New hope for Korea talks
Tensions ease as Trump backpedals on sabre-rattling, North commits to summit
NORTH Korean leader Kim Jongun has reaffirmed his commitment to complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and to a planned meeting with United States President Donald Trump, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said yesterday.
In Washington, Trump signalled that preparations for the summit with Kim were going ahead.
The latest conciliatory declarations capped a turbulent few days of diplomatic brinkmanship that sent tensions soaring.
Trump rattled a sabre on Thursday by cancelling the planned June 12 meeting with Kim in Singapore, citing open hostility from Pyongyang.
But within 24 hours he re- versed course, saying it could still go ahead after productive talks with North Korean officials.
“It’s moving along very nicely,” he said when asked for an update. “We’re looking at June 12 in Singapore. That hasn’t changed.”
Trump’s unpredictability sparked a surprise meeting on Saturday between Kim and Moon – only the fourth time leaders from the two countries have ever met – as they scrambled to get the talks back on track.
Pictures showed them shaking hands and embracing on the North Korean side of the Demilitarised Zone separating the nations.
Moon said Kim had reached out to him to arrange the hasty meeting without any formality, a stunning development given that the Koreas reopened a defunct hotline between the two nations only last month.
The North Korean leader described the Singapore summit as a landmark opportunity to end decades of confrontation.
“He expressed his intention to put an end to the history of war and confrontation through the success of the North-US summit and to cooperate for peace and prosperity,” Moon said yesterday.
Kim had reaffirmed his commitment to complete denuclearisation, but was uncertain whether he could trust that the US would end its hostile policy and guarantee the security of his regime if he gave up those weapons.
Pyongyang’s state-run KCNA news agency said Kim had expressed his will to meet Trump, and South and North Korea would hold more high-level talks on Friday.
On Saturday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders confirmed a team of US officials was leaving for Singapore to prepare should the summit take place.
Trump’s original decision to abandon the summit initially blind-sided South Korea, which had been brokering a remarkable detente between Washington and Pyongyang in a desperate bid to avoid a devastating conflict.
Last year. Trump and Kim traded war threats and insults after Pyongyang tested its most powerful nuclear weapon to date and missiles which it said were capable of reaching the US.
Tensions were calmed after Kim extended an olive branch by offering to send a delegation to the Winter Olympics in South Korea, sparking a rapid detente that led to Trump agreeing to hold direct talks with Pyongyang.
But the flurry of diplomatic backslapping and bonhomie disappeared in recent weeks with increasingly bellicose rhetoric from both top US administration officials and Pyongyang.
There are still stark differences between what the two sides hope to achieve.
Washington wants North Korea to give up all its nukes in a verifiable way as quickly as possible in return for sanctions and economic relief.
Pyongyang has a different view of what denuclearisation might look like and remains deeply worried that abandoning its deterrent would leave the country vulnerable to regime change.
Kim Yong-hyun, professor of North Korea studies at Dongguk University in Seoul, said Moon and Kim had moved quickly to defuse the crisis after Trump’s shock cancellation.
“Moon essentially helped relay messages from Trump to Kim and vice versa, to further smooth the process and to resume negotiations,” he said.
In Seoul, most people spoken to appeared to welcome Moon’s move to talk to Kim.
“I think it was a good thing if meeting in person and having a direct conversation about each other’s intentions helps us proceed to the next step,” Lee Tae-kyoung said.
Saturday’s meeting took place in utmost secrecy, with reporters only told later that it had taken place.