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President Moon Jae-in presides over a meeting with his senior secretaries and aides at the Blue House on Mar. 12. (by Kim Kyung-ho, staff photographer)
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Joint summit statement likely to focus on substance rather than protocol
As preparations get underway for the third inter-Korean summit scheduled for the end of April, attention is focusing on what will be contained in the joint statement that South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will agree to. Since this summit will be held in the Panmunjeom Joint Security Area– unlike the previous two summits, which were held in Pyongyang – the summit preparations are expected to focus more on substance, including the meeting agenda and points of agreement, than on protocol and other matters of formality. On Mar. 12, the Blue House announced that it was planning to complete the personnel assignments for the inter-Korean summit preparatory committee, which will be chaired by Blue House Chief of Staff Im Jong-seok, by the first half of this week. “We already have a rough draft. We’re planning to select the committee members early this week and hold our first meeting this weekend,” a senior Blue House official said. This makes it likely that South and North Korea will make contact soon for follow-up talks about the timing and format of the summit and about the hotline between the two leaders that is supposed to be installed and activated prior to the summit. The fact that the upcoming summit is being held in Panmunjeom gives it a strongly practical character. Furthermore, Moon and Kim have already reached a certain consensus on inter-Korean relations and Korean Peninsular issues by exchanging special envoys. In addition, this is the two leaders’ first meeting, and since Moon has only been president for 11 months, several more summits could be held while he is in office. Since the first ever summit between North Korea and the US is scheduled for May, the inter-Korean summit will also function as a kind of stepping stone. “Given the rapidly changing circumstances, it’s likely that the inter-Korean summit will be immediately followed by the North Korea-US summit. Considering that inter-Korean relations, denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and a peace treaty all need to be discussed simultaneously and in conjunction, this is basically going to be a trilateral summit between South Korea, North Korea and the US in late April and early May,” said Kim Yeon-cheol, professor at Inje University. The inter-Korean summit should be seen as part of the preparations for the subsequent North Korea-US talks, Kim said. Considering the character and significance of this summit, Moon and Kim are likely to reach a generic, big-picture agreement about developing inter-Korean relations and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula during their summit. There are also predictions that they will simultaneously propose a concrete plan for holding regular summits and a roadmap toward the legal and institutional cessation of the armistice agreement on the Korean Peninsula. Whereas the summit between President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on June 15, 2000, laid out the principle of developing inter-Korean relations, the summit between President Roh Moo-hyun and Kim on Oct. 4, 2007, detailed the implementation plan. Since South and North Korea agreed in the Oct. 4 Summit Statement to arrange three- or four-party talks to declare the end of the Korean War (Article 3) and to hold regular summits (Article 8), the April summit will likely include a discussion of ways to uphold and develop these agreements. “More than anything else, the key of this summit is peaceful coexistence. We need to take a look at the Basic Treaty of 1972 between East and West Germany, which became the cornerstone of the unification of Germany,” said Koo Kab-woo, professor at the University of North Korean Studies. At the time, the two German sides signed a legally binding treaty in which they agreed to renounce the use of force against each other, to not violate each other’s borders, to respect each other’s sovereignty and to set up permanent missions to each other under the principle of “developing normal friendly relations on a foundation of equal rights.” During the summit, Moon and Kim are expected to make a political statement about upholding all of the agreements reached by past administrations, both liberal and conservative, by way of a comment about respecting all the accomplishments of past inter-Korean dialogue. By Jung In-hwan, staff reporter Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
