Seoul - The leaders of rival Koreas exchanged letters expressing hope for improved bilateral relations. The relations between the neighboring North and South Korea, plummeted in the past three years amid a freeze in nuclear negotiations and North Korea’s accelerating weapons development.

North Korea’s state media said leader Kim Jong Un on Wednesday received a personal letter from outgoing South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Kim replied on Thursday with his own letter appreciating Moon’s peace efforts during his term.

Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency said on Friday that the exchange of letters showed their “deep trust.”

Kim and Moon shared views that “inter-Korean relations would improve and develop as desired and anticipated by the (Korean) nation if the (North and the South) make tireless efforts with hope,” KCNA said.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have risen since a series of North Korean weapons tests this year, including its first flight-test of an intercontinental ballistic missile since 2017 in March, reviving the nuclear brinkmanship aimed at forcing the U.S. to accept it as a nuclear power and to remove crippling sanctions.

Seoul has also accused North Korea of destroying South Korean-owned facilities at the North’s Diamond Mountain resort where they ran tours together until 2008. Kim in 2019 called the South Korean facilities there “shabby” and ordered them destroyed, though the work was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.
-AP