19 August, 2017
The jump in South Korea's CDS premium comes amid a bitter verbal war between the US and North Korea over Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs.
The tentative interest in diplomacy follows unusually combative threats between Trump and North Korea amid worries Pyongyang is nearing its long-sought goal of being able to send a nuclear missile to the USA mainland.
North Korea's ICBM tests sparked weeks of sabre-rattling with Washington, with Pyongyang threatening to fire a salvo of rockets towards the United States territory of Guam.
"We hope the United States can translate this positive statement into concrete DPRK-related policies", Hua said, using the initials of North Korea's official name.
On Wednesday, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, continued a visit to China following talks the day before with his Chinese counterpart that touched on North Korea.
The United States has been the South's security guarantor since the end of the Korean War in 1953, which left the peninsula divided and technically still in a state of conflict with no peace treaty signed.
"I call upon the North Korean government: without global cooperation and co-existence economic development is impossible", said Moon. Over the past few weeks, the United States and North Korea had been engaged in war rhetoric with both sides exchanging military threats.
"US President Trump is trying to pressure North Korea by showing a firm resolution", he said.
The president was making an annual speech to commemorate the 72nd anniversary of the nation's liberation from Japanese military rule that began in 1910 and ended in 1945.
He said: "We're all looking to get out of this situation without a war".
The US State Department said this week the largely computer-simulated UFG exercise, which dates back to 1976, will go ahead as planned. -South Korean military exercises that enrage the North each year could make diplomacy even more hard.
For the past decade under conservative South Korean governments, talks between Seoul and Pyongyang had nearly been suspended over Pyongyang's nuclear tests and ballistic missile developments.
Seoul's 10 million people are within firing range of North Korea's artillery, and would be likely to suffer the brunt of the first retaliatory blows in a United States strike.
South Korea's financial authorities have pledged to keep close tabs on the so-called North Korea risk and its consequences on the domestic financial market.
The South Korean president has repeatedly expressed his strong opposition to any military action on the Korean Peninsula, saying there can never be another war.
"In the present context, Moon is more focused on reassuring his domestic population that war will be averted", Easley said.
Dunford told reporters that he has advised the USA leadership not to dial back on the exercises with South Korea.
