S. Korea’s Moon: Denuclearization is path to peace
Seoul, South Korea (AFP/Reuters) – Denuclearization of the Korean peninsula is “the path to peace and our goal,” South Korean President Moon Jae-In said Wednesday, a day after the North agreed to send its athletes to the Winter Olympics in his country.
“We need to continue efforts to hold a peace Olympics,” Moon told a press conference. “We need to peacefully resolve North Korea’s nuclear issue.”
Moon also credited US President Donald Trump for helping to spark the first inter-Korean talks in more than two years, and warned that Pyongyang would face stronger sanctions if provocations continued.
“I think President Trump deserves big credit for bringing about the interKorean talks,” Moon told reporters at his New Year’s news conference. “It could be a resulting work of the U.S.-led sanctions and pressure.”
Delegates from North and South Korea held their first official talks for two years on Tuesday at Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula. They agreed that the North would send athletes and officials to the Games, which begin in Pyeongchang next month. Moon would be willing to meet the North’s leadership if the conditions were right, he said at his second press conference as head of state. “Under the right conditions, I can hold a summit at any time,” he said. “But it cannot be a meeting for meeting’s sake. To hold a summit, the right conditions must be created and certain outcomes must be guaranteed.”
Moon has long supported engagement with the North to bring it to the negotiating table over its banned weapons programs, which have alarmed the US and the global community, and seen Pyongyang subjected to multiple sets of United Nations sanctions.
But the US has said that it must stop nuclear tests for talks with Washington to take place.
“We have no difference in opinion with the US,” Moon said. “The United States has shown complete support for inter-Korean talks and expressed hopes to the South that it will help with resolving North Korea’s nuclear issue.”