END OF COLD WAR?

While historic change could be in the air, downside risks remain if the North-South talks prove a mirage, writes ANDREW HAMMOND

MOON Jae-in finished up on Saturday his landmark trip to Russia, the first by a sitting South Korean president since 1999, after asserting that this month’s Singapore summit had ended the “Cold War”. Moon, who met with Vladimir Putin to discuss “denuclearisation” of the Korean peninsula, highlighted the historic change potentially underway urging “all parties to take a new path forward”.

This first visit by any South Korean head of state to Russia for around two decades underlines the shifting geopolitical tectonic plates around North and South Korea since the rapprochement between the two nations began this year. Last Monday saw the latest manifestation of this diplomatic warming with the decision to form some combined Korean sports teams to compete at August’s Asian Games.

Following Donald Trump’s Singapore session with Kim Jong-un, other major powers with a stake in the question of the future of the Korean peninsula, including Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, are all jockeying for position as the region’s military and strategic landscapes are potentially recast around the world’s last Cold War-era frontier.

One of the most spectacular features of this potentially extraordinary epoch, at least to date, has been the remarkable pivot of key powers towards greater engagement with the Pyongyang regime, whilst also seeking to enhancing ties with Seoul too.

On the former issue, this was shown most markedly with Trump in Singapore, but is also true of Xi and Putin, as all parties sense significant new political and economic opportunities opening up under future sanctions relief.

Here it is no coincidence that Xi recently invited Kim for three trips to Beijing (including one this week), his first foreign tours since he assumed power in 2010, after Trump first announced in March about June’s Singapore summit. Moreover, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who met Kim earlier this month in Pyongyang, has already invited the North Korean leader to visit Putin in Russia.

At the same time Kim has been feted by Washington, Beijing, and Moscow, the three have also been clear to consolidate ties with Moon. In May, Moon met with Trump at the White House, while Xi also saw him that same month with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for the first trilateral talks between the three nations since 2015.

Putin’s session with Moon was Russia’s latest attempt to enhance its own political and economic ties with Seoul. And it comes at a moment when Moon is promoting a “New Northern Policy” which, alongside peace talks with Kim, is a key foreign relations policy driver under which his administration is seeking to improve its ties with key Eurasian neighbours.

While Trump currently appears keen to have a sustained strategic dialogue with Kim, both of these two leaders’ personal and political volatility cannot be underestimated.