Seoul confirms hopes to hold 3rd Moon-Kim summit
By Kim Yoo-chul
Cheong Wa Dae said Sunday it expects to hold the third summit between the two Koreas in North Korea's capital city of Pyongyang, presidential spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom said, Sunday.
“Cheong Wa Dae hopes the high-level ministerial meeting between the two Koreas will discuss specifics about the timing, place and other relevant details of the third inter-Korean summit,” the spokesman told reporters in a media briefing. He said Seoul still prefers the North Korean capital as the venue for the next meeting of President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
The North's Kim previously invited President Moon to Pyongyang at their April summit in Panmunjeom. Moon accepted the request.
The spokesman said the two Koreas will discuss how to fix specifics and specifications relating to formally ending the Korean War during a high-level ministerial meeting with the North to be held at the North's side of the border village of Panmunjeom, today.
“At the request of the North, the high-level talks will touch on several key pending issues. However, the top agenda set by the South side is how to develop the process toward permanent peace on the peninsula,” a senior government official said on condition of anonymity.
Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon will lead South Korea's delegation for the talks, while the North will be represented by its unification committee chief Ri Sun-kwon, according to the South's unification ministry.
The timing of the Moon-Kim meeting, when materialized, comes amid little progress on denuclearization. North asks Washington for concessions in exchange for its dismantling of missile test sites and returning remains of U.S. troops killed in the 1950-53 Korean War. Local media reports say U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will visit Pyongyang early this week.
But the United States was still pressuring the North to specify a detailed timeline on denuclearization as a “critical condition” before touching on economic and security guarantee issues as preferred by the North.
On early Friday (local time), U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters Washington continues to have conversations “virtually every day and every other day or so” with North Korea. “When I say conversations, that can be by phone, that can be by message, that can be by email,” Nauert added.
The comments are the latest salvo by the United States after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, White House National Security Adviser John Bolton and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley expressed their dissatisfaction with the lack of substantial progress on denuclearization.
Cheong Wa Dae declined to comment on this. But the revelation raised expectations that the United States was also actively sharing its findings on the North with the South, with Washington engaged in a process to advance the stalled denuclearization efforts.
“As Kim offered and Moon accepted, President Moon prefers Pyongyang as the venue for the upcoming summit. But what's important is that Moon wants to declare the end of the Korean War with Trump, the North's Kim and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September,” a government official said.
“The North may ask the South to pass messages on its commitment for denuclearization with latest updates to Washington during the high-level talks. What the North wants is to receive more concessions for eased economic sanctions,” said Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University's Far East Institute.
The Korean Peninsula is much back in the global spotlight over the past several months, and hopes have been running high that the framework concluded at the summits between the two Koreas and in Singapore will eventually bear fruit for the “good” of the peninsula and the world.
The ambiguous promises emerged from the separate meeting between the leaders of the two Koreas and U.S. President Donald Trump's June summit with Kim have led to a diplomatic disconnect after they failed to reach consensus for a specific timeline and promises of the North's denuclearization process. Nevertheless, the two Koreas hope to keep the “momentum” alive.