Door opens for long-needed talks with North Korea

Pyongyang will send a delegation to the belt and road summit in Beijing but trade will not be the only item on the agenda; it also provides a chance to negotiate a resolution to the nuclear and missile crisis on the Korean peninsula

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Moon Jae-in, South Korea's president and first lady Kim Jung-sook wave outside the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, on Wednesday, May 10, 2017. Moon pledged to push for peace with North Korea and get tough on South Korea's biggest companies in his first remarks as president after a resounding election win. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 1:41am, 11 May 2017Updated: 1:41am, 11 May 2017

In just 24 hours, hopes have been raised that the logjam over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes can be broken. China announced that a North Korean delegation will attend the belt and road summit in Beijing on Sunday and Monday, creating the possibility of negotiations on aspects of the crisis. Moon Jae-in took office as South Korea’s new president yesterday vowing to “do everything I can to build peace on the Korean peninsula”. Expectations have been lifted that the dialogue so necessary to ease tensions, yet for years absent, will soon resume.

The summit will be a chance for China and North Korea to bargain and negotiate. China’s decision follows scathing North Korean state media criticism for cutting off coal imports to comply with United Nations Security Council sanctions.

Relations between the once-staunch allies were already low amid fears that the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, would order a sixth nuclear test. A series of successful and failed missile launches by Pyongyang this year have caused alarm to the point that US President Donald Trump sent an aircraft carrier to the peninsula.