N Korea ‘willing to hold talks with US’

Seoul, February 25

Senior officials from Pyongyang visiting South Korea on Sunday said North Korea was open to talks with the US, hours after it accused Washington of trying to stir up conflict on the peninsula with new sanctions.

In Pyeongchang for the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics, the visiting delegation also said developments in relations between the two Koreas and between North Korea and the US should go hand in hand, the South’s presidency said in a statement.

The delegation met South Korean President Moon Jae-in at an undisclosed location in the Olympic city.

Earlier, a statement released by North Korean state media accused the US of provoking confrontation on the Korean peninsula with Friday’s sanctions announcement.

Sunday’s closing ceremony was attended by Moon, the North Korean delegation and United States President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump among other dignitaries.

The Olympics have given a boost to engagement between the two Koreas after more than a year of sharply rising tension over the North’s missile tests and its sixth and largest nuclear test in defiance of UN sanctions.

But the closing days of the Olympic Games were overshadowed by the US announcement that it was imposing its largest package of sanctions aimed at getting North Korea to give up its nuclear and missile programmes.

“Thanks to our supreme leadership’s noble love for the nation and strong determination for peace, long-awaited inter-Korean dialogue and cooperation have been realised and the Olympics took place successfully by the inter-Korean collaboration,” the North’s KCNA state news agency said, citing North Korea’s ministry of foreign affairs.

“On the eve of closing of the Olympics, the US is running amok to bring another dark cloud of confrontation and war over the Korean peninsula by announcing enormous sanctions against the DPRK,” it said, using the initials of the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Earlier, about 100 conservative South Korean lawmakers and activists staged a sit-in near the border with North Korea, facing off against about 2,500 South Korean police personnel to protest the arrival of a northern delegation led by Kim Yong Chol, an official accused of being behind a deadly 2010 attack on a South Korean warship.

The delegation took a different route, prompting the opposition Korea Liberty Party to accuse President Moon Jae-in’s administration of “abuse of power and an act of treason” by re-routing the motorcade to shield it from the protest.

Moon met Kim in Pyeongchang, where the Olympics are being held, before the closing ceremony, the South Korean government said in a statement. — Reuters