SEOUL, South Korea — South Koreans, always deeply divided over how best to deal with their often belligerent northern neighbor, are reacting with both hope…
SEOUL, South Korea — South Koreans, always deeply divided over how best to deal with their often belligerent northern neighbor, are reacting with both hope and wariness to US President Donald Trump’s announcement that he will hold a second nuclear disarmament summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Feb. 27-28 in Vietnam.
But for liberal South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who is eager to push ahead with ambitious plans for engagement with North Korea, a breakthrough in Vietnam is crucial. Moon served as diplomatic middleman between the US and North Korea following the North’s increasingly powerful string of weapons tests and Trump’s threats of military action in 2017,
A year of mostly fruitless diplomacy has led to serious doubts about Kim’s sincerity and Trump’s ability to force North Korea to significantly reduce the threat its nuclear weapons pose to the region and world.
“Denuclearization will be difficult because North Korea wants to keep nuclear weapons, and the United States wants them all gone,” Lee Sang-won, a 68-year-old retiree, said Thursday at a bustling Seoul train station.
Trump announced Vietnam as the summit venue during his State of the Union address on Wednesday, as millions of South Koreans made visits to their hometowns during Lunar New Year holidays.
On Thursday, Trump’s special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, held a second day of talks with officials in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, to hammer out summit logistics and an agenda. Biegun is expected to come to South Korea to brief officials as early as Friday.
Moon’s office said Wednesday that Seoul hopes Trump and Kim will make “concrete and substantial progress” in their talks in Vietnam, but few other details were released.
At Seoul Station, broadcasts of Trump’s summit announcement drew crowds in front of large TV screens. Trump, Kim and nuclear weapons were also likely subjects of heated political discussions at holiday dinner tables across the country.
