North and South Korea reopen cross-border hotline, paving the way for formal talks

Beijing

NORTH and South Korea reopened a long suspended cross-border hotline on Wednesday, conducting a brief conversation to pave the way for official talks between the two sides about sending a delegation from the North to next month's Winter Olympics in the South.

Talks, if they take place, would mark the first formal dialogue between the two sides since December 2015, while the hotline has been dormant since February 2016. They could yield an easing of tensions after a year of nuclear and missile tests, hostile rhetoric and the real risk of war.

But US officials and experts have reacted cautiously and sceptically, doubting the sincerity of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

North Korea had earlier in the day announced the channel would be reopened. The South's Unification Ministry then announced that officials from the North had called using the hotline at the shared border village of Panmunjom on Wednesday afternoon. Officials first tested the line and held a conversation for around 20 minutes, it said, accordin…