South Korea tells Trump it plans to send special envoy to North Korea: report

South Korea will send a special envoy to North Korea, South Korean President Moon Jae-in reportedly told President Trump on Thursday. 

Seoul’s decision to send an envoy to the North is the latest diplomatic overture following a visit by a high-level North Korean delegation to the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Moon told Trump of the decision in a phone call on Thursday, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency. 

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In that call, Moon briefed Trump on the latest developments in the budding dialogue between the rival Koreas, the White House said in a readout of the conversation. 

Both leaders agreed that any dialogue between the North and the South must include demands that Pyongyang abandon its nuclear weapons program, according to the White House. 

The White House’s readout of the phone call did not mention whether Moon told Trump about the special envoy.

The conversation came days after the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics. The games served as a venue for rare high-level contacts between North and South Korea. 

According to Yonhap, Moon’s move to send a special envoy to North Korea is intended to reciprocate Pyongyang’s decision to send Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, to the Winter Olympics. 

The diplomatic visits signal a thaw in tensions between the two Koreas after a year in which the North displayed a number of advances in its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. 

The Trump administration has sought to keep political and economic pressure on the North in an effort to force the country to abandon its nuclear program. 

The administration reportedly told South Korea last month that it is open to preliminary talks with North Korea.