Pyongyang Scores Major Victory After US & South Korea Agree Not To Hold Military Drills During Olympics
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Thu, 01/04/2018
Korea’s president Kim Jong-Un, we reported that Kim’s regime may have “successfully bluffed its way into getting the US to stop holding massive army drills with South Korea’s army.” As the FT further noted, South Korea asked the US to “delay” joint military exercises until after the Winter Olympics, in order to lower the chances that North Korea takes provocative actions during the Pyeongchang Games, which Seoul wants to use to showcase the country’s development.
Well, if it was North Korea’s intention to bluff its way into blocking joint military drills off the Korean peninsula, it succeeded because as the WSJ reports, President Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed not to hold springtime military exercises during the Olympics, the South Korean president’s office said Thursday, a move that could cool tensions with North Korea.
The agreement came during a 30-minute phone call between the two presidents, Seoul’s presidential Blue House said in a statement.
As noted last month, Moon had requested the U.S. delay the annual exercises, which Pyongyang has railed against, so they don’t coincide with the Paralympics, which end on Mar. 18. Meanwhile, disagreement has been brewing between Seoul and Washington over how to rein in North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s nuclear weapons program. The U.S. late Wednesday in Washington requested South Korea arrange the call, an official at the Blue House said, declining to comment further.
The detente took place in the past 48 hours, however, when the Moon administration seized on an opening from North Korea to propose a face-to-face meeting next week to discuss its atomic weapons program and an announcement by Kim that he would consider sending a delegation to the Winter Olympics in the South Korean ski resort of Pyeongchang next month.
The Rest…HERE
