While keeping the doors open for negotiations, the US and South Korea are unlikely to relax any of the terms and conditions they have set for Pyongyang.
The temporary hope of peace returning to the Korean peninsula following North Korea’s peace overtures dissipated no sooner than it started when North Korean negotiators walked out of the meeting room at the DMZ in Panmunjam.
North Korea’s offer of a dialogue is unlikely to elicit a positive response from South Korea which instead is militarily drawing closer to Japan to enhance deterrence.
Kan’s statement about sending the SDF to the Korean peninsula to rescue Japanese citizens and people of Japanese origin in the event of an emergency has raised the spectre of a possible revival of Japanese militarism.
