South Korea seeks ‘early’ deal on ending Korean War
US PRESIDENT TRUMP HOSTS JAPAN’S PRIME MINISTER, FIVE DAYS BEFORE SUMMIT WITH KIM
Seoul is in three-way talks with Pyongyang and Washington for an early agreement on formally ending the decades-old Korean War, it said yesterday ahead of a summit between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump in Singapore next week.
The 1950-53 conflict ceased with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two sides technically at war, and US President Donald Trump said last week that it would be one of the issues on the table at the historic summit.
“We talked about ending the war,” Trump said following a meeting with a senior North Korean envoy. “Historically it’s very important, but we’ll see.”
Three-way talks
South Korea’s foreign ministry said it was holding three-way discussions on the issue.
“The government will continue close three-way discussions among the South, the North and the US to declare an end to the war as early as possible,” ministry spokesman Noh Kyu-duk told reporters yesterday.
Seoul will operate a press centre for South Korean and foreign media next week in Singapore, Noh said, further raising speculation that South Korean President Moon Jae-in may fly to the city-state in time for the summit.
But a senior official at the South’s presidential office told Yonhap news agency that the chances of a trilateral summit between the two Koreas and the US in Singapore next week looked slim, after Trump signalled that the meeting could be the first of several. “We initially said we needed an end of war declaration assuming the June 12 US-North Korea summit was a ‘one shot summit’ but given the current situation, there is no reason to rush into it.”
Meanwhile, with less than a week to go before meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, US President Donald Trump was to play host yesterday to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who wants his voice heard ahead of the unprecedented talks.
Trump and Abe were to hold a joint press conference at the White House in the early afternoon, before heading to Canada for what promises to be a tense Group of Seven summit clouded by the US leader’s aggressive trade policies.