South Korean President to Visit Pyongyang in Bid to Revive Diplomacy
Seoul, MINA – With denuclearization talks between the U.S. and North Korea stalled, South Korean President Moon Jae-in is set to visit Pyongyang on Tuesday in a bid to revive diplomacy after a summer of challenges.
At a planned three-day summit, Mr. Moon and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are expected to hold talks on a declaration to formally end the Korean War, more than six decades after fighting was halted by an armistice.
North Korea sees a permanent peace deal as an important indication that Washington is willing to end what it calls a hostile policy toward Pyongyang—and a step toward removal of U.S. forces from South Korea, Wall Street Journal reported.
In exchange, U.S. and South Korean experts believe that the South Korean delegation will push the North to produce a detailed inventory of its nuclear and missile programs, something it has never before been willing to do.
Negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang are at an impasse, three months after President Trump met Mr. Kim in Singapore and the two men signed an agreement to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. Pyongyang has balked at Washington’s push for a rapid dismantling of its atomic-weapons programs, while North Korea has said the U.S. is dragging its feet on the end-of-war declaration.
“The South Korean position is, ‘Why don’t you simultaneously exchange?’” said Moon Chung-in, a senior adviser to South Korea’s president.
If all goes well, the meeting of the Korean leaders could help pave the way for a second meeting between Messrs. Trump and Kim, which the White House has hinted at in recent days.
Since the June U.S.-North Korea summit, satellite imagery has shown North continuing to expand its nuclear and missile facilities, even as it dismantled other sites.
The U.S. has continued to impose economic sanctions and sparked an angry retort from Pyongyang on Friday after bringing charges against a North Korean citizen that Washington said masterminded cyberattacks against the U.S. and others.(R/R04/RS5)
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
