SEOUL: South Korean President Moon Jae-in urged the US to “lower the threshold for talks” with the North on Monday as his aides held rare talks with a Pyongyang general on ways to defuse tensions.
Moon has sought to use the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics that ended on Sunday to open dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang in the hopes of easing a nuclear standoff that has sparked global security fears.
Pyongyang mounted a charm offensive during the Games, sending athletes, cheerleaders and performers.
The North’s leader Kim Jong Un also sent his sister to attend the opening ceremony before dispatching Kim Yong Chol, a powerful general in charge of inter-Korea affairs for the ruling Workers’ Party, to Sunday’s closing event.
But there was no known interaction between the North and the US during the Games and Washington on Friday imposed what US President Donald Trump described as the “heaviest ever” sanctions on the Kim regime.
“I think the US needs to lower the threshold for talks and the North also needs to show determination for denuclearization,” Moon said in a meeting with Liu Yandong, a Chinese envoy to the closing ceremony.
“It’s important that the US and the North sit together as soon as possible,” Moon said, urging efforts by Beijing to make that happen.
Moon, in a meeting with Kim Yong Chol on Sunday, also urged the North to open dialogue with the US as soon as possible — to which Kim responded by saying the North was “very willing” to hold talks.
But the US has ruled out any possibility of talks before the North — which since last year has staged multiple missile and nuclear tests — makes steps toward denuclearization.
“We will see if Pyongyang’s message today, that it is willing to hold talks, represents the first steps along the path to denuclearization,” the White House said in a statement.
“The maximum pressure campaign must continue until North Korea denuclearizes,” it said.
Kim Yong Chol also met with Moon’s top advisers including national security adviser Chung Eui Yong on Monday as conservative demonstrators denounced his presence in the South.
Kim is accused of masterminding deadly attacks on the South, including the 2010 sinking of a South Korean warship that left 46 dead. Seoul accused Pyongyang of torpedoing the ship — a charge the North denies.
Dozens of conservative activists held a protest near a luxury Seoul hotel where Kim and seven other North Korean delegates are staying, ripping off the general’s portrait and torching the North’s national flags.
Hundreds of conservative Seoul lawmakers and their supporters also held a separate protest in Seoul, waving banners including “Arrest Kim Yong Chol!”
Seoul says US should lower ‘threshold for talks’ with North Korea
Seoul says US should lower ‘threshold for talks’ with North Korea
Cambodia shuts Thailand border crossings over deadly fighting
- Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said Trump “didn’t mention whether we should make a ceasefire” during their Friday phone call
- Across the border, a Cambodian evacuee said she was “sad” the fighting hadn’t stopped despite Trump’s intervention
BANGKOK: Cambodia shut its border crossings with Thailand on Saturday, after Bangkok denied US President Donald Trump’s claim that a truce had been agreed to end days of deadly fighting.
Violence between the Southeast Asian neighbors, which stems from a long-running dispute over the colonial-era demarcation of their 800-kilometer (500-mile) border, has displaced around half a million people on both sides.
At least 25 people have died this week, including four Thai soldiers the defense ministry said were killed in the border area on Saturday.
The latest fatalities were followed by Phnom Penh announcing it would immediately “suspend all entry and exit movements at all Cambodia-Thailand border crossings,” the interior ministry said.
Each side blamed the other for reigniting the conflict, before Trump said a truce had been agreed.
Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said Trump “didn’t mention whether we should make a ceasefire” during their Friday phone call.
The two leaders “didn’t discuss” the issue, Anutin told journalists on Saturday.
Trump had hailed his “very good conversation” with Anutin and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet on Friday.
“They have agreed to CEASE all shooting effective this evening, and go back to the original Peace Accord” agreed in July, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
The United States, China and Malaysia, as chair of the regional bloc ASEAN, brokered a ceasefire in July after an initial five-day spate of violence.
In October, Trump backed a follow-on joint declaration between Thailand and Cambodia, touting new trade deals after they agreed to prolong their truce.
But Thailand suspended the agreement the following month after Thai soldiers were wounded by land mines at the border.
In Thailand, evacuee Kanyapat Saopria said she doesn’t “trust Cambodia anymore.”
“The last round of peace efforts didn’t work out... I don’t know if this one will either,” the 39-year-old told AFP.
Across the border, a Cambodian evacuee said she was “sad” the fighting hadn’t stopped despite Trump’s intervention.
“I am not happy with brutal acts,” said Vy Rina, 43.
- Trading blame over civilians -
Bangkok and Phnom Penh have traded accusations of attacks against civilians, with the Thai army reporting six wounded on Saturday by Cambodian rockets.
Cambodia’s information minister, Neth Pheaktra, meanwhile said Thai forces had “expanded their attacks to include civilian infrastructure and Cambodian civilians.”
A Thai navy spokesman said the air force “successfully destroyed” two Cambodian bridges used to transport weapons to the conflict zone.
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim on Saturday urged both sides to “cease all forms of hostilities and refrain from any further military actions.”
Thailand has reported 14 soldiers killed and seven civilian deaths, while Cambodia said four civilians were killed earlier this week.
At a camp in Thailand’s Buriram, AFP journalists saw displaced residents calling relatives near the border who reported that fighting was ongoing.
Thailand’s prime minister has vowed to “continue to perform military actions until we feel no more harm and threats to our land and people.”
After the call with Trump, Anutin said “the one who violated the agreement needs to fix (the situation).”
Cambodia’s Hun Manet, meanwhile, said his country “has always been adhering to peaceful means for dispute resolutions.”
