ROK, DPRK resume peace talks
US top diplomat Pompeo says Trump awaiting letter from Kim
High-level officials of the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea started talks at the border village of Panmunjom on Friday, Seoul’s Unification Ministry said.
Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon headed the five-member ROK delegation, comprised of officials in charge of railways, sports and inter-Korean cooperation.
The DPRK delegation was led by Ri Son-gwon, chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland.
Before heading to Panmunjom, Cho told local reporters that he would make efforts to discuss with the DPRK side the implementation of agreements, reached by the leaders of the two neighbors, and the creation of positive conditions for the DPRK-US summit.
Later, ROK Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had a 25-minute phone conversation, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said. They made an in-depth discussion on the outcome of the ongoing contact between Pyongyang and Washington for the possible summit.
Pompeo said on Thursday that a senior DPRK official was planning to travel to the White House to deliver a letter from the DPRK’s top leader Kim Jong-un to President Donald Trump.
Pompeo made the remarks at a news briefing in New York after wrapping up his two-day meeting with a visiting DPRK delegation, led by Kim Yongchol, vice-chairman of the DPRK’s ruling Workers’ Party of Korea Central Committee.
Earlier in the day, Trump told reporters that he is expecting the delegation led by Kim Yong-chol to come to Washington on Friday to deliver a personal letter from Kim Jong-un.
However, the US top diplomat responded with “don’t know” when asked if the summit will take place as originally scheduled for June 12 in Singapore.
“There remains a great deal of work to do,” Pompeo said.
ROK President Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un signed the Panmunjom Declaration after their first summit on April 27.
Kim met with visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Pyongyang on Thursday.
He said the DPRK’s will for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is unchanged, consistent and fixed, Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Friday.
Lavrov conveyed a personal letter from Russian President Vladimir Putin during the meeting, KCNA said.
“Exchanged at the conversation were the opinions and views of the top leaderships of the DPRK and Russia on the trend of the situation and prospect of the Korean Peninsula and the region, the recent world focus,” said the report.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Beijing is aware of the active preparations by the US and the DPRK for their leaders’ meeting.
“There is a historic opportunity for breaking years of deadlock on the peninsula and realizing denuclearization,” she said on Thursday.
Moon and Kim held a surprise second meeting in Panmunjom on May 26, discussing the DPRK-US summit.
Under the Panmunjom Declaration, the two countries agreed to connect and modernize railways and roads in the east transport corridor between Seoul and the DPRK’s northwestern city of Sinuiju.
The two sides agreed to encourage exchanges, cooperation, visits and contacts at all levels to raise the sense of national reconciliation and unity.
To resolve humanitarian issues, Seoul and Pyongyang will hold a reunion of families separated across the inter-Korean border around the Aug 15 Liberation Day, a date to celebrate the Korean Peninsula’s liberation from the 191045 Japanese colonial rule.
Cho said issues to be discussed for the high-level talks with the DPRK would be the agendas for Red Cross talks on the reunion of separated families following the 1950-53 Korean War, the general-level dialogue on military affairs and the establishment of a liaison office for the two Koreas in the DPRK’s border town of Kaesong.