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| North Korea willing to hold talks with US, says South Korea | North Korea willing to hold talks with US, says South Korea |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| North Korea is willing to hold talks with the US, South Korea says. | |
| The announcement came after Gen Kim Yong-chol met South Korean President Moon Jae-in ahead of the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics. | |
| US President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka is also attending the ceremony, but US officials have ruled out meeting the North Korean delegation. | |
| The US says North Koreans pulled out of a meeting with Vice-President Mike Pence during the opening ceremony. | |
| The Korean rapprochement has been seen as a move by the North to drive a wedge between the South and the US. | |
| General 'willing' to talk | |
| Gen Kim met President Moon in Seoul before the closing ceremony began. | |
| According to Mr Moon's office, he said North Korea was "very willing" to hold talks with the US. | |
| It added that the North had "agreed that inter-Korea talks and North-US relations should improve together". | |
| Pyongyang has often said it is willing to talk without any preconditions. | |
| However, the US has insisted that concrete steps towards denuclearisation take place first. | |
| The revelation from the South Korean presidency came hours after a furious statement from the North that described fresh sanctions announced by Washington as "an act of war". | |
| Pyongyang's foreign ministry praised the way the two Koreas had co-operated together during the Olympics, but said the US had "brought the threat of war to the Korean peninsula with large-scale new sanctions" just as the Games were coming to a close. | |
| The Korean peninsula has been divided since the 1950-53 war and the two sides have never signed a peace treaty. | |
| US cool on North-South thaw | |
| North and South Korea marched under one flag at the opening ceremony, and fielded a unified women's ice hockey team. | |
| The North sent Kim Jong-un's sister, Kim Yo-jong, to attend the opening ceremony of the Games. | |
| But experts have cautioned that the latest developments do not put an end to underlying regional tensions, particularly following last year's nuclear and missile tests carried out by the North. | |
| A meeting between Mr Pence and Mr Kim's sister was cancelled inexplicably by the North Koreans, US officials have said. North Korea has made no comment on the US reports. | |
| It would have been the first official interaction between North Korea and the Trump administration. | |
| Last Friday, US President Donald Trump warned of serious consequences if the latest round of sanctions did not generate results. | |
| "If the sanctions don't work we'll have to go phase two - and phase two may be a very rough thing, may be very, very unfortunate for the world," he said. | |
| He did not specify what "phase two" would entail. |