Thread: North and South Korea resume talks as Trump awaits 'personal letter' from Kim Jong Un

North and South Korea resume talks as Trump awaits 'personal letter' from Kim Jong Un

Friday 01 June 2018

American officials are also meeting with the North Koreans in a bid to secure the 12 June summit between Mr Trump and Mr Kim.

North and South Korea have resumed peace talks as Donald Trump awaits a "personal letter" from Kim Jong Un amid a US-led push to persuade Pyongyang to end its nuclear programme.

The meeting at the demilitarised border village of Panmunjom - which was initially called off in response to a joint US-South Korea air force drill - follows talks in New York between US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and North Korean vice chairman Kim Yong Chol.

American diplomats are also meeting with North Koreans in the demilitarised zone as well as in Singapore in a bid to secure the 12 June summit between Mr Trump and Mr Kim.

South Korea plans to use Friday's talks to address tensions across their heavily armed border as well as reuniting families separated during the Korean War, which took place between 1950 and 1953.

Seoul's unification minister Cho Myoung-gyon told reporters before the meeting: "We will hold discussions with the North so that we can implement the agreements between the two leaders with pace and without hitches and also create a positive atmosphere for the leaders' summit between North Korea and the United States."

Mr Pompeo has since told a news conference he was confident talks with North Korean officials were moving in the right direction and that it would be "tragic to let this opportunity go to waste".

He said Kim Yong Chol, one of the North Korean leader's closest aides and the highest-ranking North Korean official to visit the US in 18 years, was travelling to Washington to deliver a "personal letter" from Kim Jong Un to President Trump.

Mr Trump responded by saying: "I look forward to seeing what's in the letter."

Following the meeting with Kim Yong Chol, Mr Pompeo said: "Our two countries face a pivotal moment in our relationship in which it could be nothing short of tragic to let this opportunity go to waste."

The US secretary of state warned North Korea had to choose a path "fundamentally different" to the one they had been on for decades.

Mr Pompeo said the secretive state was "contemplating a strategic shift" - and that talks to prepare a meeting about denuclearisation were going well.

Mr Trump said this morning: "Will see what happens... hopefully we will have a meeting on the 12th".

The recent developments follow a historic meeting between Mr Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in in April, when the pair agreed to a "complete denuclearisation" of their peninsula.

However, relations worsened when Pyongyang cancelled an inter-Korean meeting and threatened to walk away from its scheduled summit with President Trump following the South's joint military exercises with the US.

The American leader later cancelled the 12 June summit before backtracking shortly before the North and South Korean leaders met again for a second time and agreed to resume talks between the two countries.

Previously, Washington has demanded that the North agree to a "complete, verifiable and irreversible" end to Pyongyang's nuclear program while Kim Jong Un continues to seek international recognition and security guarantees.

https://news.sky.com/story/north-and...ng-un-11391442

Looks promising! I hope the letter is good news. If this happens with a Peace Treaty this will be one of the best things to happen in international relations in a very very long time.

North Korea proposes joint celebration of 2000 summit during talks

Hyonhee Shin
May 31, 2018 / 11:14 PM
Updated 23 minutes ago
4 Min Read

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea suggested during high-level talks on Friday that the two Koreas hold a joint celebration of the anniversary of a historic 2000 inter-Korean summit this month in the South, an official in Seoul said
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The meeting in the border village of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea is the latest in a flurry of diplomatic activity intended to salvage a thaw in relations with the isolated North.

North Korea had called off a planned meeting with the South last month in protest against U.S.-South Korean air combat drills before South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un revived it during a surprise second summit on Saturday.

The meeting was led by South Korea’s Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon and Ri Son Gwon, chairman of the North’s committee for the peaceful reunification of the country.

Both sides discussed ways to follow up on the agreement reached during the first summit between Kim and Moon in April that included working-level military, sports and forest cooperation, a unification ministry official told reporters.

The North suggested that officials, politicians and private sector members from both sides should take part in the joint celebration of the first-ever inter-Korean summit, the official said.

The South called for a swift launch of a joint liaison office in the North Korean border city of Kaesong, where the two Koreas operated a factory park together until its closure in 2016.

North Korea agreed but said it needed some repair work because the facilities had been unused, the official said.

Ri blamed Cho during the meeting for having incurred a “grave situation” that led to the North’s last-minute cancellation of last month’s talks.

Ri did not give specific information but Pyongyang has lashed out at Seoul for allowing Thae Yong Ho, a former North Korean diplomat to Britain who defected to the South in 2016, to hold the launch of a book in parliament in which he describes Kim as “impatient, impulsive and violent”.

The North also demands the repatriation of a dozen North Korean restaurant workers, who came to the South in 2016 via China, claiming that they were abducted by the South. Seoul has said they decided to defect of their own free will.

“We don’t talk about what happened in the past. You just need to not repeat it again,” Ri said.

He said another, unspecified issue that was not discussed in his talks with Cho in a January meeting had since become “a source of mistrust between the North and South”.

“It is a very serious problem. Depending on how to lead public opinion, it would decide on whether a mood of reconciliation and cooperation, or mistrust and confrontation is created between the North and South,” Ri said.

Cho said he agreed the sides should increase transparency over what is discussed in the talks and speed up efforts to improve bilateral relations.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-n...-idUSKCN1IX3HG

This is truly historic. Look at all that is going on.

1. denuclearization
2. peace with US
3. peace with South and North Korea
4. opening their border to their people
5. reunification on some level
6. peace with Japan
7. improved relations with Russia
8. better relationship with China
9. rebuilding their economy with neighbors and maybe some private investment help from US (but not required)

It's an amazing thing to watch. Americans haven't had this chance to see something like this happen since WWII. In fact, when you think about it, this Peace Treaty with North Korea will actually mark the end of WWII for the United States. It will be a beautiful thing for our still living WWII and Korean War Vets to see and know finally the war is over and the peace they fought for has been reached.