Ivanka and the North Korean general

The Winter Olympic Games was supposed to be about snow, ice and also warm and cuddly stuff, the latter being about improving relations between North and South Korea. North and South Korean ice hockey players and other Games participants from both sides of the border got on pretty well, and the general atmosphere was good, raising hopes that from hockey players you could go on to better relations and sweetness and light and an end to the nuclear crisis. That was always a false hope. But for a time the tension on the Korean Peninsula was definitely lowered. However, that was all slightly ruined by the frosty non-relationship between Mike Pence, the US Vice President, and Kim Jong-un´s sister, Kim Yo Jong. They sat near to each other in the VIP box but never met eyes and their planned meeting in which no doubt hands would have been shaken, didn´t happen. That´s because Pence who seems to me to be totally dreary, uninspiring and boring, never moved an inch. He made it clear that the only thing he was interested in was a conversation about North Korea getting rid of its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Ok fair enough!! But diplomacy is all about nuance and suggestion and hints and a sort of friendliness. Obviously too subtle for Pence who sat there in his huge anorak and seemed immovable, a bit like one of those stoney-faced Soviet Politburo leaders on the high dais in Red Square watching the military parade go by. What was he going to say to Kim Yo Jong? “Maam, unless you speak nuclear to me you can go hang and go back to your Fatty Brother and tell him we´re going to annihilate you.” Ha!! You don´t have to concede anything, Mr Vice-President, but a touch of human give and take in the name of diplomacy wouldn´t have harmed. Anyway, Pence might as well have not been there. He achieved nothing. North Korea called off the meeting and he went back to his office in the White House. But now there is a new opportunity for some clever chatting. Trump is sending his daughter Ivanka to attend the closing ceremony, and North Korea is sending General Kim Yong-choi who used to head up the Reconnaissance General Bureau, a wonderfully quaint name for North Korea´s spying agency. Now that, I grant you, is not a perfect match, Ivanka and Kim Jong-un´s ex-spymaster, but who knows, perhaps they will get along, if they are allowed actually to meet. They probably won´t but it´s fun to imagine. I quite like Ivanka. She has a bit of style, a helluva lot more than Mike Pence at any rate. The general doesn´t look as if he has much personality but he might be charmed by Trump´s daughter. Give it a go, I say. But the bureaucrats on both sides will never allow it to happen. More`s the pity!