Koreas plan September meeting
North’s nuclear arms among key topics
SEOUL, South Korea — The rival Koreas announced Monday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in will meet in Pyongyang in September, and their envoys also discussed Pyongyang’s nuclear disarmament efforts and international sanctions.
The push for what would be the leaders’ third summit since April comes amid renewed worries surrounding a nuclear standoff between Washington and Pyongyang.
The announcement released after nearly two hours of talks led by the rivals’ chiefs for inter-korean affairs was thin on details. In a three-sentence joint statement, the two sides did not mention a date for the summit and provided no details on how to implement past agreements.
Ri Son Gwon, the head of the North Korean delegation, told pool reporters that officials agreed on a date in Pyongyang in September, but he refused to share the date, saying he wanted to “keep reporters wondering.”
The South Korean unification minister, Cho Myoung-gyon, told reporters that officials still had some work to do before agreeing on exactly when the summit would happen.
The meeting at a North Korea-controlled building in the border village of Panmunjom comes as the international community waits to see if North Korea will begin abandoning its nuclear weapons program, something officials suggested would happen after Kim’s summit with President Donald Trump in June in Singapore.
North Korea is thought to have a growing arsenal of nuclear bombs and long-range missiles and to be closing in on the ability to reliably target anywhere on the U.S. mainland. A string of North Korean weapons tests last year, during which Pyongyang claimed to have completed its nuclear arsenal, had many in Asia worried that Washington and Pyongyang were on the brink of war.
Cho, the chief of the South Korean delegation, said the two sides also “talked a lot” about international sanctions meant to punish the North for its development of nuclear weapons.
Seoul has been preparing for possible economic collaboration with Pyongyang that could go ahead when sanctions are lifted.
Pyongyang has urged Washington to reciprocate its goodwill gestures, which include suspending missile and nuclear tests and returning the remains of Americans who fought in the Korean War. Specificially, it has urged Washington to ease the economic punishments, but the United States says that can’t happen until the North completely denuclearizes.