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South Korean President Moon Jae-in presides over the first preparatory meeting for the upcoming Pyongyang inter-Korean summit at the Blue House on Sept. 6. (Blue House photo pool)
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Trump asks Moon to serve as “chief negotiator” between North Korea and US
Since South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s special envoy delegation to North Korea received a positive response on issues such as a timeframe for implementing denuclearization, the next question is which role Moon will play as a mediator during the third inter-Korean summit, which is scheduled to be held in Pyongyang on Sept. 18. During a telephone call with Moon on Sept. 4, US President Donald Trump reportedly asked Moon to serve as a “chief negotiator” representing North Korea and the US and to have the special envoy delegation convey a message to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Moon is planning to use the results of the third inter-Korean summit as a springboard for launching a full-fledged effort to “narrow the gap” between North Korea and the US. “The special envoy delegation’s visit turned out really well. The results were much better than I’d expected,” Moon said during the first meeting of the preparatory committee for the third inter-Korean summit, which will be held in Pyongyang on Sept. 18–20. The committee meeting was held on the afternoon of Sept. 6, with Blue House Chief of Staff Im Jong-seok presiding. “This has also raised my expectations about the inter-Korean summit and has gotten me hoping that we can also move forward with denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula and with the requisite North Korea-US dialogue,” Moon said. The South Korean special envoy delegation and the North Koreans agreed that the agenda of the third inter-Korean summit will address the following points: a review of the implementation of the Panmunjom Declaration and ways to move forward in the future, the work to be done for mutual prosperity and the establishment of lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula, and practical measures for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. “The North Koreans also seem to expect South Korea to play a bigger role in the process of resolving the issue of denuclearization,” said Blue House National Security Office Director Chung Eui-yong, who was the chief envoy in the special envoy delegation, adding that he expects “there will be in-depth discussion about specific ways that South and North can cooperate to achieve progress on denuclearization” during the summit in Pyongyang. Considering that the two sides only “confirmed the common goal of realizing, through complete denuclearization, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula” during their Apr. 27 summit in Panmunjom, this suggests that the two leaders will be also discussing specific methods of denuclearization during the upcoming summit. Kim Jong-un reaffirms his “trust” in Trump During his meeting with the special envoy delegation on Sept. 5, Kim Jong-un also said that he would maintain his trust in Trump and declared his determination to keep taking proactive measures toward denuclearization. The biggest question is whether Moon can use the summit to motivate North Korea to take meaningful steps toward denuclearization in order to resume North Korea-US dialogue. Moon also appears set to pick up the pace on the plan to officially end the Korean War within the year, which was one of the agreements reached in the Panmunjom summit. Moon has emphasized that using an end-of-war declaration to “officially” end hostile relations between North Korea and the US is the first step toward the establishment of peace on the Korean Peninsula. “The position of the South Korean government is that an end-of-war declaration is a political declaration and the first step toward building trust between related countries. North Korea feels the same way,” Chung said during the briefing on Sept. 6. The officials who attended the meeting of the preparatory committee for the third inter-Korean summit that was held on the afternoon of Sept. 6 included Chung, Blue House National Security Office Director, as well as Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha, Defense Minister Song Young-moo, Minister of Government Policy Coordination Hong Nam-ki, National Intelligence Service Director Suh Hoon and Chief Policy Advisor Jang Ha-sung, all of whom were on the preparatory committee for the first inter-Korean summit. Additional members of summit committee Added to the committee for the third summit were Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Do Jong-hwan; Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Kim Hyun-mee; and Korea Forest Service Director Kim Jae-hyun, presumably to prepare for the possibility that more concrete forms of cooperation in the areas of railroads and forestry – points agreed to in the Panmunjom Declaration – might be discussed in the third summit. Along with this, South and North Korea agreed to hold high-level working talks in Panmunjom early next week about protocol, security, communications and reporting for the upcoming summit, which will be held in Pyongyang from Sept. 18 to 20. Matters to be discussed include the route to be taken by Moon and his entourage, the people who will accompany him, the size of the pool of reporters and the method of security. By Kim Bo-hyeop, staff reporter Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
