- North Korea and South Korea have indicated that their relationship is unfreezing.
- Since April, President Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un have been communicating letters.
- The United States has adopted a wait-and-see attitude.
North Korea and South Korea announced on Tuesday that their relationship had unfrozen unexpectedly and announced the resumption of cross-border communications that had been interrupted more than a year ago. The leaders of the two countries reached an agreement to improve their relationship.
The joint statement coincides with the anniversary of the end of the Korean War. This is the first positive development since a series of summits between North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in in 2018 failed to achieve any major breakthroughs.
Read | North Korean official media said that North Koreans are worried about the “haggard” Kim Jong-un
The two parties revealed that Jin and Wen had exchanged a series of letters since April, and they agreed that re-establishing the hotline would be a productive first step in restarting the relationship between these two competitors, despite their 1950-53 conflict, technically Still in a state of war.
North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency reported: “The top leaders of the North and South agreed to take a big step towards restoring mutual trust and promoting reconciliation by restoring the cut-off line of communication between North and South Korea.”
Pyongyang unilaterally cut off all official military and political communications in June 2020 because activists sent anti-Pyongyang flyers to the border, but the two sides stated that all routes had been restored on Tuesday.
summit
Read | North Korea tells the new US government to stop the game of war if it wants to “sleep peacefully”
The Ministry of Unification in Seoul stated that they exchanged their first phone calls since the suspension on Tuesday morning, and the Ministry of Defense added that the military hotline has also resumed normal operations.
Moon Jae-in’s office stated that restoring the hotline is the first step to improve relations.
“The leaders of the two countries also agreed to restore mutual trust between the two countries as soon as possible, and once again promote the development of relations between the two countries,” it added in a statement.
The mild moon is believed to have contributed to the first summit between North Korea and the current US president in Singapore in June 2018. But after Kim Jong Un and then US President Donald Trump broke down in the second summit, Pyongyang basically severed its ties with Seoul. Hanoi brought nuclear negotiations to a standstill.
A few days after the hotline was cut off last year, Pyongyang also bombed the inter-Korean liaison office on the side of the border and threatened to strengthen its military presence in the demilitarized zone separating them.
Since U.S. President Joe Biden took office, Pyongyang and Washington have adopted a wait-and-see attitude towards relations after three summits were reached in the diplomatic roller coaster under Trump’s leadership but failed to reach an agreement on the dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.
Kim said in June that Pyongyang needs to prepare for “dialogue and confrontation” with Washington-but emphasizes the latter in particular.
In a recent review of its strategy for persuading impoverished North Korea to abandon its nuclear and missile programs, the White House promised to adopt “practical and targeted methods”—including diplomatic efforts.
talks
Sung Kim, the top US diplomat in charge of the North Korean negotiations, said in June that Washington is ready to meet with Pyongyang “anytime, anywhere, without preconditions.”
But Kim Yo-jung-Kim Jong-un’s sister and main adviser-rejected the proposal.
Analysts said that the resumption of the North-South Korea hotline on Tuesday marked Kim Jong-un’s initial response to Washington’s negotiation proposals.
Professor Yang Maojin of the University of Korean Studies said: “He seems to believe that the restoration of inter-Korean relations is conducive to North Korea’s domestic and foreign policies and politics.”
He added that despite the deadlock in the negotiations, Moon Jae-in has always emphasized the importance of restoring relations between the DPRK and South Korea.
“This should be interpreted as Kim Jong Un’s first reaction to Seoul and Washington,” Yang said.
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