Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s team welcomes Winter Olympics negotiations between South Korea and North Korea, provided the talks don’t undermine international sanctions against the regime.
“The United States welcomes the Jan. 9 meeting between the Republic of Korea and North Korea aimed at ensuring a safe, secure, and successful Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Tuesday. “[T]he United States is committed to a safe and successful Winter Olympic Games, and the United States will send a high-level presidential delegation to the Games.”
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un proposed discussions about his country’s participation in the upcoming Olympic Games, hosted by the Republic of Korea, during a New Year’s address. CIA Director Mike Pompeo maintained that the outreach suggests the international sanctions are weakening the pariah state.
But some analysts worried that the meeting might undermine the campaign to compel North Korea to begin negotiations to dismantle its nuclear weapons program. State Department officials cast a wary eye on the talks when they were first announced.
Some of that caution was apparent in Nauert’s latest statement. “The United States remains in close consultations with [South Korean] officials, who will ensure North Korean participation in the Winter Olympics does not violate the sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council over North Korea’s unlawful nuclear and ballistic missile programs,” she said.
The meeting might qualify as a step towards the tentative talks that Tillerson recently suggested might need to take place before a full negotiation over the nuclear weapons issue could begin. South Korean diplomats expressed a similar hope.
“It would be good that the resumption of inter-Korean talks could set the tone for an improvement in ties between the Koreas and that better relations could become a small catalyst for helping resolve the North Korean nuclear issue,” Cho Myoung-gyon said last week.
North Korean diplomats reiterated their determination to retain nuclear weapons and tried to convince their South Korean counterparts that the weapons pose no threat to them.
“All our weapons, including atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs and ballistic missiles are only aimed at the United States, not our [South Korean] brethren, nor China and Russia,” said North Korean diplomat Ri Son Gwon, according to Reuters. “This is not a matter between North and South Korea, and to bring up this issue would cause negative consequences and risks turning all of today’s good achievement into nothing.”
