The US-led international sanctions and "other pressures" are beginning to have a big impact on the authoritarian North Korean regime, President Donald Trump said today.
South Korea today proposed holding high-level talks with Pyongyang after the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, during his annual New Year address, called for a breakthrough in relations and said Pyongyang might attend the 2018 Winter Olympics to be held in the South Korean city of Pyeongchang.
Trump in November declared North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism, a move that allows the US administration to impose additional sanctions on Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programmes.
"Sanctions and other pressures are beginning to have a big impact on North Korea," he said in a tweet.
"Soldiers are dangerously fleeing to South Korea. Rocket man now wants to talk to South Korea for the first time. Perhaps that is a good news, perhaps not - we will see!," Trump said, in his first major reaction to the recent efforts of talks between North and South Korea.
South Korea offered to hold talks with North Korea after the latter's leader Kim Jong-Un said that he was considering sending a delegation to its neighbour for the Winter Olympics.
"The Winter Olympic Games that will be held soon in the South will be a good opportunity to display the status of the Korean nation and we sincerely wish that the event will be held with good results," Kim said.
The New York Times said that such a move by the North Korean leader "could drive a wedge" between the US and South Korea.
"Hours after Mr Kim's speech, Mr Moon's office welcomed the North's proposal, in a way that could further aggravate tensions with the United States," the daily said.
Park Soo-hyun, a presidential spokesman in South Korea said: "We have already expressed our willingness to engage in a dialogue with North Korea at any time, in any place and in any format, as long as both sides can discuss restoring their relations and peace on the Korean Peninsula".
South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon welcomed the North Korean offer.
"The North will have its own objectives for coming to talks, if it accepts our proposal. But considering Kim Jong-Un mentioned the possibility of North Korea participating in the Winter Games, we expect the North to be prepared for that topic, and although we will seek to discuss other topics, the Winter Olympics will be the priority," he told reporters in Seoul.
North Korea had launched an intercontinental ballistic missile which travelled about 1,000 km before splashing down in the Sea of Japan, within Japan's exclusive economic zone.
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