Two Koreas agree: 

- to completely denuclearize Korean peninsula 
- to hold multi-party talks, involving US and China 
- to have high-level military talks in May - to establish 'firm peace regime' 
- Kim said he hopes two Koreas will reunite

New era, no more war: Two Koreas agree on complete denuclearization

Published time: 27 Apr, 2018 09:05Edited time: 27 Apr, 2018 09:59

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South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un © Reuters

A new era of peace is beginning, according to a declaration signed by the leaders of North and South Korea after their first meeting in over a decade. Both nations are aiming to completely denuclearize the Korean peninsula.

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"South and North Korea affirmed their shared objective of achieving a nuclear-free Korean peninsula through complete denuclearization,"reads the declaration signed by the leaders of the two countries, as cited by Yonhap.

“There will be no more war on the Korean peninsula, and a new age of peace has opened," the document adds.

The two sides also agreed to hold multi-party talks, involving the US and China, in their push for a full-scale truce. Pyongyang and Seoul are also to have high-level military talks in May.

In an ambitious statement after the signing ceremony, Kim said he hopes that the two Koreas will reunite. The states separated after the WWII and have remained hostile since the Korean War ended with an armistice, rather than a peace treaty, in 1953.

“Terminating the current state of the truce and establishing a firm peace regime is a historic task that [the two Koreas] can no longer delay," the leaders pointed out.

FEDERICO PIERACCINI | 30.03.2018 | WORLD / ASIA PACIFIC

Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un: Make Korea United Again!

Kim Jong-un's visit reveals much about the tactics that will be used in the negotiations between the Korean leader and the American president; it also consolidates a historical relationship between Pyongyang and Beijing

The recent meeting in Beijing between the two supreme leaders of DPRK and China has captured global attention. The summit remained secret throughout its duration, revealed by the Chinese leader only when the visit had ended and the Korean leader was on his way back home. Rumours of the encounter continued to be denied by the Chinese foreign minister right up to Tuesday. The denials had a lot to do with the fact that a positive outcome for the meeting, this being the first one, could not be guaranteed. The final statements, the relaxed atmosphere, the many images displaying mutual smiles and acknowledgement reveal that the two leaders of the Chinese and Korean Communist parties are on the same page. Despite wishful thinking from the US, which interpreted the lack of meetings in previous years as a change in Chinese attitudes towards North Korea, the meeting highlighted positive impressions by Xi Jinping about the developments on the peninsula as well as confirmed the strategic thinking of Kim Jong-un.

Kim Jong-Un's strategy deserves particular attention. The ability to deter aggression from the United States and South Korea existed well before Pyongyang’s development of a nuclear deterrent, thanks to the enormous number of artillery guns it has directed towards Seoul. A possible conflict would have caused millions of deaths, destroyed the American forces on the peninsula (the American bases would have been the first to be eliminated, really only being there to serve as a tripwire), and upset the alliance with Seoul, which would have borne an unacceptable toll. Kim Jong-un and his father had already secured a powerful enough deterrent to ward off aggression against their country. The strategy behind developing nuclear weapons becomes more clear following the just-concluded meeting with Xi Jinping.

COLUMNISTS

8 MARCH 2018

The inter-Korean agreement and Pyongyang's offer to Trump

Duyeon Kim

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DUYEON KIM

Kim is a visiting senior research fellow at the Korean Peninsula Future Forum, a non-partisan think tank in Seoul founded and run by former South Korean National Security Advisor Chun Yung-woo....

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has stepped up his peace offensive, playing a familiar game with his own particular flair. This week, South Korean presidential envoys returned to Seoul with news of having reached a six-point agreement with Pyongyang. South Korean national security advisor Chung Eui-yong then delivered the message to President Donald Trump that Kim Jong-un hopes to meet him by May—an invitation Trump accepted. The New York Times reported Thursday that White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed Trump would “meet with Kim Jong Un at a place and time to be determined. We look forward to the denuclearization of North Korea. In the meantime, all sanctions and maximum pressure must remain.”

It is certainly good news that the first-ever US-North Korea summit could take place this year. But the future remains uncertain and highly complicated because of their fundamentally opposed positions on the nuclear issue and many intertwined and complex regional issues.

Pyongyang’s latest overtures show that Kim wants to portray himself as a bold leader of a normal, peace-loving nuclear power who is willing to deal only with Washington—not Seoul—on the nuclear issue. His efforts this week are consistent with past attempts by North Korea to draw Seoul farther away from Washington, weaken the sanctions regime, and ensure its own survival. The inter-Korean agreement also fulfilled South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s wish list, granting him an early North-South summit and meeting the conditions Seoul needed to persuade the White House to begin talks with Pyongyang. The North’s acquiescence to the plan is, to be sure, a ploy designed to serve its own interests. But in spite of the deceptive cloak, the agreement posed an opportunity for the United States. It put the ball in Washington’s court, and provided a window for the Trump administration to engage and test the regime through direct negotiations.

There is much we still don’t know about how and why the plan was reached. Most important, it is as yet unclear how Pyongyang interprets the inter-Korean agreement. For now, all we have to go on is the South Korean delegation’s media briefing on the meeting’s outcomes and news of the invitation to Trump. Based on these, though, it is possible to break down the points to understand their implications. Here are the key items North and South Korea agreed to, and what they might mean for any future US-North Korea talks.

North and South Korea will hold a summit at the end of April in Panmunjom. The meeting will be the third-ever summit between the two Koreas, and the venue is notable. Whereas the 2000 and 2007 summits took place in Pyongyang, this one will take place in Panmunjom, a truce village in the demilitarized zone between the two countries, in the House of Peace, which is located on the South Korean side of the border. April’s venue is symbolic but also neutral for both Moon and Kim. Moon can avoid criticism that he is paying tribute to the North by rushing over to Pyongyang as two of his predecessors did. Kim can continue to adhere to his father’s staunch principle of avoiding a visit to Seoul. (It is said that during the 2000 summit, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il reluctantly agreed to pay a reciprocal visit to Seoul on South Korean President Kim Dae-jung’s insistence, a visit that never took place. Kim Jong-il was known to adamantly oppose setting foot in the South—the North believes that South Koreans should pay respect to their “superior” brethren.) A summit so soon means the two Koreas are planning to revive many exchanges and joint projects, a welcome development but one that will raise questions about sanctions and Washington’s pressure campaign against the North.