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| President Moon Jae-in, left, and first lady Kim Jung-sook walk down from a South Korean presidential plane upon their arrival to Andrews Air Force Base near Washington D.C., late Wednesday (KST), for a summit with U.S. President Donald Trump Yonhap |
By Kim Yoo-chul
Fearing a total breakdown in denuclearization talks between the United States and North Korea, President Moon Jae-in may deliver an "urgent plea" to U.S. President Donald Trump at their summit early Friday (KST) to "advance" the negotiations.
Cheong Wa Dae sources and political analysts said President Moon hopes to persuade Trump to adopt a "sanctions easing" approach, and possibly a third summit between him and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to bridge their differences.
"The primary goal of President Moon's summit with Trump is to keep the momentum for the denuclearization talks going," said Park Cheol-hee, an international relations professor at Seoul National University. "Another central point could be Moon's request to ease up on some sanctions that affect the lives of ordinary North Korean citizens under the current United Nations Security Council framework."
With sanctions exemptions, civic groups would have the opportunity to deliver humanitarian aid to the North in inter-Korean exchanges, according to presidential officials and the analysts, who claimed this would help advance "nuclear diplomacy."
"Human rights has an important role with regard to North Korea and I think the United Nations needs to play a larger role. And I think the United States and South Korea should work together," David Maxwell, a North Korea expert and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said at a recent forum.
A day before the summit, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told a Senate committee on foreign relations he wanted some discretion on the implementation of U.S. sanctions.
"I want to leave a little room. From time to time, there are particular provisions that if we were making substantial progress that one might think that was the right thing to do to achieve. Sometimes, it's visas," Pompeo said.
Pompeo didn't elaborate, but the State Department said the secretary had met with the head of the U.N. food agency and discussed the provision of food aid to children and disaster-affected communities in the North.
A few hours before the summit with Trump, President Moon plans to meet U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton, Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence to discuss the latest updates on the nuclear disarmament talks and possible ways forward, according to Cheong Wa Dae.
"Given President Moon's repeated preference to embrace top-down nuclear diplomacy, his meeting with Bolton, Pence and Pompeo may cover the security concerns of all parties, and the sequence of deliverables under limited sanctions relief," said a government official with knowledge of the matter.
Bolton and Pence have long been among the most vocal critics of the North's commitment to dismantle its nuclear program, saying even tougher sanctions were needed until North Korea's complete and verifiable denuclearization.
Cheong Wa Dae said the Moon-Trump summit comes after they agreed to "quickly revive" the denuclearization talks following the failed Hanoi summit. The White House said the two will discuss North Korea and other bilateral issues.
President Moon has embraced the risks of top-down nuclear diplomacy in three previous inter-Korean summits, and has indirectly and directly helped arrange the two U.S.-North Korea summits. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un earlier vowed to dismantle his nuclear program by 2020.
But political analysts say Moon and his foreign policy team have to allay the concerns of Washington pessimists who remain unconvinced by the North's promises of nuclear disarmament.
Some U.S. politicians have called on the Trump administration to address the North's evasion of sanctions, saying more pressure is needed. They say there have been no concrete steps toward denuclearization so far.
"One can never know what Trump will do. But I hope he doesn't ease up on sanctions. We should also finally go after the mainland Chinese banks handling Kim Jong-un's cash. We can do this by suspending their correspondent U.S. bank accounts," Sean King, a scholar on Asian affairs at the University of Notre Dame Liu Institute, said via email. "North Korean citizens are in a dire predicament because of their own inhumane and unelected government. It may sound harsh but I'd advocate against any sanctions relief of any kind."
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