The feelers from North Korea to the South call for reflection in the midst of the pressure that has been ratcheted up by Pyongyang over nuclear proliferation. The influential sister of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, said on Friday that her country is willing to resume talks with South Korea if conditions are met, indicating it wants Seoul to persuade Washington to relax the crippling cache of economic sanctions. Kim Yo Jong’s offer has come days after North Korea carried out its first missile tests in six months, which some experts said were intended to show it will keep boosting its weapons arsenal if the US-led sanctions continue while nuclear diplomacy remains stalled.

She has offered the talks while mentioning the South Korean President, Moon Jae-in’s call, issued in a speech at the UN General Assembly, for a
political declaration to end the 1950-53 Korean War as a way to bring peace to the peninsula.  She has apparently given the short shrift to diplomatic niceties ~ “Smiling a forced smile, reading the declaration of the termination of the war, and having photos taken could be essential for somebody, but I think that they would hold no water and would change nothing, given the existing inequality, serious contradiction therefrom and hostilities,”
Kim Yo Jong said in the statement carried by state media. She said North Korea is willing to hold “constructive” talks with South Korea to discuss how to improve and repair strained ties if the South stops provoking the North with hostile policies, far-fetched assertions and double-dealing standards. There is little doubt that she has been as blunt as she has been forthright.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry said it  is carefully reviewing Kim Yo Jong’s statement, adding that the South will continue its efforts to restore ties with the North. North Korea is exerting indirect pressure on Seoul to arrange for talks on easing the sanctions as it pushes for the declaration of the war’s end. “It’s like the North saying it will welcome talks on the end-of-the war declaration if lifting the sanctions can also be discussed,” is the prognosis of an expert.

The United States toughened sanctions following North Korea’s provocative run of nuclear and missile tests in 2016-17. President Kim Jong Un has said that the sanctions, the coronavirus pandemic and natural disasters were causing the “worst-ever” crisis in North Korea.

Earlier this year, he warned he would enlarge the country’s nuclear arsenal if the United States refuses to abandon its “hostile policy” towards North Korea, an apparent reference to the sanctions. The fact of the matter must be that North Korea and the United States are still technically at war because the Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. The  North has consistently wanted to sign a peace treaty with the United States to formally end the war as a step towards improved relations.