North Korea's Day of the Sun holiday, which commemorates the birth of Kim Il-sung, the founder of the country's regime, passed quietly on Monday, April 15, after heightened tensions and threats of a missile test. The country's current leader, Kim Jong Un, marked the occasion by visiting the mausoleum where the bodies of his father and grandfather are on permanent display. Though Pyongyang was dismissive of an offer of conditional talks proposed by Seoul on Sunday, the leadership offered its own preconditions for negotiations on Thursday, including lifting U.N. sanctions against the country and an end to U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises. Some experts have expressed cautious optimism that the tensions that characterized recent weeks are deescalating.
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