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| A South Korean delegation (left) holds landmark talks with Kim Yong Chol (2nd right) -- who is in charge of inter-Korean affairs for North Korea's ruling Workers' Party -- during their meeting in Pyongyang |
The most senior South Koreans to travel to North Korea
for more than a decade met leader Kim Jong Un Monday, a Seoul official
said, the latest step in an Olympics-driven rapprochement on the divided
peninsula.
The delegation, representing the South's President Moon Jae-in, is pushing for talks between the nuclear-armed regime and the United States, after Kim sent his sister Kim Yo Jong to the Winter Games in the South.
"Chairman Kim Jong Un is currently hosting a dinner for
the special envoys," Moon's spokesman told a press briefing Monday
evening, Yonhap news agency reported.
Kim Yo Jong's trip was the
first visit to the South by a member of the North's ruling dynasty since
the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, and her appearance at the Games'
opening ceremony -- where athletes from the two Koreas marched together
-- made global headlines.
Moon has sought to use the Pyeongchang
Games to open dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang in hopes of
easing a nuclear standoff that has heightened fears over global
security.
Before leaving for Pyongyang, the South's national security advisor Chung Eui-yong said: "We plan to hold in-depth discussions for ways to continue not only inter-Korean talks but dialogue between North Korea and the international community including the United States."
It is a challenging task -- in defiance of UN sanctions,
the isolated and impoverished North last year staged its most powerful
nuclear test and test-fired several missiles, some of them capable of
reaching the US mainland.
US President Donald Trump dubbed Kim
"Little Rocket Man" and boasted about the size of his own nuclear
button, while the North Korean leader called Trump a "mentally deranged
US dotard".
They traded threats of war and sent tensions soaring before a thaw in the run-up to the Winter Olympics.
"We
will deliver President Moon's firm resolution to denuclearise the
Korean peninsula and to create sincere and lasting peace," delegation
leader Chung told reporters.
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| South Korea's President Moon Jae-in (left) was invited to visit Pyongyang after holding talks with North Korea's Kim Yo Jong (centre)on February 10, 2018 |
Chung is one of five senior officials who flew to Pyongyang on Monday.
It
was the first ministerial-level South Korean visit to the North since
December 2007, when Seoul's then-intelligence chief travelled to
Pyongyang.
Conservative Lee Myung-bak was elected the South's
president the following day and took a markedly harder line on relations
with the North.
Monday's
delegation included spy chief Suh Hoon, who is a veteran in dealings
with the North. He is known to have been deeply involved in negotiations
to arrange two previous inter-Korean summits in 2000 and 2007.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency also announced their impending visit in a one-paragraph dispatch.
The 10-member group - five top delegates and five supporting officials -- will return to Seoul on Tuesday.
Other
members include Suh's deputy at the National Intelligence Service as
well as Chun Hae-sung, the vice minister in Seoul's unification ministry
which handles cross-border affairs.
The delegation will fly to
the US on Wednesday to explain the result of the two-day trip to
officials in Washington, according to the South's presidential office.
Moon,
who advocates dialogue with the North's nuclear-armed regime, said last
week that Washington needs to "lower the threshold for talks" with
Pyongyang.
But the US has ruled out any possibility of talks
before the North takes steps towards denuclearisation, and imposed what
Trump hailed as the "toughest ever" sanctions on Kim's regime late last
month.
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