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South Korean Ambassador to the US Cho Yoon-je answers questions from Bareunmirae party lawmaker Jeong Byeong-buk (rear left) during a parliamentary audit at the South Korean embassy in Washington, DC, on Oct. 14. (Hwang Joon-bum)
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Cho Yoon-je says US president’s comments were related to UN sanctions on North Korea
South Korean ambassador to the US Cho Yoon-je said he has told the Americans about the controversy inside South Korea over US President Donald Trump’s remarks on Oct. 12 that South Korea can’t do anything without US “approval.” Cho was responding to lawmakers on the National Assembly Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee who said that Trump’s remarks could be interpreted as violating South Korean sovereignty during a parliamentary audit at the South Korean embassy in Washington, DC, on Oct. 14. “Considering that reporters abruptly asked President Trump to comment on the South Korean government’s announcement that it would relax sanctions on North Korea, I presume that [President Trump] meant to say there would be no easing of sanctions without the approval of the US, which is a permanent member of the UN Security Council,” Cho said. “During a meeting with an official from the White House yesterday, I mentioned that the remarks had created a controversy in South Korea,” Cho went on to say. Cho declined from assessing Trump’s remarks too deeply, noting that “it would be inappropriate as ambassador to comment on the remarks of the president of my host country.” “My understanding is that there hasn’t been much of a controversy here [in Washington] yesterday or today,” Cho said. Trump’s remarks were triggered by an appearance before the National Assembly’s parliamentary audit on Oct. 10 by South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha, who responded to a question about whether she was willing to lift the May 24 Measures by saying she understood that idea to be “under review with related ministries.” Later, Kang corrected herself by saying this was “not a full-fledged interagency review.” When reporters at the White House cited reports that the South Korean government was reviewing lifting sanctions on North Korea, Trump said, “They won’t do it without our approval. They do nothing without our approval,” leading to claims that Trump was denigrating an American ally. During the parliamentary audit, Cho also addressed the Sept. 19 inter-Korean military agreement, about which US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reportedly expressed dissatisfaction during a phone call with Kang, by remarking that “The American government is positively reviewing [the agreement].” When Democratic Party lawmaker Rep. Won Hye-young asked what position the US had come to in regard to the agreement, Cho said, “I’m told that the Americans have recently been in the process of finalizing their opinions about the review. I understand that they’ve generally communicated positive opinions about the review.” When Won asked in a follow-up question whether he could infer that it was not the content of the agreement that had been brought up but issues with sharing and communicating with the US, Cho said that was a fair assessment. “There were a lot of preliminary deliberations on the working level [about the inter-Korean military agreement]. My understanding is that there were a lot of preliminary deliberations between the South Korean Defense Ministry and the UN Command,” Cho said. When asked whether the question of sharing the cost of the THAAD missile defense system had been brought up or might be brought up in the future, either directly or indirectly, during South Korea and the US’s negotiations about defense cost-sharing, Cho said, “The Americans have yet to make any requests about the THAAD issue in the cost-sharing negotiations. I don’t think there’s any possibility of THAAD-related costs being discussed in those negotiations moving forward, either.” When Liberty Korea Party lawmaker Rep. Kim Moo-sung asked Cho whether he had heard any complaints that South Korea is moving too fast for the US and that stronger sanctions on North Korea are necessary to bring the North to the table to negotiate giving up its nuclear weapons, Cho said that the Americans had expressed such opinions before. But after the parliamentary audit, Cho added that he had been referring not to the US government but to the nation as a whole. Regarding end-of-war declaration and Pompeo’s fourth visit to North Korea In regard to the proposed declaration to formally end the Korean War, Cho said, “The end-of-war declaration is a matter that has already been discussed for a long time, and South Korea and the US continue to discuss it at the presidential level and on down. My understanding is that the Americans also completely agree that the end-of-war declaration is one of the measures that can be used during the sanctions phase of the denuclearization process and completely understand and are quite open-minded about the position that the end-of-war declaration is a political declaration without legal force.” When Kim Moo-sung asked Cho whether he thinks the US agrees with the idea of making an end-of-war declaration without North Korea disclosing its nuclear inventory, Cho demurred, explaining that he was “not in a position to say whether or not [that’s possible], while adding that he thinks the Americans are taking everything, including that, into consideration.” In regard to the results of Pompeo’s fourth visit to North Korea, Cho said that the US administration “seems to be extremely satisfied.” “I’m told that Secretary Pompeo and Chairman Kim had a frank discussion of several topics while spending more than four hours together. Secretary Pompeo appears to have returned with much higher hopes than after his third visit to North Korea,” Cho said. But as for the time and location of the second North Korea-US summit, Cho said, “I’m given to understand that there was [a discussion] of the location while Secretary Pompeo was visiting Pyongyang but that the matter wasn’t wrapped up. The two sides should be discussing this in working-level talks. Apparently the exact timing and date haven’t been settled on over here, either.” By Hwang Joon-bum, Washington correspondent Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
