Pyongyang rang in the new year with open arms to its neighbours, but analysts are sceptical whether the recent play is anything more than subterfuge
N orth Korean leader Kim Jong-un began the new year with a speech in which he threatened “all of the mainland United States” with nuclear war while at the time offering South Korea an olive branch, suggesting to send a delegation to the upcoming Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, which begin on February 9.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in immediately responded by proposing high-level inter-Korean talks to discuss its participation on January 9, to which the North has since agreed, marking the first time such talks will have taken place since December 2015, and signalling a personal triumph for Moon, who has made getting the North to the negotiation table his presidential raison d’être.
North Korea’s head of inter-Korean affairs, Ri Son-gwon, then announced on state television that Kim had ordered the reopening of the Seoul-Pyongyang hotline, which North Korea severed two years ago, to discuss the participation of its athletes. Ri added that Kim welcomed Moon’s support in the matter.
By mid afternoon on Wednesday, half of South Korea was waiting for a call that came at precisely 3.30pm, when a government official in the border village of Panmunjom picked up a plastic green handset and spoke to a North Korean counterpart on the other end. The two sides spent 20 minutes on technical issues involving the long-closed line, then a few hours later, North Korea called back and said, “Let’s call it a day.”
These words signified not only the end to a hard day’s work, but hopefully the end to a conflict that has raged for months. But while Kim struck a conciliatory tone in his New Year’s address, he also made time to level threats at the United States, saying he has the nuclear button sitting on his desk. US President Donald Trump took the bait, tweeting on Tuesday, “Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a nuclear button, but it is a much bigger and more powerful one than his, and my button works!”
But Moon staunchly avoided the sabre-rattling in which Kim and Trump have so freely indulged over the past months. Since taking office on May 10, he has seen the regime snub any effort at rapprochement, repeatedly threaten to start a nuclear holocaust and rapidly develop its weapons programmes by testing four anti-ship missiles, nine ballistic missiles and a thermonuclear bomb. Tensions are subsequently the highest they’ve been since the end of the Korean war. On Sunday, Admiral Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the United States is “closer to a nuclear war with North Korea than ever”.
Yet Moon has remained calm and ready, and now at the eleventh hour, his composure has apparently paid off. On Thursday, the United States and South Korea agreed to postpone military exercises – involving hundreds of thousands of troops – although US officials insisted the move was to focus on security during the Winter Olympics and not a sign of a softened stance on Pyongyang.
