KOREAS UNITE IN BID FOR US PEACE TALKS
SOUTH Korean President Moon Jae-in said yesterday that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un committed to sitting down with US President Donald Trump during a surprise meeting between the rivals and to a “complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula”.
The Korean leaders’ second summit in a month on Saturday saw bear hugs and broad smiles, but their quickly arranged meeting appears to highlight a sense of urgency on both sides of the world’s most heavily armed border.
At the White House, Mr Trump said negotiations over a potential June 12 summit with Mr Kim that he had earlier cancelled were “going along very well”.
Mr Trump said they were still considering Singapore as the venue for talks. He said there was a “lot of good will” and denuclearisation of the peninsula would be “a great thing”.
The Koreas’ talks, which Mr Moon said Mr Kim requested, capped a whirlwind 24 hours of diplomatic back-and-forth. It allowed Mr Moon to push for a US-North Korean summit that he sees as the best way to avoiding war.
Mr Kim may see the sit-down with Mr Trump as necessary to easing pressure from crushing sanctions and to winning security assurances in a region surrounded by enemies.
Mr Moon said yesterday that Mr Kim “again made clear his commitment to a complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula” and that he was willing to co-operate for the sake of the successful North Korea-US summit.
Mr Moon said he told Mr Kim that Mr Trump had a “firm resolve” to end hostile relations with North Korea and initiate economic co-operation if Mr Kim implements “complete denuclearisation”.
“What Kim is unclear about is that he has concerns about whether his country can surely trust the United States over its promise to end hostile relations (with North Korea) and provide a security guarantee if they do denuclearisation,” Mr Moon said.
“During the South Korea-US summit, President Trump said the US is willing to clearly put an end to hostile relations (between the US and North Korea) and help (the North) achieve economic prosperity if North Korea conducts denuclearisation.”
Mr Kim, in a telling line from a dispatch issued by the North’s state-run news service yesterday, “expressed his fixed will on the historic (North Korea)-US summit talks”.
The two Korean leaders agreed to “positively co-operate with each other as ever to improve (North Korea)-US relations and establish (a) mechanism for permanent and durable peace”.