North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has said he is willing to restore a vital communication hotline with South Korea, in a possible offer of reconciliation.
He also accused the US of proposing talks without changing its “hostile policy” towards the North. Pyongyang severed the hotlines in August this year in protest against South Korea-US military drills.
Mr Kim’s latest comments came during Pyongyang’s annual parliament session. “The US is touting ‘diplomatic engagement’… but it is no more than a petty trick for deceiving the international community and hiding its hostile acts,” a report by state news outlet KCNA said.
But Mr Kim appeared to extend a conditional olive branch towards South Korea. He wants to restore the communication lines by early October, but that is dependent on the “attitude of the South Korean authorities” and whether their relationship starts to improve or continues its “present state of worsening,” KCNA reports.
Mr Kim’s latest comments echo those his sister made earlier last week, where she said the North was willing to resume talks with the South if it ended its “hostile policies”.
In a statement, Kim Yo-jong said South Korea needed to drop its “double-dealing attitudes” and “hostile stand of justifying [its] own acts while faulting our… right to self-defence.”
She added that face to face discussions to “declare the significant termination of war” could only be done once those conditions are met.
North and South Korea are technically still at war because no peace agreement was reached when the Korean War ended in 1953.
Communication hotlines between the two have been cut – and restored – several times over the past few years.
In 2020, after a failed summit between the North and South, Pyongyang blew up an inter-Korean border office that had been built to improve communications.
Analysis box by Laura Bicker, Seoul correspondent Analysis box by Laura Bicker, Seoul correspondent Why has Kim Jong Un decided to pursue peace with Seoul now? There are a few reasons to consider.
First, the joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea are over for this year. The time for sabre-rattling is done.
Seoul’s President Moon tried to nudge the door for talks when he called on both sides to talk about officially ending the Korean war at the United Nations General Assembly. This appears to have had an impact.
Or at least it was perfectly timed for Pyongyang to once again open its diplomatic playbook.
North Korea’s economy is in a dire state. Mr Kim will be keen for sanctions relief.
He had hoped to make a deal with then US President Donald Trump in Hanoi, but that fell through, and Covid-19 border closures have exacerbated an already bad situation.
There’s a clock ticking too. The South Korean presidential elections are on the horizon. At least for now, Mr Kim knows who he is dealing with and he knows President Moon favours engagement.—Agencies
