief Suh Hoon and Vice Unification Minister Chun Hae-sung. The South Korean presidential Blue House said the high-profile delegation was meant to reciprocate the Olympic trip by Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, who became the first member of the North’s ruling family to come to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

Kim Yo Jong, who also attended Monday’s dinner, and other senior North Korean officials met with Moon during the Olympics, conveyed Kim Jong Un’s invitation to visit Pyongyang and expressed their willingness to hold talks with the United States.

Having concluded their Pyongyang trip, Chung’s delegation is scheduled to fly to the United States to brief officials about the outcome of the talks with North Korean officials.

President Donald Trump has said talks with North Korea will happen only “under the right conditions.”

If Moon accepts Kim’s invitation to visit Pyongyang, it would be the third inter-Korean summit talks. The past two summits, one in 2000 and the other in 2007, were held between Kim’s late father, Kim Jong Il, and two liberal South Korean presidents. They resulted in a series of cooperative projects between the Koreas that were scuttled during subsequent conservative administrations in the South.