(Reuters) – Isolated North Korea sent its highest level delegation to South Korea on Saturday to attend the Asian Games closing ceremony amid a flurry of diplomatic activity which has raised hopes for improved ties between the arch rivals.
Heading the delegation was Hwang Pyong So, who arrived at Incheon airport in full military uniform, and Choe Ryong Hae, two senior aides to North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong Un.
Kim Yang Gon, a senior ruling Workers’ Party official and a long time veteran of dealings ties with the South, was also among the delegation.
They met South Korean government officials.
The Asian Games have been a significant event that showcased the nation’s glory and strength to the world, Kim said at the meeting. It was an enormous joy and pride for the nation as both the North and the South performed well.
The two Koreas are technically at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce and not a peace treaty. Armed clashes in recent years have killed soldiers on both sides, and in 2010 civilians were killed when the North bombed a Southern island.
South Korea cut off political and commercial ties with the North that year, when one of its navy ships was torpedoed and sunk, killing 46 sailors. Seoul blamed Pyongyang for the attack.
Inter-Korean relations have reached low point in recent years over the North’s nuclear weapons program, military aggression and human rights abuses.
A number of deals struck between the rivals have collapsed in the past, with North Korea walking out and threatening to punish its neighbor with a sea of fire.
South Korea insists Pyongyang denuclearize for the two sides to come closer together, but few believe the North will ever surrender the ultimate weapon because it provides security for both the country and the government itself.
DIPLOMACY PICKS UP
Despite tense relations with the South, North Korea has been on a high-profile diplomatic outreach in recent weeks, with its foreign minister making visits to capitals and attending the U.N. General Assembly last month.
The North has been under U.N. sanctions for its nuclear and missile tests which deepened its international isolation but has expressed willingness to return to talks with key world powers, including the United States and China, on its nuclear program.
South Korea welcomed the North Koreans’ visit and raised hope that it would lead to a breakthrough in ties that have been in a deep freeze for more than four years.
The government hopes that the high level delegation’s attendance at the Asian Games closing ceremony becomes a positive occasion for improved ties between the South and the North, said Unification Ministry spokesman Lim Byeong-cheol.
Hwang is the head of the North Korean army’s General Political Bureau, a powerful apparatus loyal to the secretive country’s leader and a key post overseeing the 1.2-million-member military.
Last week he took on the added title of vice chairman of the National Defence Commission, the supreme military council that Kim Jong Un himself heads, sealing his status as one of the most powerful men in Pyongyang’s leadership circle.
Choe has also been in the close circle of aides around Kim and currently heads the country’s agency promoting sports.
Leader Kim has been absent from public view since Sept. 3, fuelling speculation that he may be in bad health. The North’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva denied Kim was ill.
The North Korean officials were scheduled to meet President Park’s top national security adviser and the North’s athletes at the Asian Games and attend the closing ceremony late on Saturday before flying home later in the evening.
(Additional reporting by James Pearson and Sohee Kim in Seoul; Writing by Jack Kim; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)