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Major diplomatic game afoot as Korean war games will be shorter than last year
[ATimes] Military drills shortenedDetails of this year’s drills were announced in Washington late on Monday evening, and on Tuesday in Seoul, agencies in both capitals reported. Although the two allies said they would be “similar in scale” to last year’s war games, they will be shorter in duration. Frenzied diplomatic game North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho held three days of high-level meetings in Sweden last week. “The foreign ministers discussed opportunities and challenges for continued diplomatic efforts to reach a peaceful solution to the conflict as well as bilateral relations,” the Swedish Foreign Ministry said after talks wrapped up, according to Reuters. Stockholm has been tight-lipped on the content of the meetings, but Sweden, which maintains a large embassy in Pyongyang, has traditionally acted as a proxy for US diplomatic interests in North Korea. Meanwhile, CNN reports that Sweden is helping to negotiate the release of three US citizens currently being held in North Korean prisons. So-called “1.5 Track” meetings – an unusual channel in which American academics, Korea watchers and retired diplomats meet with serving North Korean diplomats behind closed doors – will take place in Finland this week. Leading the North Korean delegation is North Korea’s point man for US affairs, Choe Kang-il, and South Korean officials will also be present at the meeting, AP reported. US National Security Adviser H R McMaster met his South Korean and Japanese counterparts in San Francisco for talks over the weekend on denuclearization, South Korea announced said in a statement. Topics discussed included both the inter-Korean and North Korea-US summits. South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-Hwa has a particularly full dance card. Following a lightning trip to the United States from March 15-17, when she met officials from Congress, the State Department and media, she has gone to Brussels for European Union ministerial meetings to discuss cooperation on the North Korean nuclear issue. She also met the NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and the EU Council. Posted by: 3dc 2018-03-22 |
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