Source: BBC<\/p>\n
North Korea has accepted an offer to attend high-level talks next week, South Korean officials have said.<\/p>\n
The meeting, on 9 January, will focus on finding a way for North Korean athletes to attend the Winter Olympic Games in South Korea in February.<\/p>\n
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said this week that sending a delegation to the Games would be “a good opportunity to show unity of the people”.<\/p>\n
The meeting is expected to be held at Panmunjom, on the border.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The so-called peace village, in the heavily guarded demilitarised zone (DMZ), is where the two sides have historically held talks.<\/p>\n
South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in has previously said he sees the Winter Olympics as a “groundbreaking chance” to improve relations between the Koreas, two countries still technically at war.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, in a small sign of progress, North Korea restored a telephone hotline at their mutual border, to enable the first contact about talks to be made.<\/p>\n
However, the South Korean Unification Ministry official told AFP that the acceptance of the invitation to talks was sent by fax on Friday morning.<\/p>\n
The tentative moves towards the Olympic appearance come after months of escalating rhetoric from North Korea and the US.<\/p>\n
The leaders of both countries have each threatened the other with nuclear annihilation.<\/p>\n
North Korea has also infuriated the world with its repeated nuclear tests and missile launches, which have resulted in tightened international sanctions.<\/p>\n
As part of efforts to smooth the path to the Olympics, the US has agreed to a request from South Korea to suspend joint military operations, scheduled to take place during the Games.<\/p>\n
North Korea is consistently infuriated by the drills, which it sees as invasion preparations.<\/p>\n
US Defence Secretary James Mattis said the delay was “a practical matter” – part of “the normal give and take”, and the drills would be conducted after the Paralympics finished on 19 March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Source: BBC North Korea has accepted an offer to attend high-level talks next week, South Korean officials have said. The meeting, on 9 January, will focus on finding a way for North Korean athletes to attend the Winter Olympic Games in South Korea in February. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said this week that sending a delegation to the Games… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1154,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1153\/revisions\/1154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}