“South Korean President Moon Jae-in credited U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday for helping to spark the first inter-Korean talks in more than two years, and warned that Pyongyang would face stronger sanctions if provocations continued,” Reuters reports today.
“‘I think President Trump deserves big credit for bringing about the inter-Korean talks, I want to show my gratitude,'” Moon told reporters at his New Year’s news conference. ‘It could be a resulting work of the U.S.-led sanctions and pressure.”
Officials from North and South Korea met yesterday in the demilitarized zone and agreed “to resolve all problems between them through dialogue and also to revive military consultations so that accidental conflict could be averted.”
Albeit a small and early step in hoped-for future negotiations for North Korean denuclearization, the talks are nevertheless a positive diplomatic development for the two countries.
And, indeed, sanctions on North Korea and the regime’s troubled economy could be pressuring the northern nation into better behavior, per an analysis from the BBC.
“However,” according to Reuters‘ report, “Pyongyang said it would not discuss its nuclear weapons with Seoul because they were only aimed at the United States, not its ‘brethren’ in South Korea, nor Russia or China, showing that a diplomatic breakthrough remained far off.”
