North Korea’s no. 2 visits South for rare talks in five years

After months of tensions, including a steady stream of insults between the divided neighbors and an unusual number of North Korean missile and rocket test firings, expectations for a breakthrough weren’t high, but even the visit itself was significant, allowing valuable contact between confidants of North Korea’s authoritarian leader and Seoul’s senior official for North Korean affairs. One analyst called it a ‘golden opportunity’ for South Korean president Park Geun-hye to test North Korea’s willingness, at the highest levels, to improve shaky ties, but it seemed unlikely that Park would meet with the aides to North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong Un.

The North Korean delegation to the games in the South Korean port city of Incheon was led by Hwang Pyong So, the top political officer for the Korean People’s Army and considered by outside
analysts to be the country’s second most important official after Kim.