Seoul hopeful about Kim’s terms
South Korea says the North might consider denuclearization even if American troops stay on the peninsula.
SEOUL — South Korea’s president on Thursday expressed fresh optimism about a resolution to the nation’s decades-long conflict with North Korea, saying the North might be willing to denuclearize even if the U.S. keeps its troops on the Korean peninsula.
President Moon Jae-in, who came to office last year seeking to renew dialogue with North Korea, said leader Kim Jong Un appears serious about denuclearization.
Moon also said the North, which sparked worldwide alarm with its repeated ballistic missile tests last year, might be willing to accept “complete denuclearization” without conditions that would upset the United States.
U.S. troops have remained in South Korea since an armistice ended the fighting in the Korean War in 1953, and North Korea’s oftrepeated demands that they withdraw long have been seen as a deal breaker in negotiations. There are about 28,000 U.S. troops in South Korea.
“The North Koreans did not present any conditions that the United States could not accept, such as the withdrawal of American troops in South Korea,” Moon told a group of news executives in Seoul. North Korea “is only asking for an end to a hostile policy toward North Korea and for a security guarantee.”
North Korean officials did not immediately respond to Moon’s comments.
The South Korean president’s statements come a week before his planned summit with Kim, which would be only the third toplevel meeting between the two nations since 1953.
The pair plan to meet April 27 on the South Korean side of Panmunjom, a diplo-
matic outpost on the heavily fortified border separating the two countries. Workinglevel talks about that meeting are still progressing, though Moon’s government said ceremonial portions of it could be live-streamed to the world.
The summit is expected to focus on denuclearization — the North claims it can strike the United States with a long-range, nuclear-armed missile — but also on improving inter-Korean relations, which have been especially strained in recent years, and establishing a peace deal that could formally end the war.
A peace deal could require the involvement of the U.S. and China, which participated in the signing of the original armistice. But an agreement between the North and South could propel those countries to sign off on a deal to formally end the war, experts say.
Kim’s meeting with Moon is expected to be followed by another, with President Trump, perhaps in May or June, though the details about the location and agenda aren’t fully known. Trump this week said CIA Director Mike Pompeo had visited the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, to meet with Kim over the Easter weekend to discuss the summit.
Moon told the group in his speech that the TrumpKim summit would be possible only because the North has decided to change its course.
North Korean propagandists like to demand the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the peninsula — it is one of their major talking points — but former diplomats say that they have not been so insistent in private since the 1990s.
“It is their public stance that U.S. troops have to go, but sometimes in private they say otherwise,” said Joel S. Wit, a senior fellow at the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University who has attended backchannel negotiations with the North Koreans.
The late Kim Jong Il, father of the North Korean leader, told South Korean officials during a summit in Pyongyang in 2000 that U.S. troops could be a stabilizing force on the peninsula — implying that the troops could be deterrent in case of hostilities by China or Japan, according to Wit.
“If the U.S. is no longer our enemy, there is no reason for the U.S. troops to go,” is how Leon V. Sigal, director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council in New York, summarized the North Korean attitude.
For months, experts on the region have been skeptical that the North would agree to drop its nuclear pursuits, which give the nation leverage in the region and Kim — a third-generation dynastic leader — legitimacy at home.
Kim spent much of 2017 test-launching ballistic missiles — alarming key U.S. allies, including Japan — and conducting an underground nuclear test. He did so while also trading insults with Trump, calling the president last summer a “dotard.” Trump has called Kim “Little Rocket Man.”
In a New Year’s speech, Kim also proclaimed his country’s ability to strike the U.S. mainland with a nuclear-armed missile. Some experts question whether the North is yet capable of that, but many also recognize the nation’s rapid progress in that direction.
Kim also signaled a willingness to accept Moon’s overtures for participation in the Winter Olympics, held in Pyeongchang, South Korea, this year. After historic talks, the North sent nearly two dozen athletes to the Games and helped field a joint Korean women’s hockey team. The two nations also marched together at the opening ceremony under a unification flag.
Many details remain unknown, and the North has made few public statements about its recent diplomatic efforts.
The proposed meeting between Trump and Kim would be the first by a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader. Trump suggested this week that he might abandon the talks it they didn’t appear fruitful.
Moon acknowledged in his speech that the United States and its interests remain a key component of all the planned talks. He also said that the results during the summits might not solve the tension on the issue, but that the talks sparked by the Olympics could drive more dialogue in the future.
“It would be best to reach an agreement on the big picture through the two planned summits,” he said. “But even if we fail, it is clearly important to continue the dialogue. We will try to maintain the momentum.”