FOREIGN POLICY/NORTH KOREA/NUCLEAR/SOUTH KOREA: “South Korea sought unsuccessfully to raise the North’s nuclear program during bilateral talks, but the two sides reached a deal for Pyongyang to participate in next month’s Winter Olympics and agreed to hold military talks, providing a small opening to the stalemate on the peninsula.
The face-to-face discussions on Tuesday [1-9-18] at the demilitarized zone that divides the peninsula were the two Koreas’ first since December 2015, and came after months of soaring tensions stemming from Pyongyang’s nuclear-weapons development.
North Korea will send a delegation of athletes, a taekwondo demonstration team, high-level officials, supporters and journalists to the Olympics in the South Korean ski resort of Pyeongchang, according to a joint statement after Tuesday’s talks… But the statement contained no mention of the North’s atomic-weapons program, and South Korean officials said Pyongyang’s delegates had voiced anger when Seoul broached the North’s weapons program.
The North’s lack of willingness to discuss denuclearization failed to extinguish suspicion that the regime is buying time to complete its nuclear program.”
-Andrew Jeong, “North Korea to Send Delegation to Winter Olympics, Commits to Military Talks,” The Wall Street Journal online, Jan. 9, 2018 09:09am