Moon vows to fully support Trump-Kim summit

President Moon Jae-in speaks during a meeting with his senior secretaries at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul, Monday. Yonhap

By Park Ji-won

President Moon Jae-in pledged Monday that he would fully support a Trump-Kim summit, ahead of a planned meeting with his U.S. counterpart next week.

“I will fully support the dialogue between North Korea and the United States through a summit with U.S. President Donald Trump,” Moon said at the start of a weekly meeting of senior presidential aides at Cheong Wa Dae, Monday, according to press pool reports.

“It will be a chance to share mutual understanding and wisdom about advancing the Seoul-Washington future-oriented relationship a step further based on the robust South Korea-U.S. alliance,” Moon told them.

His remarks came ahead of a planned summit between Moon and Trump on the sidelines of the United Nation's General Assembly from Sept. 22 to 26. Officials from the two countries are still deciding on when to hold the meeting.

North Korea officially confirmed working-level discussions aimed at dismantling its nuclear program would resume “in a few weeks.” Pyongyang also welcomed Washington's decision to offer greater flexibility in the upcoming talks but didn't offer any specific details.

On Monday, the North demanded the U.S. provide security guarantees as a precondition for the talks, the country's media reported.

Stressing that the country's stance was clear, a senior official from the North's foreign ministry said in an article for the Korean Central News Agency: “The discussion of denuclearization may be possible when threats and hurdles endangering our system security and obstructing our development are clearly removed beyond all doubt.” He added: “Whether the DPRK-U.S. negotiations will be a window for chance or an occasion to precipitate crisis is entirely up to the U.S.”

Moon said that the unchanged trust and the determination between leaders of North Korea and the U.S. toward peace will become a source of power to advance the peace-building process on the Korean Peninsula. He added that his government will also seek to establish peace on the peninsula and a peace-led economy so that the two Koreas can share a future of co-prosperity.

Earlier in the day, Moon ordered disciplinary action against three government-related bodies for calling the waters between Korea and Japan the “Sea of Japan,” not the “East Sea,” which is the official name for South Korea, the presidential office said. The three organizations are Korea Forestry Promotion Institute, National Plant Quarantine Service and Agricultural Policy Insurance and Finance Service, under the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. They also called Dokdo, the South Korean islets in the East Sea, the “Liancourt Rocks.” The naming issue is important for the South as Tokyo has been claiming its sovereignty through active international campaigning.

Meanwhile, he also stressed that the country's economy is heading in the right direction, saying an improvement was seen in the job market in both quantity and quality.

Citing statistics showing the number of employed people increased by more than 450,000 in August year-on-year and a record low unemployment rate, he said, “The government will push for implementing job policies consistently in the future while putting its efforts to revitalize domestic economy and expand investment so that the government can create more jobs in the private sector.”

He also pledged to strengthen policies for low-income families to tackle polarization and unfairness in income distribution.