The U.S. measure to slap new sanctions on North Korea in response to the communist state’s alleged cyberattack on Sony Pictures may be a reminder to Seoul officials of the need to moderate their response to a recent peace overture from the North.

A White House statement said Friday that President Barack Obama had signed an executive order authorizing additional sanctions against the North to respond to its “ongoing provocative, destabilizing and repressive actions and policies, particularly its destructive and coercive attack on Sony.” It noted the measure was “the first aspect of our response” to the hack apparently motivated by Pyongyang’s anger with a Sony movie involving a plot to assassinate its leader Kim Jong-un.

In his New Year address Thursday, Kim suggested he was ready to hold summit talks with South Korean President Park Geun-hye, if the right atmosphere and circumstances were created.

His remarks were accepted as “meaningful” by the Park administration, which earlier proposed to hold ministerial-level talks with the North this month to discuss pending issues, including the reunions of separated families. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior Seoul official told reporters Friday that Kim sent a clear signal that his regime wanted to improve ties with the South. The official said the two sides should seize the momentum no later than mid-February, before South Korea and the U.S. begin their annual joint military drills. Kim cited the suspension of the joint exercises by Seoul and Washington as one of preconditions for a meeting between him and Park.

The U.S. State Department has made no official comment on Kim’s speech, though it said Washington supported the improvement of inter-Korean relations after the South made the dialogue proposal Monday.

Seoul appears to be seeking to use a possible resumption of family reunions before the Lunar New Year holiday in mid-February as momentum for beginning the process of building mutual trust that it hopes could eventually lead to a third inter-Korean summit. But it is likely to find it difficult to offer substantial incentives to Pyongyang in the course of carrying forward inter-Korean talks when the U.S. is tightening its sanctions on the communist regime.

More fundamentally, the Park administration may need to coordinate its stance with Washington on whether and to what point to decouple progress in talks with Pyongyang from the prolonged deadlock in denuclearizing the recalcitrant and unpredictable regime. It would also have to ease concerns that its reconciliatory approach could undermine growing international efforts to improve the dire human rights conditions in the North.

A wiser choice for Seoul now may be to cautiously gauge Pyongyang’s true intent and sincerity toward change before making significant concessions to press ahead with inter-Korean dialogue.