Moon's broker role faces setback
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President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump talk in their bilateral talks at the White House in Washington, D.C., Wednesday. Although they agreed on joint effort to make Trump's upcoming summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Trump cancelled it Thursday night. / Yonhap
By Kim Rahn
The sudden decision by the U.S. to cancel a planned June 12 summit with North Korea has caught President Moon Jae-in, who had been working as a broker between the adversaries for their talks over the North's denuclearization, off guard.
It may have been more heartbreaking for Moon considering that the decision came less than 24 hours since he came back from bilateral talks with President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., over his then upcoming meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
He now needs a new strategy to mediate between Washington and Pyongyang to help the two countries build up trust again. It is expected he may soon talk with Kim via a hotline established between the leaders of the two Koreas.
The cancellation was apparently unexpected by Cheong Wa Dae, as Moon's security chief Chung Eui-yong said on the President's flight to Washington, D.C., that he saw a “99.9 percent of chance” of the Trump-Kim summit taking place as planned.
Seoul officials were not aware of Trump's summit cancellation decision in advance. About 30 minutes after the cancellation was announced Thursday night, presidential spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom told reporters that Cheong Wa Dae was trying to grasp the exact meaning of Trump's message.
Moon convened an emergency meeting with secretaries and ministers in charge of security and diplomacy at midnight. After that, he said in a message that he was “disconcerted” and “regretted” that the Washington-Pyongyang summit would not being held on the scheduled date.
But he stressed that the sincerity of the people, who have made efforts to resolve the issue, has not changed, indicating Trump and Kim still want dialogue. Indeed, Trump did not entirely rule out the chance of a summit by saying, “Someday, I look very much forward to meeting you,” and North Korea Friday also responded, through a statement by Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan, that the North is willing to “sit down face-to-face with the U.S. and resolve issues anytime and in any format.”
Moon said the problem may lie in the current communication methods. “It may be difficult to resolve the sensitive and difficult diplomatic issues through the current means of communication. I expect the issues to be resolved through more direct and close dialogue between the leaders.”
The summit cancellation dealt a serious blow to Moon, who gladly took the role of mediator between the U.S. and North Korea in addressing the nuclear standoff. His efforts had actually been making progress, as he encouraged Kim to declare denuclearization in the inter-Korean summit and helped Washington and Pyongyang agree to the summit, which he hoped would be a turning point for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
But with the cancellation, Moon now has to start again from scratch, getting Trump and Kim to rebuild trust in each other and again agree to hold a summit.
For better communication with Pyongyang, he is expected to use the hotline with Kim. Although the two Koreas initially agreed to have the leaders talk over the hotline before the inter-Korean summit, the line has not been used so far, with Cheong Wa Dae officials saying the leaders would speak with each other when they have something important to talk about. Many say now that they have just this situation.
Moon may have to have a phone call with Trump again, even though they met only two days ago.
Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha and her U.S. counterpart Mike Pompeo had a phone call Friday, in which Pompeo explained Washington's reasons for cancelling the summit. “He emphasized the U.S. has a clear willingness to continue dialogue with North Korea,” the ministry said in a press release. “They pledged joint efforts to create conditions for the Washington-Pyongyang talks to take place.”