Speaking today in an interview with the BBC, South Korean President Moon Jae-in says that North Korea intends to continue on a process toward complete denuclearization, detailing a multi-staged process.
Moon says that the process was “meant to start by stopping additional nuclear and missile tests, and then abolish the facilities that produce the nukes and develop the missiles, and then all the existing nuclear weapons and materials.”
North Korea is well into this process already, having stopped all the testing months ago, and has dismantled some nuclear and missile facilities. More are planned to be shut down, with North Korea interested in closing another nuclear site in return for steps toward a peace deal.
The US is reluctant to accept a peace deal until the denuclearization is finished. North Korean officials are seen as uncomfortable with completing this entire process with no confidence-building on the other side.
It’s good that NK leader Kim Jong-Un stated his intention to abolish nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula; in this way, a peace treaty can be signed by both Kim and his S. Korean counterpart, President Moon Jae-In.
It’s been over 60 years since the fighting was stopped via an armistice, and 3 N. Korean leaders had begged for an actual treaty to put an end to the war, since the armistice only ended the actual fighting, it didn’t end the tensions between the two countries themselves. The US rejected all 3 N. Korean leaders’ pleas. Why? Was it afraid that reunification of the two states would result from them signing a peace treaty? Had this been done, there would’ve been no nuclear weapons on the Peninsula. There’s no justification whatsoever for the US gov’t to keep tensions going on any longer. Let’s get the nuclear weapons abolished and the peace treaty signed by Kim Jong-Un and President Moon Jae-In and put an end to all this stupid bickering.
There are a few defects in your rendering of past international attempts to end the UN-sanctioned war with N. Korea.
While a treaty between N. and S. Korea will be fine, a peace treaty with the remaining combatants, above all us, is a prime demand by Kim.