And nuclear weapons aren’t the only issue.<\/b>
\nNorth and South Korean officials are meeting Tuesday for the first time in two years to discuss North Korea\u2019s participation in next month\u2019s Winter Olympics in the South.
Talks in the border village of Panmunjom will center on the games in PyeongChang, said Cho Myoung-gyon, the South Korean unification minister, on Monday. But he added: \u201cWhen discussing inter-Korean relations, the government will seek to raise the issue of war-torn families and ways to ease military tensions.\u201d North Korea is going to be interested in sanctions relief, according to Scott Snyder, a senior fellow for Korea studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. The country is under a host of U. S. and UN sanctions for its illicit nuclear and missile programs.
How the Olympics Could Help Defuse the North Korea Crisis
Two weeks ago, such talks would have seemed unimaginable. Over the past year, tensions on the Korean Peninsula have risen over the North\u2019s ballistic-missile and nuclear-weapons programs. The North says its weapons programs are a deterrent against possible U. S. aggression and points to the joint military exercises between the U. S. and South Korea as evidence of Washington\u2019s intentions. The U. S. points out that its joint military exercises are legal under international law while North Korea\u2019s missile and nuclear-weapons programs are not.
Amid these tensions came an opening: In his New Year\u2019s Day speech, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, while warning that \u201cthe entire United States is within range of our nuclear weapons,\u201d also offered the possibility of talks with South Korea\u2014with an eye on next month\u2019s Winter Olympics. South Korean President Moon Jae In, who was elected last year on a promise to repair relations with the North, welcomed the remarks. It was, critics said, part of a classic North Korean strategy of trying to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul.
\u201cThe real question, I think, is how much do we have to worry about that,\u201d Snyder said. \u201cOf course, the North Koreans are going to try to divide the U. S. and South Korea. That\u2019s always been part of their playbook…. [But] it\u2019s going to be challenging for the North Koreans to be able to pull that off.\u201d
Still, one hurdle remained for talks: the upcoming U. S.-South Korea military exercises that were scheduled to fall in the middle of the February 9-25 games. But on Friday, the two countries agreed to postpone the drills until April, well after the games end. Snyder said North Korea would likely seek a postponement of the joint drills at least until September, which is when it marks the 70th anniversary of its founding.
\u201cI imagine that the North Koreans will make a pass at trying to push the exercises back further and the South Koreans will also want to talk about North Korean missile and nuclear testing,\u201d Snyder said.
This is the essence of the so-called freeze-for-freeze proposal put forth by North Korea and China; that is, Pyongyang freezes its testing and the U. S. and South Korea freeze their joint exercises. The U. S. has previously dismissed this proposal.
Snyder said that there could be one other area of direct or indirect conversation between the two Koreas: the opening of a dialogue channel with the United States. It\u2019s unclear what the U. S. position on this is. U. S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had previously appeared open to unconditional talks with the North, but was quickly reined in by the White House. But on Sunday, the president appeared to hew close to Tillerson\u2019s position.
\u201cDepending on which official or which statement you draw from the Trump administration, that [talks with the U. S.] is either a plausible prospect or completely unbelievable,\u201d Snyder said. \u201cBut I think the South Koreans would probe that in any event because they have a direct interest in promoting tension-easing, and a big part of that is related to the U. S.-[North Korea] situation.\u201d
The problem with the Trump administration\u2019s mixed messaging, Snyder said, is it \u201cextends across the entire range of possibilities\u201d in U. S.-North Korea relations: \u201cSo you see how it\u2019s like a pendulum going back and forth between war and talks.\u201d Trump, he said, \u201creally flattens the probability curve with respect to potential outcomes with North Korea.\u201d Traditionally, he said, \u201cwe\u2019re used to a parabola where muddling through is the most likely scenario.\u201d
But \u201cwith Trump, if you\u2019re maximizing uncertainty, there\u2019s an equal possibility that you\u2019ll muddle through, fight a war, or sit down and make a deal. And nobody can really say until the last minute\u2014like a reality TV show\u2014which one it\u2019s actually going to be.\u201d
South Korean negotiators are likely mindful of their close alliance with the U. S. as well as their geographical and cultural proximity with their North Korean counterparts. They are likely to want to stage the dialogue in such a way that they talk about the Olympics on Tuesday and find ways to continue the dialogue with the North.
\u201cIt\u2019s a question of whether the North Koreans are going to be ready to bite on that,\u201d Snyder said. \u201cAt this point, I think, because of the limited focus of the talks… I think there will be efforts to lengthen the process.\u201d
That brings up the question of the joint U. S.-South Korean exercises in April. Come April, Snyder said, everybody could pick up where they left off: The U. S. and South Korea resume military exercises and the North Koreans resume testing.
\u201cThe real challenge, I think, for Moon and company in South Korea is to provide a convincing rationale for Kim at this moment where he is actually talking to someone outside of North Korea to stay on the hook in terms of dialogue,\u201d he said. \u201cObviously, it\u2019s an essential prerequisite for addressing and easing tensions\u2014there has to be a dialogue channel. That\u2019s what they will want. It\u2019s actually what everybody, collectively, can support\u2014and yet I\u2019m still pessimistic about the prospect.\u201d<\/p>\n

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