North Korea WARNING: Trump’s Kim Jong-un crackdown could be undermined by South Korea

will have to be careful about his ally’s position when talks between and Moon Jae-in resume after ‘s call for negotiations, said Christopher Hill.

The former US Ambassador for told Channel 4 News that the reopen dialogue between North and South will not necessarily regard nuclear weapons, but that the US will face a challenge in managing the new relationship. 

He said: “The South Koreans and the North Koreans have always had so-called peninsula talks, a sort of inter-Korean dialogue and this is not necessarily the form in which there’s a discussion about the nuclear talks. 

“So I think where the US has got to be careful is not to be perceived by the Korean public as somehow keeping Koreans apart from each other. 

“That is a common view of Korean nationalists that ‘if only the US would leave us alone, we could reconcile with North Korea’, so the US has to tread lightly here. 

“For sure this is a change of heart among the South Koreans, they have a few years ago decided not to have any dialogue as long as North Korea was firing missiles and exploding nuclear weapons.”

He added: “So there has been a change in their position, but I think the real challenge will be for the Trump administration to manage this relationship when that change in the position becomes so clear, as it may be in the coming days as the counter player talks with North Korea.”

In his New Year’s speech, Kim Jong-un called for negotiations with South Korea on the upcoming winter Olympics in Seoul.

The conciliatory statement came after a threat to the US to use his “nuclear button” against Donald Trump should the rogue state’s dictator find it necessary.

Donald Trump replied to the provocation in a tweet: “North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”

The South’s Unification Ministry confirmed the two Koreas are now communicating via a radio channel at the border village of Panmunjom.

The two nations have not held significant talks since December 2015 after North Korea cut off the communications channel and refused to answer calls. 

South Korea has tried to make contact with North Korea every day since.