On March 5, 2018, South Korea sent a delegation, led by National Security Advisor Chung Eui-yong and chief of the National Intelligence Service Suh Hoon, to Pyongyang to meet with North Korean high-level officials. The visit was widely seen as South Korean president Moon Jae-in’s response to the summit proposal from Kim Jong-un delivered by Kim’s sister on the occasion of her attendance at the XXIII Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea last month. The South Korean delegation held meetings for the first time with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and announced shortly after their returning from Pyongyang on March 6 that North Korea reportedly expressed a willingness to discuss denuclearization of the Korean peninsula with the United States if the country’s security could be guaranteed. North Korea further agreed that while dialogue was ongoing there would not be any additional missile tests and nuclear tests. The South also announced plans for an inter-Korean summit sometime in late April. Have we achieved a breakthrough on North Korea? Not quite yet.
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