Moon, Kim to ‘review progress’ at 3rd summit

THE two Koreas will hold highlevel talks next week to prepare for a third summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong Un, leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Seoul said yesterday as a diplomatic rapprochement takes hold.

Although South Korea’s unification ministry did not elaborate on where the summit would take place, Moon had previously agreed to visit Kim in Pyongyang during the autumn after the two leaders held a historic meeting in April.

In a statement, the ministry said the two sides will hold highlevel talks on Monday on the northern side of the truce village of Panmunjom to “discuss preparatory matters regarding a South-North summit.”

The overture came from Pyongyang, Seoul said, which suggested yesterday the two sides hold talks to “review progress” since the April summit that paved the way for a landmark meeting between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Singapore in June.

Cross-border exchanges between the two Koreas have significantly increased since then, with the neighbors planning to hold reunions for war-separated families later this month for the first time in three years.

The South Korean delegation at Monday’s meeting will be led by Unification Minister Cho Myounggyon, who visited Pyongyang last month to attend a friendly basketball match between the two Koreas, Seoul said.

“We will hold in-depth discussions with the DPRK for a successful South-North summit,” the ministry said.

The summit will mark the third meeting between Moon and Kim, after the two leaders held a surprise encounter in May.

Sporting cooperation helped spark a diplomatic thaw after the DPRK agreed to participate in the Winter Olympics held in South Korea in February, sending athletes and top officials including Kim’s sister Kim Yo Jong to the Games.

At the summit in April in the Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula, Moon and Kim shook hands for the first time, with Kim famously inviting his South Korean counterpart to step briefly into the DPRK in an unscripted moment before live TV cameras.

If the third summit goes ahead, the meeting between Moon and Kim is expected to focus on hammering out a consensus on officially ending the 1950-53 Korean War, which concluded with an armistice instead of a peace treaty.