09 January 2018•Update: 09 January 2018
By Alex Jensen
SEOUL
North Korea offered Tuesday to dispatch a senior delegation to the PyeongChang Winter Olympics in South Korea next month, according to the South side amid their first formal talks since December 2015.
The North also proposed sending taekwondo demonstration teams among other squads who could perform at the games, local news agency Yonhap reported.
Five-member government delegations from the respective parties began talking at 10 a.m. (01:00 GMT) in the inter-Korean border truce village of Panmunjom, where North Korean soldiers fired at one of their own defecting comrades as recently as November.
South Korea shared its own proposals during the meeting’s morning session, including marching together with the North at the PyeongChang 2018 opening and closing ceremonies.
The South additionally requested military dialogue to prevent border conflicts as well as further discussions to arrange a reunion for family members separated by a border that has been closed to most civilians since the 1950-53 Korean War.
“We will make efforts to make the PyeongChang Games and the Paralympics a peace festival and help them serve as the first step toward an improvement in inter-Korean ties,” South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon said on live TV shortly before the talks started.
Cho led the South’s delegation facing North Korean counterpart Ri Son-gwon, the head of Pyongyang’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country. Ri opened Tuesday’s dialogue by expressing hope for a “valuable” outcome and a “first New Year present.”
He was acting on the wishes of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who left aside his usual nuclear threats during his New Year’s Day speech to offer to take part in PyeongChang 2018.
The peninsula has seen tensions spike in recent months due to the North’s nuclear weapon tests and the South’s military maneuvers with the United States.
