Brief phone contact was made for the first time in two years between the DPRK and South Korea.

At 3:30 p.m. local time on Wednesday, the two sides conducted a 20-minute conversation. The aim was to pave the way for official talks on sending a DPRK delegation to next month's Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. The DPRK had announced the channel would be reopened just hours earlier. South Korea's Ministry of Unification confirmed the call through the hotline at the shared border village of Panmunjom. The conversation came after US President Donald Trump told Pyongyang he has a bigger and better nuclear button on his desk than the DPRK's.