Shifting our focus to inter-Korean affairs,...
South Korea continues to make efforts to keep the dialogue momentum alive,... even after the end of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.
Officials from the presidential office of Cheong Wa Dae held meetings on Monday with the visiting North Korean delegation for a second straight day.
Our chief Cheongwadae correspondent Moon Connyoung with more. The historic moment of unity that brought the two Koreas together for the first time in years is now over.
The last two weeks of outreach have been sweet and friendly, but what happens from here on forth is what actually matters. The bare politics of things. How do we make sure the Olympics-driven detente last?

The choices lay bare South Korean President Moon Jae-in's predicament... evidently on his mind as he greeted Chinese President Xi Jinping's special envoy to the Olympics closing ceremony, Vice Premier Liu Yandong at the Blue House on Monday.

"I believe it's extremely important to make sure the mood for dialogue between South and North Korea lasts beyond the Olympic Games.

I would like to ask China for support for not only inter-Korean talks but also North Korea, U.S. dialogue aimed at denuclearization and peace on the Korean Peninsula."

South Korean media had been abuzz with suggestions that some kind of talks between North Korea and the U.S. could take place while the respective delegations - U.S. led by its presidential adviser and first daughter, Ivanka Trump and the North by a former spy chief Kim Yong-chol- were in town.

The Ivanka-led delegation left South Korea on Monday and there has not been any word of interaction between the Americans and the North Koreans.

The Blue House did announce, however, that President Moon's chief security adviser and other key officials had lunch with the North Korean delegation... released a brief statement that read "the two sides agreed to work together for permanent peace on the Korean peninsula, sustainable relations between North and South Korea and balanced cooperation with the international society."

Little is known at this point - whether there has been any progress in the South Korean president's efforts to bring North Korea and the U.S. to the dialogue table... whether there had been any interaction between the two, even if low-key, working-level... and whether North Korea has attached preconditions for starting talks with the U.S.?

What we do know is that something is in the works behind closed doors between the two Koreas... with the South Korean president ever mindful that he must make headway before the Winter Paralympic Games end on March 18th... when Seoul and Washington have said their mass military drills, which North Korea may have laid out as precondition for talks with the U.S., will begin shortly thereafter.
Moon Connyoung, Arirang News, the Blue House.