Chung and Suh, Moon's picks for denuclearization talks
President Moon Jae-in stands with North and South Korean officials at Cheong Wa Dae during a visit by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sister Kim Yo-jong, third from left, and other ranking officials, Feb. 10. National Security Office chief Chung Eui-yong, right, and National Intelligence Service Director Suh Hoon, second from right, will visit Pyongyang Monday as Moon’s special envoys. / Joint press corps
By Kim Rahn
The President’s special envoy to North Korea should be someone who can communicate with him closely and candidly and who has a firm grasp on Korean Peninsula issues.
In this regard, the two envoys to visit Pyongyang from Monday to Tuesday — National Security Office chief Chung Eui-yong and National Intelligence Service (NIS) Director Suh Hoon — are the right picks as they are believed to be able to deliver President Moon Jae-in’s messages to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un the most clearly.
Both Suh and Chung were present at the meeting of Moon and Kim Jong-un’s sister Kim Yo-jong at Cheong Wa Dae in early February when she visited the South to attend the opening ceremony of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.
Chung, who will lead the five envoys, is the Moon administration’s top official dealing with security and foreign affairs policy, and coordinating various issues surrounding the peninsula.
He has kept close contact with security officials at the White House, discussing North Korea issues and South Korea-U.S. relations with U.S. President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, his counterpart.
In late February, he had a meeting with Kim Yong-chol, head of the Workers’ Party of Korea’s United Front Department, when the latter visited the South to attend the closing ceremony of the Olympics. During the meeting, the North Koreans told Chung that they were willing to talk with the U.S.
Chung is likely to play the role of messenger between Pyongyang and Washington for their talks on denuclearization. Chung and Suh will visit Washington soon after they come back from Pyongyang.
Suh is Moon’s top strategy maker on North Korea issues and one of the President’s closest aides who helped him draw up his peace overture plans.
Under the former liberal Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations, Suh was a member of the teams that led the first and second inter-Korean summits in 2000 and 2007, respectively. He met former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un’s father, on several occasions during the summits.
Suh was a member of the National Security Council and was in charge of North Korea strategy at the NIS under the Roh government, having experience in negotiating with high-ranking North Korean officials at many meetings. He was a member of Moon’s election camp for both the 2012 and the 2017 presidential elections.
As the head of the spy agency, Suh has a close communication channel with U.S. CIA Director Mike Pompeo. It was the two spy agencies that mediated the meeting between U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Kim Yo-jong during their stays in South Korea in early February, although the meeting was cancelled at the last minute.
Political parties showed mixed reactions to sending Chung and Suh.
Rep. Park Jie-won of the minor liberal Party for Democracy and Peace said the two are a perfect pair.
“An envoy should be someone who knows about President Moon, the U.S. and North Korea, and Suh knows all three,” he said on Facebook. “Sending Chung also shows Moon takes full consideration of Trump.”
But the main conservative Liberty Korea Party (LKP) was opposed to the envoys, especially Suh, saying the NIS should be the agency cracking down on spies, not “cooperating” with the North.
“The denuclearization of North Korea should be the only and absolute theme of the envoys’ visit, so a person who cannot talk about it, watching Kim Jong-un straight in the eye, should be excluded,” LKP spokesman Hong Ji-man said, referring to Suh. “Like the previous two inter-Korean summits, those who try to beg for peace by giving presents should be excluded.”