North Korea rolls out warm welcome for Moon
HIGH-STAKES VISIT South Korea’s president Moon Jae-In was greeted by ecstatic North Koreans Tuesday, as he visited Pyongyang for talks with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong Un.
SEOUL • South Korea’s president was greeted by hordes of ecstatic North Koreans lining the streets of Pyongyang and chanting for reunification Tuesday as he arrived for a high-stakes visit to salvage nuclear diplomacy talks.
Moon Jae-In’s third summit meeting with Kim Jong Un this year began on a positive note when the two leaders exchanged smiles and embraced at the airport.
A military band played, and several hundred guests frantically cheered and waved flags that included the image of a unified Korean Peninsula.
Moon waved to and even shook hands with some members of the crowd, appearing genuinely moved by the reception — even though it was being carefully staged. Later, Moon and Kim drove through the streets past more cheering crowds chanting, “Unification! Unification!” They started in separate cars before dismounting and joining each other in a single open-top car, Moon saluting the crowds enthusiastically and beaming broadly.
The three-day meeting marks the first trip of a South Korean leader to the North Korean capital in 11 years. Moon has been accompanied by his wife, Kim Jung-sook, and a delegation of more than 100 senior business executives and cultural personalities.
But Moon’s challenge goes well beyond showmanship. The outcome of the talks in Pyongyang, which wrap up Wednesday, could largely frame the scope and pace of the next steps in the outreach to Kim’s regime.
Moon has two principal goals in mind. The first is to reach agreement on ways to ease tensions across the world’s most militarized border.
Those could include a deal to pull back some guard posts at the heavily mined front line, disarm an area of the border near the shared village of Panmunjom and reduce the chance of clashes along their maritime boundary.
More ambitious is Moon’s attempt to remove an impasse between Pyongyang and Washington over who should make the next move in their dialogue about detente and denuclearization.
Moon spoke grandly of a new era of cooperation between the two Koreas that would “cut through continents and reach around the world.”
“This is the beginning. We can create a future that no one has experienced yet,” he said at a dinner. “For this, Chairman Kim and I will put our heads and minds together.”
Kim said the two men were on a path of peace and unification “without stopping.” He expressed his “deep gratitude” to Moon for his outreach despite the obstacles.
Moon admitted that it would be hard to reach agreement on the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula but said the two leaders enjoyed “trust and friendship.”