Just over a month before the start of the Winter Olympics in South Korea, the political situation on the Korean peninsula seems to be easing further. Shortly after the announcement of North Korea’s intention to send a delegation to Pyeongchang, just 80 kilometres from the demilitarised zone, US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he was “ready to meet the North Korean leadership under the right circumstances”.
Trump said this in a telephone conversation with South Korea’s President Moon Jae In, the White House said:”At the appropriate time and under the right circumstances”. The exact conditions that had to be met remained open.
In Panmunjom on Tuesday, for the first time in two years, talks between the South and the North took place again,”That was just the beginning,”Moon said afterwards.
The US government affirmed that Trump and Moon also underlined the importance of continued “maximum pressure” on North Korea. Governor Kim Jong Un has had rocket tests carried out again and again in recent months to make his isolated country a nuclear power.
In addition, Kim made a verbal exchange of blows with Trump, who in turn threatened North Korea with total destruction.
Because the Korean War ended in 1953 with a ceasefire and not a peace treaty, both states of the peninsula are still formally in a state of war.