by Matthew Rusling
WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- With the Winter Olympics in South Korea approaching, Washington and Pyongyang have tamped down harsh rhetoric toward each other, although U.S. experts said the calm may be temporary.
The United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) have been engaged in a tit-for-tat of words in recent months, with U.S. President Donald Trump warning that he could unleash fire and fury on the Asian nation, and DPRK leader Kim Jong Un threatening that his nation is capable of striking the United States with nuclear weapons at any moment.
The heightened rhetoric characterized interactions between the two leaders for several months, leading to many Asian nations' fret over the possibility of the two coming to blows.
However, in the run-up to the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in South Korea, tensions seem to have subsided for now, although experts said the battle of words could pick up at a later point, once the games have concluded.
"There is little incentive for the United States and North Korea (the DPRK) to engage in the heated rhetoric of 2017 at the moment," said Troy Stangarone, senior director at the Korea Economic Institute, a Washington-based policy research institution.
"President Trump has refrained to give space to (South Korean President) Moon Jae-in to engage North Korea over the Olympics and has been consumed with domestic issues, while provocative statements by Kim Jong Un would have undermined (Kim's) efforts to reach a deal for North Korea to take part in the Olympics," Stangarone said.
Additionally, neither Trump nor Kim will want to be seen as the reason for tensions rising during the Olympics, Stangarone added.
This is happening even as Washington slapped another round of sanctions on Pyongyang on Wednesday, in a bid to get the DPRK to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
Wednesday's new sanctions from the U.S. Treasury Department targeted nine entities, 16 individuals and six vessels in response to the DPRK's alleged "ongoing development of Weapons of Mass Destruction and continued violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions."
Recent weeks have seen Trump express openness toward direct talks with the DPRK and optimism about the warming relations between the two Koreas, as the two Koreas have been engaged in an abundance of projects to promote the Winter Olympics in recent weeks. Meanwhile, however, U.S. media reports have said that the White House is not ruling out a so-called "bloody nose" -- a targeted strike aimed to destroy the DPRK's nuclear weapons facilities.
Still, some analysts believe Pyongyang will ultimately be able to obtain a nuclear weapon that is capable of targeting the United States mainland.
Stratfor, a U.S. geopolitical intelligence group, said recently that the United States may end up standing by as the DPRK promotes its nuclear weapons development.
"Though we cannot rule out a preventative strike against North Korea (the DPRK) entirely, the threat of a messy war in East Asia that shoves the world back into economic recession is a steep price to pay," said Rodger Baker, Stratfor's vice president of strategic analysis.
Analysts said DPRK leaders have always been astute geopolitical observers. The DPRK leadership saw how leaders in Iraq and Libya were toppled by the United States, and Kim does not want to suffer the same fate.
Thus Pyongyang sees nuclear weapons as the only ticket to its survival, and will not let go of them anytime soon, experts said.
