u.s. forces kicked off joint military drills. cnn s paula hancocks joins us from seoul and the north always uses that as the exercises threaten themselves. max, these go onto the end of the month. they are fairly large. there are more than 30 different drills expected to take place. not just live but also computer simulations. they are the sort of exercises that do anger pyongyang every time they are held. we did see from state runnemede yeah in pyongyang said there was a strategic cruz missile launch. they didn t say when it would take place. the fact it was released today, the same day the drills are starting is really not a
the winter games is now being tested. south korea announced on sunday the north is willing to hold talks with the united states. but there is a major sticking point. the white house says any dialogue must result in north korea giving up its nuclear weapons. and we re now learning the south korean president moon jae-in is calling on the u.s. to, quote, lower the threshold to talk with north korea. meanwhile, demonstrators in seoul are protesting south korea s diplomatic efforts with pyongyang. but that has not stopped north korean delegates from agreeing to continue talks with the south, even after the olympics. now paula hancocks joins us now live from pyeongchang. interesting we re hearing now from the south korean leader, lower the threshold here. so presumably, the u.s. is not to talk about getting rid of north korean nuclear weapons.
the situation and had to agree to get back to the negotiating table. so we could be weeks away from a deal being offered. he called it a package or a compromise to entice north korea back to the negotiating table. but it comes at a very tense time. the joint drilling between the u.s. and south korea are starting on monday. every year these anger pyongyang. we ve seen some very harsh rhetoric from pyongyang. the foreign minister did agree that obviously this is not necessarily the time to be talking. he said it s the harsh rhetoric does not give many signs of hope or many positive signs. it s really a contradiction that the korean relationship does not appear to be likely to improve because of these war games. but at the same time it looks like the regional efforts in the
the fact that president moon jae-in really has the most incredible balancing act to maneuver. at this point he has managed to bring north korea to the pyeongchang winter olympics. he has managed to have this sporting diplomacy that his sister sitting down with him and talking. north koreans saying they are willing to talk to the united states. and on the other side, you the united states maintaining its policy of wanting to make sure that denuclearization is at the top of the agenda when it comes to those talks. but the south korean president is trying to say let s lower the threshold. let s at least sit down and talk. something he said was meeting with china s vice premier, yu yangdong. what happens after the olympics? there will be u.s. south korean military drills which every year anger pyongyang.
the u.s. is insisting north korea give up its nuclear weapons. that s something pyongyang has said it won t do. so where do they go from here? well, it s a key question, rosemary. how do you keep the momentum going from this quite remarkable sporting diplomacy we ve seen here. but once the athletes go home, once the paralympics is over, then of course you have the u.s. south korean military drills which anger pyongyang every year. i spoke to the south korean unification minister on sunday and asked him how do you make sure that those drills don t derail this momentum that is building. and he said he was hoping over the next couple of days to be able to talk to the north korean delegation still in south korea to make sure that that wasn t going to be the case. now, as you say, ivanka trump has left south korea now. she was asked many times by reporters about north korea. many times she declined to be drawn on it. but she did say one thing about north korea, and here it is. we are 50