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South Korean President Moon Jae-in presides over a meeting with his senior secretaries and aides at the Blue House on Apr. 15.
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S. Korean president says location and format are not important
South Korean President Moon Jae-in said on Apr. 15 that he would be “pursuing an inter-Korean summit regardless of location and format as soon as North Korea’s situation allows it.” His message affirmed his active commitment to using inter-Korean talks as a “pump primer” for the currently deadlocked denuclearization talks between North Korea and the US. Presiding over a meeting of senior secretaries and aides at the Blue House that day, Moon declared, “This is a time for seriously preparing for and pursuing an inter-Korean summit.” “I hope that South and North can sit down together and hold concrete and practical discussions on areas that will bear fruit at a more advanced level than the two North Korea-US summits,” he said. He also affirmed that he would “make every effort to ensure that another inter-Korean summit provides a stepping stone toward producing greater opportunities and outcomes.” The idea appears to be using a fourth inter-Korean summit to achieve a breakthrough in the currently stalled North Korea-US denuclearization talks, just as Moon’s one-day Panmunjom summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in May 2018 helped rescue the first North Korea-US summit from failure. Indeed, some of Moon’s remarks during the meeting were interpreted along the same lines. “With our first inter-Korean summit just one year ago, North Korean State Affairs Commission Chairman Kim Jong-un and I announced a new beginning for peace on the Korean Peninsula to the rest of the world,” he said. “If South and North Korea and the US harness their wisdom with an unswerving commitment to dialogue, there is nothing they will not be able to surmount going ahead,” he continued. In an Apr. 11 summit with US President Donald Trump, Moon declared that “promoting inter-Korean relations will help the denuclearization talks” and said he planned to “pursue the staging of an inter-Korean summit in the near future.” In response, Trump asked him to share the North’s position as soon as possible based on what the South ascertained through the summit or inter-Korean discussions. The Blue House’s ideal scenario is a positive feedback loop involving “top-down” talks, with South Korea’s recent summit with the US leading to an inter-Korean summit, and from there to a third North Korea-US summit. But Moon’s reference to “regardless of location and format” suggests he is envisioning a practically focused summit free from protocol or formalities – along the lines of the one-day Panmunjom summit – rather than the planned reciprocal visit to Seoul by Kim that was postponed last year. In his remarks on Apr. 15, Moon made no separate reference to the matter of sending a special envoy to the North as a necessary step to prepare for the summit. “If he does send a special envoy to the North, it looks as though he’ll do the same as last time and not announce it publicly,” a Blue House senior official said. “Whether an after-the-fact announcement is made will depend on the outcome,” the official predicted. With his remarks about maintaining Seoul’s current approach on North Korea, Moon also offered an indirect response to remarks from Kim during a Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA) meeting on Apr. 12 calling for implementation of the terms of the Apr. 27 Panmunjom Declaration and Sept. 19 Pyongyang Joint Declaration of last year. “The authorities in South Korea must be an interested party that defends the [Korean] people’s interests rather than acting as meddling mediators or catalysts,” Kim said at the time. Moon said that he “praises and very much welcomes Chairman Kim’s unchanging commitment with his repeated affirmations of his firm commitment to denuclearization and the establishment of peace on the Korean Peninsula and his statement of his intent to resume North Korea-US dialogue and hold a third North Korea-US summit.” “The South Korean government has a clear and firm commitment to systematically implementing the terms of inter-Korean joint statements, whatever difficulties may arise,” he added. By Seong Yeon-cheol, staff reporter Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
