Moon Jae-in is trying to keep the momentum in efforts to hold talks, as military drills loom.
SEOUL — The United States must “lower its bar for dialogue,” and North Korea must signal that denuclearization is on the agenda, South Korea’s president said Monday as he tried to keep the momentum going in an Olympics-inspired detente.
After talking with Ivanka Trump, the American president’s daughter and adviser, and separately with a senior North Korean official over the weekend, President Moon Jae-in hosted Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong in his office Monday.
“The United States needs to lower its bar for dialogue and North, too, must show its willingness to denuclearize,” Moon told Liu during their meeting, a spokesman for the South Korean president said. “It is important for enabling the U. S. and North Korea to sit down face to face.”
Time is short for the South Korean president, given that his military is due to start huge exercises with the United States on April 1, an event that elicits an angry response from North Korea every year. Plus, North Korea has a history of putting all inter-Korean-related issues on ice during the two months of drills.
With his frenzy of diplomacy, Moon has been in contact with representatives of four of the countries involved in now-defunct six-party talks on North Korea’s denuclearization. The other two parties are Japan and Russia.
North Korea, while apparently open to the idea of talks, has not agreed to put its nuclear weapons up for negotiation.
Kim Yong Chol, the leader of a North Korean delegation now visiting Seoul and an official blacklisted by both the United States and South Korea for his role in the nuclear weapons program, seemed to obfuscate on Monday.
