North, South Korea to meet for talks Tuesday

North and South Korean officials will meet next week for the first formal talks more than two years, a sign that the two countries may be moving toward a possible thaw in their relations.

The meeting is set to take place on Tuesday in the border village of Panmunjom, The Associated Press reported Friday, and is expected to focus on cooperation ahead of the Winter Olympics and improving relations more generally.

The announcement of the planned talks came amid a series of developments on the Korean Peninsula. 

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In a New Year’s Day speech, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared that Pyongyang possessed weapons capable of striking the mainland U.S. and insisted that the world would have to accept his country as a nuclear-armed state.

But in that address, he also said that he was willing to send a delegation to the Winter Olympics, which are set to take place in Pyeongchang in South Korea next month, and proposed a dialogue with the South.

President Trump responded to Kim’s assertion about Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal on Tuesday, assuring in a tweet that the arsenal commanded by the U.S. is “much bigger” and “more powerful.”

The rival Koreas on Wednesday reopened a telephone hotline in Panmunjom, after which the two sides held a brief phone call. 

On Thursday, the U.S. and South Korea announced that they would delay annual joint military exercises ahead of the Winter Olympics. Pyongyang has long viewed such drills as practice for an invasion of North Korea.