South Korea yesterday offered to talk with North Korea to ease animosities and resume reunions of families separated by their war in the 1950s.
It is unclear if North Korea would agree to the proposed talks as it remains suspicious of the South Korean president’s overtures, seeing the new leader’s more liberal policy as still resorting to the US to force North Korea to disarm.
Seoul’s proposal for two sets of talks indicates that South Korean President Moon Jae-in is pushing to improve ties with Pyongyang despite the North’s first intercontinental ballistic missile test this month.
South Korean Vice Minister of Defense Suh Choo-suk said the South’s defense officials are proposing talks at the border village of Panmunjom on Friday to discuss how to end hostile activities along the border.
Seoul’s acting Red Cross chief Kim Sun-hyang said it wants separate talks at the border village on Aug. 1 to discuss family reunions.
North Korea’s state media has not immediately responded to South Korea’s overtures.
Earlier this month, Moon reiterated he is willing to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un if conditions are met.
Moon also said the two Koreas must halt hostile activities, restart family reunions and cooperate on next year’s Winter Olympics to be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Moon has said he would use both dialogues and pressure to resolve the standoff over North Korea’s nuclear program, but his push has reported little progress with the North test-firing a series of missiles since May.
The North’s missile launch has stoked security worries that the country could eventually perfect a reliable nuclear missile capable of reaching anywhere in the US.
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
STANDING TOGETHER: Amid China’s increasingly aggressive activities, nations must join forces in detecting and dealing with incursions, a Taiwanese official said Two senior Philippine officials and one former official yesterday attended the Taiwan International Ocean Forum in Taipei, the first high-level visit since the Philippines in April lifted a ban on such travel to Taiwan. The Ocean Affairs Council hosted the two-day event at the National Taiwan University Hospital International Convention Center. Philippine Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, Coast Guard spokesman Grand Commodore Jay Tarriela and former Philippine Presidential Communications Office assistant secretary Michel del Rosario participated in the forum. More than 100 officials, experts and entrepreneurs from 15 nations participated in the forum, which included discussions on countering China’s hybrid warfare
MORE DEMOCRACY: The only solution to Taiwan’s current democratic issues involves more democracy, including Constitutional Court rulings and citizens exercising their civil rights , Lai said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is not the “motherland” of the Republic of China (ROC) and has never owned Taiwan, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. The speech was the third in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to deliver across Taiwan. Taiwan is facing external threats from China, Lai said at a Lions Clubs International banquet in Hsinchu. For example, on June 21 the army detected 12 Chinese aircraft, eight of which entered Taiwanese waters, as well as six Chinese warships that remained in the waters around Taiwan, he said. Beyond military and political intimidation, Taiwan
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