Pyongyang and Seoul to hold a third summit as tensions rise

NORTH and South Korea have agreed to hold a third summit between leaders Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un in September, amid tensions between Pyongyang and Washington over the North’s lack of progress in giving up its nuclear weapons.

The agreement was struck between high-level officials meeting in the border village of Panmunjom yesterday, although negotiators failed to set a precise date.

A joint statement said they had held “consultations in a sincere manner” on the “active enforcement” of the Panmunjom Declaration – a deal signed by Kim and Mr Moon at their first meeting in April, pledging to end the Korean War and work towards a nuclear-free peninsula and an era of peace. They met again in May.

But the optimism that followed April’s ground-breaking summit, during which Mr Moon and Kim frequently held hands and hugged, has faded.

On Sunday North Korean state media accused Seoul of foot-dragging over the agreement and of “blind obedience” to the US.

“It’s been more than 100 days since the April 27 Panmunjom Declaration, but no fruit or progress has been produced because of America’s sanctions and the South’s unfair participation in them,” it said through the state-run Uriminzokkiri website.

Pyongyang has also criticised the US, the United Nations and Japan since Kim and Donald Trump, the US president, met in Singapore in June.

North Korea has called on the US to repeal crippling economic sanctions but the US has refused to do so until the North stops its nuclear and missiles programme.