Moon says Pyongyang summit to be ‘bold step’ towards ending war
SEOUL — South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Wednesday his visit to Pyongyang next month will be a “bold step” to formally ending the decades-old war with the nuclear-armed North.
The two Koreas agreed earlier this week to hold a third meeting between Mr. Moon and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in September as a rapid diplomatic thaw builds on the peninsula following their first summit in April.
Mr. Moon’s trip to the North Korean capital will be the first visit by a South Korean head of state to Pyongyang since 2007.
The leaders will “take a bold step towards declaring an end to the war and a peace treaty,” Mr. Moon said at a ceremony marking the 73rd anniversary of liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945. The 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two neighbors technically still in a state of conflict. Signatories to the armistice included the US -led United Nations Command that fought alongside the South, as well as China and North Korea.
Declaring an end to the war was one of the agreements at the groundbreaking April summit, but little progress has been made with the United States and North Korea at loggerheads over Pyongyang ’s denuclearization.
But while Washington supports “a peace regime,” State Department spokeswomen Heather Nauert told reporters on Tuesday: “Our main focus is on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” —