January 6, 2018

Even as North Korea agreed to hold high-level talks with the South on Tuesday, Seoul and its ally Washington took care to stress that the dialogue will be focused on Pyong-yang's participation in next month's Winter Olympics and not on its nuclear programme.

The North's response yesterday came hours after South Korean President Moon Jae In and his United States counterpart Donald Trump agreed in a phone conversation to postpone joint military drills until after the Games.

China and Russia welcomed the positive development on the Korean peninsula, while Japan expressed concern and called for vigilance amid the mood for talks.

In a fax sent via a restored inter-Korea phone hotline yesterday morning, Pyongyang informed Seoul that it will send representatives to the talks to be held on the South Korean side of the border truce village of Panmunjom.

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http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/us-s-korea-wary-ahead-of-inter-korea-talks