SEOUL, Sept 5, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A high-level South Korean delegation met
with Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang on Wednesday, as Seoul plans a new summit with
the North Korean leader to break a deadlock in denuclearisation talks.
The South’s President Moon Jae-in’s special envoy Chung Eui-yong, who is
leading the five-member delegation, earlier said he would discuss ways to
“completely denuclearise” the Korean peninsula and establish “lasting peace”.
His delegation “met with Chairman Kim Jong Un and delivered a personal
letter (from Moon) and exchanged opinions,” a presidential office spokesman
in Seoul said.
The spokesman added that officials would fly back to Seoul later tonight
after a dinner banquet but did not provide further details.
US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reached a
vague agreement at a landmark summit in June to work towards the
denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, but there has been little movement
since.
Talks reached an impasse last month when Trump abruptly cancelled
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s trip to North Korea, citing a lack of
progress.
The stated aim of the South Korean delegation’s day-long visit to
Pyongyang is to finalise details of a third summit between the leaders of the
two Koreas, due later this month.
But observers said that Moon’s personal letter to Kim will likely be a
proposal aimed at breaking the denuclearisation impasse.
The envoy was likely to suggest “that Kim gives a firm commitment to
presenting a list of nuclear weapons and fissile materials demanded by the US
in return for a declaration of the end of the Korean War,” Yang Moo-jin of
the University of North Korean Studies told AFP.
Despite the deadlock with the North, Trump expressed his hopes for the
success of the next inter-Korean summit in a phone conversation with Moon on
Tuesday.
Pyongyang has slammed Washington’s “gangster-like” demands for complete,
verifiable and irreversible disarmament, and accused it of failing to
reciprocate the North’s “goodwill measures”, including the handover of the
remains of US troops killed in the 1950-53 Korean War.
When Kim and Moon met in April for their first summit, they agreed to push
for a declaration from Washington of an end to the Korean War, to replace the
1953 armistice.
But US officials say the North must be rid of its nuclear weapons before
that can happen.
The International Atomic Energy Agency reported last month that there is no
indication North Korea has stopped its nuclear activities.