South Korean Adviser: Past North Korea Actions Can’t Predict Future Behavior

Moon Chung-in, South Korea’s special national security adviser for negotiations with North Korea, is warning officials against using past North Korean negotiation failures to predict the outcome of future talks.

Moon was one of the original architects of the “Sunshine policy,” South Korea’s term for seeking diplomatic rapprochement with North Korea, and has served in myriad advisory positions in South Korean governments for decades.

He says broken promises in negotiations decades ago should be kept in the past, and that North Korea, the US, and the whole world should focus on making deals in the present instead of dwelling on that.

Talk of past diplomatic failures with respect to North Korea have been popular talking points for opponents of the current talks, who say no deal should be expected. Moon, however, says those failures mustn’t be the yardstick for current and future relations.