North Korea and South Korea peace talks - By Kevin Conne

North Korea has reached out to South Korea and opened the door to talks between the two about the Winter Olympics in South Korea. However, as a result of these talks the nations agreed to having further diplomatic talks to hopefully resolve some of the tension between them.   Pyongyang’s chief negotiator Ri Son Gwon said that North Korea would be open to talks with South Korea about reducing the escalating tensions. He made it very clear that North Korea does not have the same feelings towards South Korea as they do towards the United States. In other words, according to North Korea's chief negotiator, North Korea does not consider South Korea to be an enemy of North Korea but rather to be their “brethren”.  He goes on to explain that the enemy of North Korea is the United States and not South Korea. I think this is a huge distinction that North Korea just made and it opens the door for further diplomacy in my opinion.

Between North and South Korea however, the United States needs to stay as uninvolved in this diplomacy as possible. I believe that any meddling by the United States in the negotiations between these two countries could be tragic. No one wants a second Korean conflict, especially when it could so easily turn nuclear.  Everyone was always hoping that North Korea would come to the table for diplomatic resolution and it may start with the Olympics.  It could open the door to real substantial talks between the two countries that may be able to peacefully end the conflict.  I maybe a little overly optimistic, however North Korea’s acceptance and declaration that they do not have hostile intentions towards their South Korean neighbors could prove crucial for the ability of South Korea in the peace negotiations moving forward. I believe that if this diplomatic option is going to work, it needs to be South Korea's “show”. If North Korea starts to suspect that the United States, who they list as their number one enemy, is who they are really negotiating with, I believe the talks could turn toxic and fall apart immediately. These need to be South Korea’s talks. Talks between two nations who were split apart by war, and were once one nation who shared a common people, as well as in many situations, a common history.  Both countries have so much to gain if there can be a peaceful resolution to this conflict, but it must be left up to North and South Korea since the appearance of United States involvement would be seen by the North as not only an invasion by a globalist power, but also one of their main enemy.

United States has come out and said that they would participate in both bilateral talks with North Korea and South Korea, as well as sit down directly with North Korea. I think this is an interesting strategy that could go one of two ways. I think it could severely hurt the South Korean negotiations with North Korea that are already going on and have yielded some results. Yet, if the North Korean regime knew that they were dealing with the United States as well in these peace talks, once the US enters the negotiation there is a much higher likelihood of the sanctions being lifted.  South Korea does not possess the power on its own to lift the sanctions, and in my opinion the ultimate goal for North Korea would be the lifting of the sanctions.  I understand that these talks were originally started over having North Korea attend the Olympics, which in simplest terms I believe, is a great thing.  However, one major concern I have is that it provides a high degree of legitimacy for the regime.  Another twist in this rather bizarre story is that the Trump administration the same day as the peace talks were going on at the DMZ, came out saying that they would pursue a strategy of a bloody nose strike if North Korea took any more threatening actions towards the United States or its allies. This is not only a very broad and rather unclear statement in my opinion, but also extremely poorly timed. Even if the news article explaining this bloody nose idea is completely untrue and turns out to be nothing more than "fake news", it's severely damages and could ultimately cripple and / or end negotiations.