[Yonhap News Photo]
SEOUL, Feb. 25 (Aju News) -- North Korea expressed its willingness to hold dialogue and develop relations with the United States Sunday when South Korean President Moon Jae-in met with a high-level delegation from Pyongyang ahead of the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics, according to the president's office.
At talks with North Korean officials including Kim Yong-chol, head of the United Front Department (UFD), Moon called for the quick resumption of dialogue between North Korea and the United States for the improvement of inter-Korean relations and the "fundamental resolution of Korean peninsula issues", a presidential spokesman told reporters.
North Korea has "enough willingness" to hold dialogue with the United States and hopes that the development of inter-Korean ties will go together with North Korea-U.S relations, Kim was quoted as saying. The UFD head also said North Koran leader Kim Jong-un supports Moon's views that there should be "broad expansion and progress" in inter-Korean relations, the spokesman said.
After the one-hour meeting, Moon and Kim Yong-chol took seats near the daughter of U.S. President Donald Trump in the VIP section of the Olympic stadium to watch the closing ceremony. Ivanka Trump was seen chatting with Moon's wife but she avoided eye contact with the North Korean official.
Ivanka had led a U.S. delegation to South Korea as an adviser to her father. U.S. officials have ruled out any talks with North Korean officials.
Moon has been engaged in a flurry of sports diplomacy since the North's leader agreed to dispatch athletes, cheerleaders, an art troupe and a high-level delegation one after another in his hectic peace offensive that got a stringent nuclear crisis out of everybody's head for two weeks.
However, Washington announced strong new sanctions targeting dozens of vessels, shipping companies and other entities suspected of conducting trade with North Korea. The new measures are aimed at preventing the North from exploiting some loophole in existing U.N. sanctions, especially for under-the-radar fossil fuel transactions.
reporter
Lim Chang-won
cwlim34@ajunews.com
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