Kim agrees to inspections in bid to salvage nuclear talks

TWO KOREAS PLEDGE TO WORK FOR RESTART OF FACTORY PARK AND MOUNTAIN TOURS

North Korea said yesterday it would permanently abolish its key missile facilities in the presence of foreign experts, the latest gesture by leader Kim Jong-un to revive faltering talks with Washington over his country’s nuclear programme.

Speaking at a joint news conference in Pyongyang, Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in said they agreed to turn the Korean peninsula into a “land of peace without nuclear weapons and nuclear threats”.

They said the North was also willing to close its main nuclear complex if the United States took unspecified “reciprocal action.”

Good-faith gestures

The pledges Kim and Moon made at their third summit this year could inject fresh momentum into the stalled nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang and lay the groundwork for another meeting Kim recently proposed to US President Donald Trump.

“I don’t think President Moon got everything he was seeking from these interactions, but Kim Jong-un gave Moon some tangible things for which he can take credit,” said Michael Madden, an analyst at the Stimson Centre’s 38 North think tank in Washington.

“These are good-faith gestures which will likely facilitate further and more substantive negotiations,” Madden said, adding a second summit Kim and Trump “highly probable”.

Kim pledged to work toward between was the “complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula” during his two meetings with Moon earlier this year and at his historic June summit with Trump in Singapore.

But discussions over how to implement the vague commitments have since faltered.

Washington is demanding concrete action towards denuclearisation, such as a full disclosure of North Korea’s nuclear and missile facilities, before agreeing to key goals of Pyongyang.

First visit to South

Trump called the pledges “very exciting”.

“Kim Jong-un has agreed to allow nuclear inspections, subject to final negotiations, and to permanently dismantle a test site and launch pad in the presence of international experts. In the meantime there will be no rocket or nuclear testing,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Kim said he would visit Seoul in the near future, in what would be the first-ever visit to the South’s capital by a North Korean leader.

The two Koreas agreed to begin construction to reconnect railways and roads linking the countries within this year. They will also work to restart a joint factory park in the border city of Kaesong and tours to the North’s Mount Kumgang resort, when conditions are met.

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