Third summit agreed on
Pyongyang visit would be first by an ROK president in over a decade
Pyongyang and Seoul agreed on Monday to hold the third summit between Kim Jong-un, top leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and President Moon Jae-in of the Republic of Korea in Pyongyang in September, a decision seen as the latest progress in the diplomatic thaw on the Korean Peninsula.
It would be the first such visit in more than a decade for an ROK president to go to the DPRK’s capital, according to the Yonhap News Agency.
The agreement was reached after senior-level talks on Monday between the two sides at the DPRK side of the border village of Panmunjom.
Their three-sentence statement said the two neighbors agreed to hold the summit in Pyongyang before the end of September. But it failed to detail schedule.
There had been local media speculations that the two nations already agreed upon the date and venue for the third summit as the two sides had working-level contacts before the high-level dialogues.
Seoul based newspaper The Korea Times said if Moon visits Pyongyang around the DPRK’s National Day on Sept 9, it would be a dramatic event as the date also marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the DPRK.
However, the ROK’s presidential Blue House said the summit could be held in mid or late September.
Blue House spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom told reporters that holding the summit in early September “might be a little bit difficult”.
Ri Son-gwon, chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, who led the delegation from the DPRK, told reporters after the talks that detailed schedule for the summit was already agreed upon.
Following the first MoonKim summit in April, the two leaders signed the Panmunjom Declaration to improve interKorean relations and strengthen cooperation and exchange.
Cross-border exchanges between Seoul and Pyongyang have significantly increased since then, with the neighbors planning to hold reunions for war-separated families next week for the first time in three years.
On Friday, more than 150 ROK athletes, journalists and officials left for Pyongyang for a soccer tournament after the two neighbors agreed to increase sports exchanges at the first Moon-Kim summit.
Rapid rapprochement
The rapid rapprochement between the two neighbors also paved the way for a landmark meeting between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Singapore in June.
But although Trump touted his summit with Kim as a historic breakthrough, the DPRK has since criticized Washington for its “gangster-like” demands of complete, verifiable and irreversible disarmament, while the US has urged the international community to maintain tough sanctions toward Pyongyang.
Wang Junsheng, an associate researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said Moon could try to act as a mediator between the United States and the DPRK, having salvaged the Singapore meeting when Trump abruptly canceled it.
He said the key to resolve the Korean Peninsula issue is the two sides to reach an agreement on the sequence of denuclearization. Pyongyang hopes to first end the 1950-53 Korean War with an official peace treaty and establish a peace mechanism in the Korean Peninsula, while the US argues that Pyongyang should achieve denuclearization first and then consider other moves.
“Both sides should work toward the same direction, and cherish the momentum and spirit from the Singapore summit,” Wang said.