Japan’s Abe, Trump to talk about summit

Abducted citizens, North’s missiles key issues for ally

TOKYO — With efforts being made to reinstate the planned summit meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan is not taking any chances.

After speaking with Trump by telephone Monday, Abe told reporters in Tokyo that he and the U.S. president had “agreed to meet before the U.S.-North Korea summit.”

The White House also confirmed the call, adding that the two planned to meet before the “expected meeting” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to coordinate strategy.

The White House did not say when Trump would meet with Abe. Both leaders are expected to attend the Group of Seven summit in Quebec on June 8-9.

Abe has been concerned that Trump might make a nuclear disarmament deal with North Korea that protects the United States but does not address Tokyo’s worries about the North’s short-range missiles, which could hit Japan.

By offering to meet with the U.S. president before he heads to Singapore, Abe will be one of the last advisers to have his ear before he meets with Kim.

Abe told reporters that Trump had briefed him on plans for the summit meeting, although the Japanese leader did not provide details.

According to NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster, Abe — who was meeting with President Vladimir Putin of Russia over the weekend — conveyed both Japan’s and Russia’s support for the summit meeting to go forward.

Less than 24 hours after canceling the event with a letter to North Korea’s leader Thursday, Trump hinted that it might still proceed as planned. By Sunday, diplomatic and technical experts from the United States and North Korea had met in the North Korean part of the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas in an effort to salvage the summit meeting, which was planned for June 12 in Singapore. It is unclear what has happened so far in the talks at the border.

Delegations from the United States and North Korea arrived in Singapore on Monday evening, according to the South Korean news agency Yonhap. Negotiations over logistics and other issues related to the possible summit meeting are expected to begin today. The North

Korean delegation is led by Kim Chang Son, a top logistics and protocol official, Yonhap said.

The U.S. delegation was being led by Joe Hagin, White House deputy chief of staff for operations.

Besides worrying about missiles, Abe has also repeatedly asked Trump to raise the issue of Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea four decades ago.

Of the countries seeking to influence negotiations with North Korea, Japan has remained the most hard-line, consistently calling for complete and immediate denuclearization as well as the removal of all missiles and biological weapons.

It has also remained highly skeptical about North Korea’s intentions, reminding the United States that the North has signed and reneged on multiple previous nuclear deals.

MOON, KIM MEETING

The U.S. officials’ trip to North Korea capped a busy weekend of efforts to salvage the summit. On Saturday, South Korean President Moon Jae-in met with Kim in Panmunjom, and he said Kim had committed to sitting down with Trump and to a “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

The talks, which Moon said Kim requested, followed a whirlwind 24 hours of diplomatic back and forth. They allowed Moon to push for a U.S.-North Korean summit, which he sees as the best way to ease the animosity that had some fearing a war last year.

Moon has found himself in the precarious middle of the tug-of-war between the United States and North Korea over the tentative summit in Singapore, trying to broker a highstakes meeting between two unconventional leaders.

Moon’s role as a mediator

came into sharp focus in the past week, after President Donald Trump canceled the summit in a letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

As Kim sought to reopen talks, he turned to Moon. In less than 24 hours, Moon’s motorcade snaked through traffic to cross the demilitarized zone for a meeting.

Then, on Sunday, U.S. officials crossed the DMZ into North Korea for talks to prepare for the potential June 12 summit, even as its fate remained uncertain.

The fact that talks resumed a day after the surprise inter-Korean meeting was viewed by Moon’s supporters as a sign of his increasingly effective role. Moon had pledged during his 2017 campaign to take the “driver’s seat” to achieve denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

His conservative critics, however, say Moon should be reinforcing the U.S.-South Korea alliance rather than acting as a neutral facilitator between North Korea and the United States. They also say Moon is setting unrealistic expectations and masking fundamental gaps between the two sides on the definition of denuclearization.

Moon’s rapprochement with the North has divided the South Korean government. On Monday, the legislature failed to ratify the “Panmunjom Declaration,” an agreement Kim and Moon signed at a summit in April to seek “a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.”

Moon and the governing Democratic Party have sought to guarantee that the agreement becomes law and can be enforced regardless of a change in government. But conservative lawmakers accuse the governing party of using the three-page agreement, which they note is short on details, for political gain ahead of local elections in June.

In a briefing Sunday, Moon said he hopes for an eventual trilateral summit. He described the U.S.-North Korea summit as a key first step in achieving his goal of a formal declaration ending the Korean War.

“Every effort I am making now is on one hand to improve inter-Korean relations, and on the other hand, to ensure the success of the North Korea-U.S. summit, which is essential to improving inter-Korean relations,” Moon said. “I hope that if the North Korea-U.S. summit is successful, the declaration of the Korean War will be pursued through the trilateral summit.”

The son of North Korean refugees who fled to the South during the war, Moon forged his political career under progressive president Roh Moo-hyun, who led the country from 2003 to 2008. Roh and his predecessor, Kim Dae-jung, advocated the “Sunshine Policy” of engaging with North Korea.

Moon’s spokesman declined to comment on the president’s diplomatic efforts.

“Leading up to the summit, I anticipate his role will be an extension of the work he is doing now,” said Wi Sung-lac, former South Korean nuclear negotiator with the North, “persuading both sides to remain at the table as they negotiate in advance of the summit, and helping them see points they can agree on.”

Last week, however, Moon faced a setback. He was blindsided by Trump’s decision to cancel the summit, less than a day after the South Korean leader returned from a meeting in the Oval Office.

Trump’s action was discouraging and hurtful, Moon’s advisers said. But recognizing the U.S. president holds the key to resuming negotiations, Moon remained committed to salvaging the summit, they said.

After Saturday’s inter-Korean summit, Moon appeared poised once again to serve as mediator.

Washington wants North Korea to get rid of its nuclear weapons program and allow outside experts to verify it has been abolished. North Korea insists on guarantees that Kim’s regime would remain in power if it abandoned its nuclear program. Its demands could include a reduced U.S. military role in South Korea or an end to the American nuclear “umbrella” over South Korea and Japan. It is unclear to what degree the two sides are willing to compromise.

The issue is central in determining whether the U.S.North Korea meeting succeeds, and whether Moon is an effective facilitator, said Chun Yung-woo, a former South Korean national security adviser and nuclear negotiator with the North.

“The inter-Korean summit was important to give political momentum in convening the Trump-Kim summit, and energizing U.S.-North Korea expert-level meetings,” Chun said. “That [summit] will help, but I don’t think that President Moon and Kim Jong Un can talk about the detailed technical issues that are vital.”

Yoon Young-kwan, former foreign minister under Roh, said Moon’s role is not to get in the weeds on technical details but to create an environment that would lead to a summit. Moon has played a critical role in delivering the positions of each side to the other while encouraging them to speak to each other, Yoon said.

To conservative critics, however, Moon’s desire to facilitate rather than advocate for one side is a sign that he is siding with North Korea. They say he is neglecting the U.S.South Korea alliance.

“I believe the South Korean president must stand alongside President Trump to take the lead in denuclearization,” said Hong Joon-pyo, chairman of the main conservative opposition Liberty Korea Party.