The two Koreas remain trapped in cycle of engagement and isolation, 70 years after war that has technically never ended.
In February 2018, Kim Yo Jong was the friendly face of North Korea, smiling and waving as she joined the crowds in South Korea at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

The two Koreas had entered the stadium together at the opening ceremony and fielded a joint women's ice hockey team. Kim was not only the first member of the North's ruling family to visit the South, but also shook President Moon Jae-in's hand. Relations were set to improve.
This month, however, it was Kim, the younger sister of the country's leader Kim Jong Un, who was repeatedly cited in bellicose warnings directed at South Korea, apparently over the leaflets floated across the border or along the river by defector groups, but really about the North's increasing frustration about Seoul's inability to deliver on cooperation promises or convince the United States to ease crippling economic sanctions.

The events were a "manufactured crisis", said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a reader in international relations at King's College London and an expert on the two Korean Peninsula.

On Wednesday, the eve of the 70th anniversary of the start of the Korean War, state media reported that Kim Jong Un had instead decided to suspend the military actions his sister had threatened.
"North Korea feels that it hasn't received the concessions it was looking for from South Korea and the United States at the summits over the past few years," Pacheco Pardo told Al Jazeera. "The heightening of tensions is to signal displeasure at what has happened and that something different is needed."

State media reported, Kim's step back reflected an analysis of "prevailing conditions".

Trump disappointment
After the heady days of the Singapore and Hanoi Summits, Trump now seems to have lost interest in North Korea, focused instead on shoring up his own position in a bruising battle for re-election in November amid the world's worst coronavirus outbreak and public anger over police brutality and systemic racism.
Even during the Singapore summit, if former national security adviser John Bolton is to be believed, Trump's focus was merely on the optics, wanting to know how many journalists were expected to attend the final news conference.

"That's what he was focused on," Bolton said in an interview with ABC News on Sunday. "That he had this enormous photo opportunity - first time an American president has met with the leader of North Korea."
"Like many other countries around the world, North Korea has probably realised that this president is not going to deliver," said Pacheco Pardo. "But they don't want to completely break with the US."

China remains North Korea's biggest ally and satellite images shared by the Stimson Center suggest trade may have resumed at the border, after months of closure as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
"The outbreak of COVID-19 suspended tourism and trade with China, taking the country's economy close to a breaking point," said the US Army War College's Kim. "It is still too early to give up on diplomacy, not because KJU is a trustworthy leader, but because the dire economic situation in North Korea make economic inducements highly appealing."

In Pyongyang, the regime feels it has made sufficient concessions - taking steps to destroy its nuclear facility in Yongbyon and returning the remains of soldiers who were killed during the war - to deserve some concessions.

Some 147 sets of remains arrived back in Seoul from Hawaii on Wednesday, some of which were discovered as a result of the 2018 initiative, but if the South had hoped the two-year-old detente was a sign that the cycle of provocation and engagement had been consigned to the past, the events of the past few weeks have shown there is still a long way to go.
Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/north-korea-tests-limits-diplomacy-sanctions-squeeze-200624130728893.html