Bitter foes for more than six decades, North and South Korea agreed Friday to “denuclearize” the Korean Peninsula — but the hard part is being left to…
Bitter foes for more than six decades, North and South Korea agreed Friday to “denuclearize” the Korean Peninsula — but the hard part is being left to President Trump.
Trump touted the inter-Korea summit on Twitter, saying that “good things are happening” but that “only time will tell.”
“KOREAN WAR TO END! The United States, and all of its GREAT people, should be very proud of what is now taking place in Korea!” he wrote in a second tweet.
But the declaration from South Korean president Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had no details on how denuclearization will be achieved, leaving it to Trump to negotiate the finer points of an agreement when he meets with Kim in May or June.
“This is step one of a thousand,” Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest, said of the inter-Korea summit. “It’s a good step one, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just a first step.”
The Kim-Moon summit Friday was filled with pomp, circumstance and images that would have been unfathomable just a year ago when the peninsula seemed on the brink of war.
Kim became the first North Korean leader to step foot on South Korean soil since the Korean War when he stepped over the raised military demarcation line to arrive at the summit. Moon also briefly entered North Korean territory when Kim invited him to step over the border for a moment.
The highly choreographed meeting even included a few jokes, with Kim telling Moon he wouldn’t interrupt his early morning sleep anymore, a reference to North Korea’s barrage of early morning missile tests last year.
The summit ended with a joint declaration that the two countries are committed to “the common goal of realizing, through complete denuclearization, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula” and would pursue meetings with the United States and China “with a view to declaring an end to the [Korean] War and establishing a permanent and solid peace regime.
