Inter-Korean meetings are an inadequate substitute for cooperation among nations to end the North Korean nuclear crisis, Edward Howell writes
The event was expected, true to the Panmunjom Declaration of April 27; but its arrival on the calendar will come a little earlier than anticipated.
The announcement that Moon Jae-in will visit Pyongyang in mid- to late September comes as Washington and Pyongyang are not exchanging smiles. Seoul’s desire to initiate a further summit with the North may show that the South’s President Moon Jae-in is eager to take the lead in making progress with the North, even if such progress may not be extensive.
Nevertheless, it takes more than two to tango in dealing with North Korea.
Inter-Korean and US-North Korea summitry in 2018 suggests that diplomacy is the present modus operandi for engaging with Pyongyang. Yet, it is not always successful. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s last visit to Pyongyang in July was snubbed by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and the US plan for denuclearising the North denounced for its “gangster-like demands”.
On June 12 in Singapore, Washington and Pyongyang pledged to establish new bilateral relations “in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity”.
But what such new relations actually will entail remains elusive.
Indeed, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho repeated at the Asean foreign ministers’ meeting in Singapore in early August that Pyongyang had no desire to abandon its nuclear technology.
The present strain in US-North Korea relations raises the question of whether a new phase is about to ensue in the stalemate that has epitomised previous wars of words between Washington and Pyongyang.
Enter President Moon, whose decision to host his third meeting with Kim is not simply a formality of fulfilling the Panmunjom Declaration.
Moon, in his Liberation Day speech on August 15, stressed the importance of “taking responsibility for our fate ourselves”, emphasising that South Koreans are “the protagonists in Korean peninsula-related issues” and that, crucially, “developments in inter-Korean relations are not the by-effects of progress in the relationship between the North and the United States”.
Moon understandably wishes to be in the driver’s seat to gain traction on the issue of North Korea – including, but not limited to, talks on its nuclear programme, which seem to have stagnated in recent months.
