[Editorial] S. Korea needs to communicate with N. Korea as much as possible before Trump’s visit

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and US President Donald Trump at the White House’s Oval Office on Apr. 11. (provided by the Blue House)

The Blue House and the White House announced simultaneously on May 16 that US President Donald Trump would be visiting South Korea next month to hold a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Trump’s visit is likely to take place immediately after the conclusion of the G20 summit that will be held in Japan on June 28-29. The fact that Trump is returning to South Korea after an absence of one year and seven months and that he’s holding yet another summit with Moon just two months after the last one in Washington, DC, in April shows how many challenges the two leaders face in Korean Peninsula affairs.

The deadlock in the negotiations between North Korea and the US has been dragging on since talks broke down in their summit in Hanoi. Furthermore, tensions on the Korean Peninsula have been rising because of North Korea’s repeated test launches of short-range missiles. Especially notable is that North Korea has apparently been trying to change the content and direction of its negotiations with the US since the North’s summit with Russia last month. After its original approach of trading gradual denuclearization for the relaxation of economic sanctions didn’t work, observers say, the North seems to be pivoting toward demanding a security guarantee for its regime. That would further complicate the denuclearization talks and decrease the likelihood of a compromise considering that the US is holding to its strategy of arranging an all-in-one deal through maximum pressure. Both North Korea and the US need to pay heed to each other’s demands and give a little ground. The South Korean government needs to engage in the June summit with the determination to achieve a breakthrough in the denuclearization talks.

It’s also striking that South Korea and the US announced their summit with a month and half to spare. That can be seen as reflecting hopes that there will be some preliminary interaction between South and North Korea on the denuclearization agenda. The North has yet to respond to Moon’s proposal for a fourth inter-Korean summit. Perhaps North Korea has been too preoccupied with internal affairs, but now it’s time for it to enthusiastically agree to that proposal. If the leaders of South and North Korea meet to discuss the denuclearization issue before Trump arrives in South Korea, they’ll pave the way for a much more productive South Korea-US summit. If an inter-Korean summit isn’t feasible, another option is to send a special envoy to determine what North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is really thinking and to draft an arbitration proposal for North Korea and the US.

A trilateral summit among Kim, Moon, and Trump during Trump’s visit to South Korea may not seem very practical at the moment, but if such a summit could be pulled off, it would be ideal for finding a solution to denuclearization. The South Korean government needs to focus on making contact with the North while remaining open to all possibilities. If the summit in June doesn’t produce any tangible results, the prospects for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula are likely to grow even darker.

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