Moon invited to North Korea, calls for Pyongyang-US dialogue

February 12, 2018

SEOUL – Responding to an invitation to visit North Korea, South Korea’s President. Moon Jae-in, has said dialogue between North Korea and the U.S. is required for further development in inter-Korean relations. Moon urged Pyongyang to show more willingness to talk with Washington, the official South Korean newsagency reported.

Moon received his invitation to visit North Korea from Kim Jong-un, Chairman of the Workers' Party of North Korea, via his sister, Kim Yo-jong. 

Kim Yo-jong, Deputy Director of the Workers’ Party’s Department of Propaganda and Agitation, and the North Korean leader’s sister, visited South Korea to lead the high-level North Korean delegation as a special envoy from her brother. 

During a meeting between President Moon and the delegation, she delivered a signed letter from Kim Jong-un to the South Korean President, and conveyed a verbal invitation from her brother, too, who she said is “willing to meet President Moon Jae-in at the earliest date possible”. 

Moon responded that he would try to make this happen by creating the appropriate conditions in the future, but adding that there was a need for dialogue between North Korea and the U.S.

Moon said the North Korean athletes’ participation in the PyeongChang Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games offered an opportunity for the Games to become a “Peace Olympics,” to build peace on the Korean Peninsula and to improve Seoul-Pyongyang ties. 

According to a South Korean Presidential spokesperson, Kim said that Moon and the North Korean delegation shared a common understanding that the mood for peace and reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula created through the Olympics should continue, and that both sides needed to engage in talks, exchanges and co-operation in an active manner.  www.koreanet.kr (ATI).