Moon: Pyongyang summit to be bold step towards ending war
SEOUL: South Korean President Moon Jae-in yesterday said his visit to Pyongyang next month will be a “bold step” towards formally ending the decades-old war with the nuclear-armed North.
The two Koreas had agreed earlier this week to hold a third meeting between Moon and North Korean leader Kim Jongun next month as a rapid diplomatic thaw builds on the peninsula following their first summit in April.
Moon’s trip to the North Korean capital will be the first visit by a South Korean head of state to Pyongyang since 2007.
The leaders will “take a bold step towards declaring an end to the war and a peace treaty”, Moon said at a ceremony marking the 73rd anniversary of liberation from Japanese rule in 1945.
The 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two neighbours technically still in a state of conflict.
Signatories to the armistice included the United States-led United Nations Command, which fought alongside the South’s troops, as well as China and North Korea.
Declaring an end to the war was one of the agreements at the groundbreaking April summit, but little progress has been made, with the US and North Korea at loggerheads over Pyongyang’s denuclearisation.
China yesterday welcomed the summit next month, saying it believed the talks would “promote denuclearisation of the peninsula”.