North Korea to Send Delegation to Winter Olympics, Commits to Military Talks - WSJ

* North Korea Agrees to Send Delegation to Winter Olympics — Joint Statement Provided by Unification Ministry

* South Korea Agrees to Provide ‘Necessary Comforts’ to North Korean Olympic Delegation

* Koreas Agree to Hold Further Talks on Undetermined Date to Finalize Details of North’s Olympic Attendance

* Joint Statement Follows Day of Talks Between Koreas at Demilitarized Zone

SEOUL—South Korea sought unsuccessfully to raise the North’s nuclear program during bilateral talks, though the two sides came to an agreement for Pyongyang to participate in next month’s Winter Olympics, fueling cautious hope for a thaw in relations.

Cho Myoung-gyon, the South’s Unification Minister, told his North Korean counterpart earlier in the day of a strong desire to see peace and reconciliation between North and South Korea, and said he believed the Pyeongchang Games would be a “peace Olympics.”

As negotiators arrived on a frigid winter morning, Ri Son Gwon, the North’s lead representative, said the two sides should “present the people with a precious New Year’s gift.”

“There is a saying that a journey taken by two lasts longer than one traveled alone,” he said.

South Korean officials said they had sought a resumption of family reunions for those separated from their loved ones by the 1950-53 Korean War. There was no word as of Tuesday afternoon on whether the North had accepted the proposal.

The two Koreas, though, agreed to reopen a military-to-military communication line in the Yellow Sea starting Wednesday, a government official in Seoul said.

Both sides were continuing discussions at Panmunjom truce village—the only spot on the inter-Korean border where both sides’ forces face off just a few feet apart—and it wasn’t clear if a joint statement would be released later in the day.

The negotiators broke briefly for lunch, but the two delegations didn’t eat together, Mr. Chun said.

The Trump administration has expressed wariness about the inter-Korean talks, warning that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un could be trying to drive a wedge between Seoul and Washington. The U.S., which has led a campaign to isolate North Korea over its nuclear-arms development, wasn’t present at Tuesday’s meeting.

Brian Hook, a senior policy adviser at the State Department, said in a call with reporters as the inter-Korean talks were starting that it was premature to call the discussions the beginning of something larger.

“It’s a start,” said Mr. Hook, who added that Pyongyang likely agreed to the talks because of the U.S. pressure campaign against North Korea.

“The president believes that if we didn’t have the pressure campaign, they wouldn’t be talking at all right now,” Mr. Hook said.

North Korean involvement in the Olympics makes Pyongyang much less likely to carry out a provocation during the Games, said Alison Evans, deputy head of Asia-Pacific country risk at IHS Markit.

Still, on the most pressing issue roiling the peninsula—the North’s weapons program—there was no clear progress from Tuesday’s discussions. The North’s delegates showed no reaction when South Korean negotiators broached the subject, Mr. Chun said.

“The North Koreans did not specifically mention the issue, nor did they show a special response to the issue, but just listened to what we had to say” regarding denuclearization, Mr. Chun said.

The meeting, though, was an opening for the two sides after a year of tensions fueled by the Kim regime’s missile tests and the North Korean leader’s bellicose exchanges with President Donald Trump.

The head of North Korean delegation, Ri Son Gwon, second left in front, arrives for talks in the demilitarized zone Tuesday. Photo: /Associated Press

In response to its weapons tests, the North has been hit by tougher international sanctions that Mr. Kim acknowledged in a Jan. 1 speech were taking a toll on the economy—a factor some observers of the regime have said likely motivated it to seek talks.

China, which has been anxious about the tensions on its doorstep, welcomed the meeting and indirectly urged the U.S., Japan and others to be supportive.

“We also hope these talks will make a good start to improve inter-Korean relations, promote their reconciliation and cooperation and ease the tension on the peninsula,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a briefing in Beijing on Tuesday.

But security analysts weren’t optimistic that Tuesday’s negotiations would deliver lasting results.

North Korea has used the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises as justification for missile testing in the spring in recent years, said Adam Mount, a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists.

“If the field exercises are pushed back, Pyongyang may delay launches to avoid interfering with the Olympics,” he said. But North Korea has entered the final stage of its weapons testing and will seek to test additional missiles this year, Mr. Mount said.

While Washington has said it is considering military action against Pyongyang, South Korean President Moon Jae-in has taken a more dovish line, insisting that the nuclear crisis can only be resolved peacefully and extending olive branches to Pyongyang.

Earlier Tuesday, the North Korean delegation appeared to catch the South off guard when they proposed opening the meeting to the press.

Mr. Cho, the South’s main representative, smiled as he declined the offer.

—Charles Hutzler in Beijing contributed to this article.