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https://scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3005133/how-south-koreas-moon-jae-plans-get-donald-trump-and-kim-jong
Asia/ East Asia

How South Korea’s Moon Jae-in plans to get Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un talking about nukes again

  • President Moon will meet the US leader on Wednesday to try to reignite negotiations between the US and North Korea
  • The South Korean leader wants the US to ease sanctions on the North in the hope Kim will agree to give up his nuclear arsenal and cease his weapons programme
South Korean President Moon Jae-in talks on the phone with US President Donald Trump at the presidential Blue House in Seoul. Photo: AP

South Korean President Moon Jae-in will meet Donald Trump for talks on Wednesday in an urgent bid to bring the US leader and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un back to the negotiating table.

The meeting comes a day before the first session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly kicks off in Pyongyang, which will be closely watched for clues as to the direction of Kim’s policy towards Washington. Negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang have been moribund since Trump and Kim’s second summit in Hanoi on February 28 collapsed without a denuclearisation deal for the North.

Last week, two of Moon’s closest aides indicated that the South Korean president was gunning for an easing of Washington’s sanctions policy, known as “maximum pressure”.

North Korea persisted in its nuclear development through decades of sanctions and pressure,” said Lee Do-hoon, special representative for Korean peninsula peace and security affairs.

US President Donald Trump speaks as South Korean President Moon Jae-in listens during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in May 2018. Photo: EPA
US President Donald Trump speaks as South Korean President Moon Jae-in listens during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in May 2018. Photo: EPA

“To believe that stronger sanctions and more pressure would make North Korea suddenly give up its entire nuclear programme is an illusion.”

Moon Chung-in, an adviser on foreign affairs, said the president’s primary concern going to Washington was sanctions relief.

“There could be some exemptions for inter-Korean exchanges perhaps, including Mount Kumgang and the Kaesong complex,” he said, referring to a closed tourist resort and industrial estate in the North.

North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump in the Metropole hotel with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton. Photo: Reuters
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump in the Metropole hotel with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton. Photo: Reuters

Last month, Choe Son-hui, the North’s vice-foreign minister, said Trump had been open to temporary sanctions relief if the North simply refrained from nuclear and missile tests. But Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton were opposed to the idea.

In Hanoi, Trump handed Kim a document demanding the swift transfer of the North’s nuclear weapons and bomb material to the US as part of a proposed “big deal” that would see Washington lift all sanctions, according to a Reuters report last month.

Kim Jeong-min, a North Korea analyst and former journalist in Seoul, said Moon would want to narrow the gap between Washington and Pyongyang while encouraging Trump to return to his unorthodox, top-down diplomacy.

It would be ideal if Moon suggests an interim declaration where Kim can declare a big end goal for Trump, Kim Jeong-min

“It would be ideal if Moon suggests an interim declaration where Kim can declare a big end goal for Trump, while Trump can assure Kim that steps will be taken in a phased approach,” she said.

Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, said Moon could send an envoy to Pyongyang after his trip to arrange an inter-Korean summit as a precursor to a third meeting between Trump and Kim later this year.

“The two presidents will likely agree on the usefulness of top-down diplomacy driven by leaders willing to override bureaucrats boxed in traditional thinking,” Yang said. “They will also probably share the need to resume the US-North Korea talks at an early date.”

Moon’s administration has not hidden its hope for the US to lower its expectations and accept a piecemeal deal with the North.

“Under this idea, the two sides would agree on a road map to achieve a comprehensive denuclearisation, which could be implemented in two or three stages,” said Kim Yong-hyun, a professor at Dongguk University.

In a speech last week, the South Korean president said “neither the two Koreas nor the United States want to go back to the past”.

Watch: North Korean elections

“Through concerted efforts, where there is an obstacle, we will break through, and where there is no road, we will create one,” said Moon, who has unfailingly pursued rapprochement with the North since his election in 2017. “If we work hard, we can pull it off.”

But the liberal leader now faces much more fraught circumstances than during previous mediation efforts, with flagging approval ratings at home and the North continuing its nuclear development.

“President Moon is in a very awkward position,” said Yang Seung-ham, a politics professor at Yonsei University in Seoul.

US President Donald Trump walks with North Korea leader Kim Jong-un during a break in talks at the second US-North Korea summit at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi. Photo: AFP
US President Donald Trump walks with North Korea leader Kim Jong-un during a break in talks at the second US-North Korea summit at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi. Photo: AFP

Moon’s approval rating sunk to a record low of 43 per cent last month, according to Gallup Korea polls – down from a high of 76 per cent in May 2018 when he helped salvage the Singapore summit.

Moon’s North Korea policy was named as the main reason for disapproval by 16 per cent of Gallup respondents last month, compared to 14 per cent who saw it as a positive.

A separate Gallup poll found 64 per cent of South Koreans, including a plurality of Moon’s base of progressives, said they did not believe the North would give up its nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, Moon’s attempts to reassure sceptics about Pyongyang’s intentions have been undermined by revelations that have emerged since Kim Jong-un signed a vaguely worded agreement in Singapore to work “towards the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”.

Watch: North Korea rebuilds rocket launch site

In February, Stanford University’s Centre for International Security and Cooperation said Pyongyang had produced nuclear material for up to seven new bombs in 2018, even while it discussed denuclearisation with the US. Late last month, South Korea’s national broadcaster KBS obtained a secret government list confirming the existence of 104 nuclear facilities in the North, far more than previously known.

Moon’s attempts to foster cooperation and reconciliation between the Koreas, too, have faltered. Pyongyang last month abruptly pulled its staff from a joint inter-Korean liaison office before sending them back to work several days later without explanation. On April 1, Seoul began excavating Korean war remains along the inter-Korean border by itself, after the North ignored calls to proceed with an earlier agreement to work together.

“This time, Moon is sitting on pins and needles as North Korea is constantly hinting via state media and briefings that Moon should be the stakeholder of the denuclearisation of the peninsula, not mediator – while as a US ally, that is a dangerous line to cross for Moon,” said Kim, the analyst.