Foreign relations of North Korea
In 2017 Moon Jae-in was elected President of South Korea with promises to return to the Sunshine Policy. In his New Year address for 2018, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un proposed sending a delegation to the upcoming Winter Olympics in South Korea. The Seoul–Pyongyang hotline was reopened after almost two years. North and South Korea marched together in the Olympics opening ceremony and fielded a united women's ice hockey team. North Korea sent an unprecedented high-level delegation, headed by Kim Yo-jong, sister of Kim Jong-un, and President Kim Yong-nam, as well as athletes and performers.
2017 South Korean presidential election
Opinion polling before April consistently placed the Democratic Party's candidate, Moon Jae-in, runner-up in the 2012 election, as the front-runner. Second place in the opinion polls was initially held by former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who declined to run in February, followed by Ahn Hee-jung, whilst he lost the Democratic primaries to Moon. Support for People's Party founder Ahn Cheol-soo then surged, threatening Moon's lead in the polls throughout early April, before descending to approximately equal that of Liberty Korea Party's candidate, Hong Jun-pyo, in final polls.