North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Un meets with South Korean delegation
In a sign that he is backing off his previous and long maintained belligerent stance, North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Un met with a South Korean delegation on March 5.
The above link is a press release by a North Korean news source, so it is hardly informative. This Reuters story has some information from the South Korean delegation:
Next month, North Korea and South Korea will have the first meeting between their leaders since 2007 at the border village of Panmunjom, said Chung Eui-yong, head of the South Korean delegation. “North Korea made clear its willingness to denuclearize the Korean peninsula and the fact there is no reason for it to have a nuclear program if military threats against the North are resolved and its regime is secure,” Chung told a media briefing.
Chung cited North Korea as saying it would not carry out nuclear or missile tests while talks with the international community were under way. North Korea has not carried out any such tests since last November. North Korea also is willing to discuss normalizing ties with the United States, Chung said.
This sudden willingness to talk, after more than a decade of war talk, strongly suggests that Trump’s hardline position, which subsequently forced China and others to follow, has had an effect.
In a sign that he is backing off his previous and long maintained belligerent stance, North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Un met with a South Korean delegation on March 5.
The above link is a press release by a North Korean news source, so it is hardly informative. This Reuters story has some information from the South Korean delegation:
Next month, North Korea and South Korea will have the first meeting between their leaders since 2007 at the border village of Panmunjom, said Chung Eui-yong, head of the South Korean delegation. “North Korea made clear its willingness to denuclearize the Korean peninsula and the fact there is no reason for it to have a nuclear program if military threats against the North are resolved and its regime is secure,” Chung told a media briefing.
Chung cited North Korea as saying it would not carry out nuclear or missile tests while talks with the international community were under way. North Korea has not carried out any such tests since last November. North Korea also is willing to discuss normalizing ties with the United States, Chung said.
This sudden willingness to talk, after more than a decade of war talk, strongly suggests that Trump’s hardline position, which subsequently forced China and others to follow, has had an effect.