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Lee Do-hoon, South Korea’s special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau Director-General Kenji Kanasugi, and Stephen Biegun, the US State Department’s special representative for North Korea, in Singapore on May 31. (photo pool)
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Lee Do-hoon and Biegun focus on finding way to revive denuclearization talks
South Korea and the US noted that the present moment is a very important time for resuming dialogue with North Korea and making meaningful progress and agreed to cooperate closely toward quickly resuming dialogue. Importantly, the US emphasized that it’s prepared to continue negotiations with North Korea to work on all the promises made in the joint statement announced in Singapore on June 12, 2018. This understanding was reached by Lee Do-hoon, special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, and Stephen Biegun, the US State Department’s special representative for North Korea, during a meeting on June 1 at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore, where the Asia Security Summit (also called the Shangri-La Dialogue) is being held, South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) reported. Lee and Biegun are South Korea and the US’ senior envoys to the North Korean nuclear talks. Lee and Biegun noted that their two countries have been cooperating closely until now and also intend to continue communication and deliberations in the future, MOFA said. The deliberations on Saturday were apparently focused on finding a way to revive the denuclearization talks, which have been stalled since they broke down during the North Korea-US summit in Hanoi. Some of the language used — such as “a very important time” and “toward quickly resuming dialogue” — clearly emphasized the urgency of restarting dialogue. While North Korea has been calling on the US to change its “calculation” before talks can resume, the US is apparently pushing the North to return to the negotiating table anyway. Lee previously stressed the importance of resuming dialogue between North Korea and the US during his keynote address at the Jeju Forum on May 30, when he said that “the window of opportunity won’t stay open forever.” It is particularly notable that the US expressed its commitment to the talks by calling for progress on the promises made during the first North Korea-US summit: namely, resetting North Korea-US relations, creating a lasting peace regime, achieving complete denuclearization, and repatriating the remains of soldiers who fell during the Korean War. While MOFA released the details of the deliberations in a press release on Sunday, the US had reportedly approved of the language of all the sections in the press release that mention the US’ position. On May 31, the senior envoys to the North Korean nuclear talks representing South Korea, the US, and Japan held trilateral deliberations at the Shangri-La Hotel. “The top envoys from our three countries have remained in close communication about a number of issues, and we agreed to continue cooperating in the future as we have done in the past,” Lee said after their meeting. When asked about the possibility of upcoming contact between North Korea and the US and between North and South Korea, Lee said, “Each party is doing its best, and we’re in consultation about how to do that.” Lee also responded to a question about whether a third North Korea-US summit had been discussed by saying that “all topics were discussed.” This was the first time that the three countries’ top envoys on the North Korean nuclear issue had come together in nearly three months, since their meeting in Washington, DC, in early March. “This meeting is designed to review and assess the situation since Hanoi and to coordinate an appropriate message to North Korea to sustain the dialogue phase,” said a MOFA official prior to the meeting. “We need to realize that time is no longer on our side. The parties participating in the negotiations need to make a proactive effort to build confidence and to resume dialogue,” Lee said during his keynote address at the Jeju Forum. By Yoo Kang-moon, senior staff writer Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
