Back on track for Korean peace
South Korean President Moon Jae-in, left, and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during a car parade in Pyongyang, North Korea, yesterday.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un greeted the South Korean president with hugs and smiles on arrival in Pyongyang yesterday as the two men met to discuss faltering talks on denuclearisation and the prospect of officially ending the Korean War.
Hundreds of North Koreans in suits or traditional dresses and carrying flowers or waving Korean peninsula and North Korean flags greeted Moon Jae-in. A sign behind them read: “We ardently welcome President Moon Jae-in’s visit to Pyongyang.”
The two men stepped out of the same black Mercedes with open-top rear seats at Paekhwawon State Guest House, where Mr Moon will stay.
The guesthouse was also used by two former South Korean presidents during their own summits with Mr Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, in 2000 and 2007.
Mr Kim and Mr Moon were scheduled to hold formal talks for an hour and a half, Mr Moon’s office said.
The third inter-Korean summit will be a litmus test for another meeting Mr Kim recently suggested to US President Donald Trump.
Mr Trump asked Seoul to be “chief negotiator” between himself and Mr Kim, according to Mr Moon’s aides, after the US president cancelled a trip to Pyongyang by his secretary of state last month.
Washington wants to see concrete action towards denuclearisation by North Korea before agreeing to a goal of Pyongyang – declaring an end to the 1950-1953 Korean War.
“If North Korea-US dialogue is restarted after this visit, it would have much significance in itself,” Mr Moon said before his departure.
Underscoring the challenges ahead, North Korean official newspaper Rodong Sinmun said yesterday “the responsibility falls squarely on the United States” for the stalled nuclear discussions.
“It is due to its nonsensical, irrational stubbornness that other issues can only be discussed after our country has completely, verifiably, irreversibly dismantled our nuclear capabilities ... without showing the intention to build trust, including declaring the end of war,” the newspaper’s editorial read.
Mr Moon, a child of a family displaced by the war, met Mr Kim twice this year.
As he landed at Pyongyang’s Sunan International Airport yesterday, Mr Moon was greeted by Mr Kim, his wife Ri Solju and other top North Korean officials, as well as a large honour guard and a military band.
Kim Yo-jong, the younger sister of the leader and a key propaganda official, was seen pre-
paring officials for Mr Moon’s arrival and accompanying Mr Kim and his wife.
South Korean corporate executives, including Samsung Electronics vice chairman Jay Y Lee and the chiefs of SK Group and LG Group, will meet North Korean Deputy Prime Minister Ri Ryong-nam, who is in charge of economic affairs.
Today, Mr Moon and Mr Kim plan to hold a second round of talks after which they are expected to make a joint statement, and a separate military pact designed to defuse tensions and prevent armed clashes. Mr Moon will return home tomorrow.
This summit comes as the US presses other countries to observe UN sanctions aimed at choking off funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.
North Korea says it has destroyed its main nuclear and missile engine test site, and halted atomic and ballistic missile tests, but US officials and analysts believe Pyongyang is secretly working on weapons plans.
The US’s UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley, on Monday said Russia was cheating on sanctions against North Korea.
Mr Moon wants to engineer a proposal which combines a framework for the North’s denuclearisation and a joint declaration ending the Korean War, Seoul officials said.
The 1950-1953 conflict ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving American-led UN forces – including South Korea – technically still at war with the North.
But US officials remain “unenthusiastic” about declaring an end to the war without any substantial action towards denuclearisation from the North, South Korean officials said.
Seoul is pinning high hopes on Mr Kim’s remarks to Mr Moon’s special envoys this month that he wants to achieve denuclearisation within Mr Trump’s first term in office.
Agreeing on a timetable is a core task for Mr Moon, as it would induce US action, said Lee Jung-chul, a professor at Soongsil University in Seoul.
“Given US scepticism that South Korea may have oversold Kim’s willingness to denuclearise, how Moon delivers his sincerity towards denuclearisation to Trump would be a key factor for the fate of their second summit,” Mr Lee said.
The Korean War ended with an armistice, leaving US-led United Nations forces still technically at war at with the North