“The Korean Peninsula peace process has entered the phase of building on the North-US Hanoi summit to prepare for practical results for the next stage,” Moon said at a weekly meeting with senior aides.

President Moon Jae-in presides over the meeting with senior aides at the presidential office on Monday. (Yonhap)

“Now is the time to prepare and push for an inter-Korean summit,” Moon said, adding that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has shown his “will to continue dialogue,” referring to Kim’s policy speech Friday.

Seoul’s presidential office revealed plans to arrange a fourth inter-Korean summit after Moon’s meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington on Thursday. Moon and North Korean leader Kim met on three occasions — twice at the border village of Panmunjom and once in Pyongyang — last year.

Moon said his meeting with Trump served to reaffirm cooperation between the allies and to discuss strategies for carrying out the Korean Peninsula peace process.

He added that he had met with top US officials and was able to reaffirm that the allies share the goal of achieving denuclearization and establishing peace on the peninsula through diplomatic means. During the trip, Moon met with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, national security adviser John Bolton and Vice President Mike Pence.

“President Trump expressed agreement and anticipation for an inter-Korean summit, and expressed that a trilateral summit would be possible if Chairman Kim Jong-un makes a decision,” Moon said. He went on to say that Seoul and Washington will cooperate to establish an environment for a “virtuous circle of inter-Korean and North Korea-US dialogue.”

“As soon as the North is ready, (I) hope that the South and the North can sit together to hold practical and detailed talks on ways to obtain results that go beyond the two North Korea-US summits,” Moon said.

As for the North Korean leader, Kim said he is open to meeting Trump for the third time during his policy speech Friday.

Kim, however, warned that the matter would become harder to resolve if the US does not take a different approach.

“On condition that the US takes the right position, and seeks a method that can be shared with us and offers a third summit, (I) am open to try one more time,” Kim said. He added that if conditions acceptable to both sides are suggested, he would sign the agreement without hesitation.

Trump responded to the statement in a Twitter message, saying that a third summit would be “good” and that his relationship with Kim was “excellent.”

The North Korean leader, however, set the deadline as the end of the year, and stressed that he no longer feels a need to “obsess over a summit with the US.”

In the speech, Kim also hinted at dissatisfaction with Seoul, calling on the South to stop playing the role of facilitator or mediator in the matter but to “become a directly involved party that defends the good of the people.”

By Choi He-suk (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)

Source: http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20190415000692

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Formal Ending Korean War.  Says N Korea willing to abolish all nuke weapons.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in yesterday called on the United States to move towards the nuclear-armed North’s demands for a declaration the Korean War is over, as the allies pursue increasingly different approaches towards Pyongyang.

Washington has shied away from a formal announcement that the 1950-53 conflict, when hostilities ceased with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, has ended, saying that the North must first take more steps towards giving up its atomic arsenal.

For its part Pyongyang — which long insisted it needed nuclear weapons to defend itself against a possible US invasion — has pledged only to work towards denuclearisation “of the Korean peninsula”, demanding simultaneous moves by Washington in return, with a peace declaration its first priority.

Moon emphasised North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s resolve to abandon nuclear and missile programmes, that the North pursued in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions, and focus on the economy if regime security is guaranteed.

“The North has stopped all nuclear and missile tests, dismantled its only nuclear test site and is now dismantling its missile engine test facilities, and is promising to take steps toward dismantling its Yongbyon nuclear complex if the US takes corresponding measures,” Moon told the BBC.

“Declaring the end of the war is a political declaration that the US would end decades of hostile relations with the North,” he said.

“Moving towards such a process is the corresponding measure the US should take,” he added, according to a transcript released by the presidential Blue House.

The comments, made ahead of Moon’s departure Saturday for a tour of European capitals, emphasise the increasing differences between Seoul and Washington, which has 28,500 troops stationed in the South to defend it from its neighbour.

Experts say the offers made by the North will have little impact on its military capabilities, and Pyongyang itself has said it has no further need to test its weapons.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has expressed “discontent” with an inter-Korean military pact reached during last month’s summit in a rare sign of disagreement between the allies.

Source: https://www.thedailystar.net/asia/news/moon-urges-us-move-1646374

The post Moon urges US Move first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.