‘YOU CAN’T ASK FOR MORE THAN THAT’
KIM PLEDGES TO DENUCLEARIZE DURING HISTORIC MEETING WITH SOUTH KOREAN LEADER MOON
They talked, they joked, they walked, they ate, and, when they signed a joint statement pledging to work toward their “common goal” of denuclearizing their peninsula, they hugged.
In an astonishing turn of events, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un stepped across the border Friday into South Korea for a day of talks that began and ended with him holding hands with South Korea President Moon Jae-in.
Kim’s dramatic move laid the foundations for a meeting with President Donald Trump, signalling a willingness to discuss denuclearization and trying to dispel the idea that he’s an unreliable “little rocket man.”
“Today we saw Kim Jong Un’s charm offensive in action,” said Duyeon Kim, a visiting fellow at the Korean Peninsula Future Forum in Seoul. “He’s exerting his influence and trying to grab the spotlight with a big smile. But behind that smile, he was wearing his game face,” she said.
Indeed, with Friday’s historic summit and the bold, if vague, pledge to discuss giving up his nuclear program, Kim is trying to rewrite the public narrative about him and ease some of the outside pressure on him.
“Good things are happening, but only time will tell!” and “KOREAN WAR TO END!” Trump, who has championed a “maximum pressure” campaign against Kim, tweeted Friday morning.
The warmth of the meeting and the positive images beamed onto TV screens across the globe have set the stage for Kim to meet with Trump in late May or early June. Trump has said he will go to the talks only if they promise to be “fruitful,” a bar likely met Friday.
Kim and Moon Friday signed a threepage “Panmunjom Declaration,” named after the truce village in the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas where it was forged, stating that “South and North Korea confirmed the common goal of realizing, through complete denuclearization, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.”
“South and North Korea agreed to actively seek the support and co-operation of the international community for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” it said.
The agreement was short on details, and the phrase “a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula” will ring alarm bells in Washington because it implies that nuclear weapons will not be allowed in South Korea, either.
The United States regularly sends nuclearcapable aircraft and ships to the South during military exercises, so this clause will raise suspicions that Pyongyang is calling for a significant change in the U.S.-South Korea alliance.
Moon had previously said that Kim would not insist on the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the South, and there was no mention of this in Friday’s agreement.
Kim did not mention the word “denuclearization” when he appeared before the press after signing the agreement, although he stayed on message throughout.
“We will work to make sure that the agreement bears good results, by closely communicating to ensure that the failure to implement North-South agreements in the past will not be repeated,” Kim said, standing at a podium in front of cameras.
Previous inter-Korean agreements have also pledged denuclearization, and there is a significant amount of skepticism in Washington and Tokyo in particular about whether this time will be any different.
Friday’s agreement marks a significant change from Kim’s previous statements when he said he will continue to expand his nuclear arsenal, said Patrick McEachern, a fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington.
“This is a great start and should be cause for cautious optimism,” said McEachern, who worked on North Korea in the State Department.
“The public conversation should now shift from speculation on whether North Korea would consider denuclearization to how South Korea and the United States can advance this denuclearization pledge in concrete steps.”
Even the most optimistic analysts were surprised at the scope of the agreement, noting in particular that Kim has now signed a document that includes the word “denuclearization.”
“You can’t ask for more than that,” said John Delury, a professor of international relations at Yonsei University in Seoul and a keen proponent of diplomatic engagement.
“Yes, there are still questions about how to guarantee North Korea’s security on the path the denuclearization. But I’m surprised they would go this far at this early stage, that Kim Jong Un didn’t save this for his meeting with Trump,” Delury added.
In Friday’s declaration, Kim and Moon also agreed to work to turn the armistice agreement that ended the Korean War in 1953 into a peace treaty that would officially bring the war to a close.
“South and North Korea will actively cooperate to establish a permanent and solid peace regime on the Korean Peninsula,” the joint statement said in English.
The Korean language version used the words “peace treaty” — an important distinction. “Treaty” generally refers to a piece of paper while “regime” means a system for peace, such as stopping military activities.
The signing ceremony came at the end of an extraordinary day full of words and gestures that would have been unimaginable at the beginning of the year.
At 9:30 a.m. Friday, Kim came out of the main building on the northern side of the military demarcation line that has divided the Korean Peninsula for 65 years and walked right up to the line.
Moon was waiting there for him, hand outstretched, and Kim became the first North Korean leader to step foot into South Korea.
Showing his penchant for bold and surprising moves — a tactic that was repeated later with the hug — Kim then asked Moon to step back across the line with him, and he did. For a brief moment, the leaders stood in North Korean territory, holding hands.
As part of his charm offensive, Kim appealed to Moon as a fellow Korean, highlighting their shared culture and framing their problems as ones that only they, as Koreans, could solve.
The outcome was as good as Kim could have hoped for, said Christopher Green, senior adviser for the Korean Peninsula at the International Crisis Group.
“For a tyrant ruling 25 million people in a corner of East Asia, this is a big deal,” he said.
Friday’s summit and the agreement provides the political space for Trump and Kim to meet and make new pledges, said Duyeon Kim, the Seoul-based analyst.
“Whether or not Kim Jong Un means it is a completely different story.”
I’M SURPRISED THEY WOULD GO THIS FAR AT THIS EARLY STAGE.