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South Korean officials said they would focus first on Olympic cooperation in Tuesday\u2019s talks before dealing with tougher political and military issues. The government of South Korea\u2019s liberal President Moon Jae-in wants North Korea to take part in the Feb. 9-25 Games as a way to improve relations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s likely the two Koreas agree on the North\u2019s Olympic participation, but they remain sharply at odds over how to improve their overall ties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moon\u2019s government wants to resume temporary reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 war and work out substantial measures to reduce animosities at the border. North Korea is expected to demand rewards in turn, like Seoul halting propaganda broadcasts and scaling back or halting military drills with the U.S., observers say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Suspension of the military drills would be unacceptable for Seoul because that would seriously undermine the alliance with its chief ally the United States, which wants to put more pressures on Pyongyang. The North views the drills as a rehearsal for a northward invasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs President Moon has said, the improvement of relations between North and South Korea cannot advance separately from resolving North Korea\u2019s nuclear program,\u201d Brian Hook, a chief adviser to U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, told reporters in a conference call late Monday Washington time. \u201cAnd so, we remain focused on our global pressure campaign. That campaign is designed to bring Kim Jong Un to the table for meaningful negations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Donald Trump on Saturday expressed hope for some progress from the talks and said he was open to talking with Kim himself. But U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley later said the U.S. administration isn\u2019t changing its conditions regarding talks with North Korea, saying Kim would first need to stop weapons testing for a \u201csignificant amount of time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his New Year\u2019s Day address, Kim said there is an urgent need to improve inter-Korean ties and that he is willing to send a delegation to the Pyeongchang Games. He urged Seoul to halt the military drills with the U.S. and said he has a \u201cnuclear button\u201d to launch missiles at any target in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moon, who favors dialogue as a way to defuse the North Korean nuclear standoff, welcomed Kim\u2019s outreach and proposed talks at Panmunjom. Kim quickly accepted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Trump administration agreed last week to delay springtime military drills with South Korea until after the Games. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis insisted the delay was a practical necessity to accommodate the Olympics, not a political gesture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump and Kim traded bellicose warlike rhetoric and even crude insults last year, as the North conducted it sixth and most powerful nuclear detonation and three tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The International Olympic Committee said Monday it has \u201ckept the door open\u201d for North Korea to take part in the Games. IOC spokesman Mark Adams said the registration deadline has been extended and that the Switzerland-based committee supports North Korean athletes in the qualification process, while respecting U.N. sanctions against North Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senior officials from the rival Koreas said Tuesday they would try to achieve a breakthrough in their long-strained ties as they sat for rare talks at the border to discuss how to cooperate in next month\u2019s Winter Olympics in the South and other issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":90538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":8,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[100,8,12,25,68],"tags":[],"coauthors":[670],"class_list":["post-54646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-flashpoints","category-news","category-newsletters","category-pentagon-congress"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"OHAABJJ7L5BA5PDUTXLPJDLKBY","arc_canonical_url":"\/flashpoints\/2018\/01\/09\/south-korean-officials-head-to-border-for-talks-with-north\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n