South Korean President Moon Jae-in is offering comments from Kim Jong Un following a successful inter-Korean summit this week, saying that Kim is eager to schedule a second summit with President Trump, believing that will be a way to speed up the process of denuclearization.
This was a key goal of the US for the Korean summit, and Kim reiterated his support for the denuclearization process, committing to shutting down new sites, and offering to shutter their main nuclear complex if the US makes some conciliatory moves.
While there weren’t details on what North Korea is expecting, it’s not exactly a mystery, with Moon saying that one of Kim’s major other goals is to be able to formally declare an end to the Korean War by the end of this year.
Kim and Moon are both in favor of a peace deal ending the war, which began in 1950, but the US is seen to be a major stumbling block, with some US officials wanting to delay this process until full denuclearization is completed several years down the road.
I guess he was pretty pleased with the results of the first summit. Anyway, better to jaw-jaw.
Sure. He needs more juice to convince his compatriots to go along with it. Trump should accept.
Meanwhile the Koreas are making lots of progress in many areas, including something called the “Northern Limit Line.”
The NLL is a US-imposed extension of the boundary between DPRK and ROK. Instead of going straight out into the Yellow Sea, rather it goes along the DPRK coast thus excluding some islands which ought to be DPRK, placing them instead under ROK control. Wrong! This has lead to warfare, including at Yeonpyeong Island.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5e/Northern_Limit_Line.svg/350px-Northern_Limit_Line.svg.png
. ..with Moon saying that one of Kim’s major other goals is to be able to
formally declare an end to the Korean War by the end of this year.
Kim and Moon are both in favor of a peace deal ending the war, which
began in 1950, but the US is seen to be a major stumbling block..
Are we talking about a Trump-Kim-Moon agreement ending the war?
Any such agreement would be a wonderful event, bringing peace to Korea. But let’s not forget that the principal combatants involved in this conflict were three: United Nations, North Korea and China. These parties are included in the 1954 Armistice Agreement .
So to end the conflict properly, the UN (via the UNSC) and China should be involved as well as DPRK and ROK. (Of course this would bring with it a lessening of US involvement, not favored in Washington.) But if that doesn’t happen, option A would be great.