When North meets South: what’s at stake as two Koreas sit down?
South Korean President Moon Jae-in has bet it all on his high-stakes meeting with his counterpart in the North, Kim Jong-un. And unlike Trump, he can’t threaten to fold if things don’t go his way
“I think Moon’s whole career is focused on trying to transform the environment from one of conflict to peace and this summit is critical to that,” said Bruce W. Bennett, an expert in Northeast Asian military issues with the RAND Corporation.
Moon has made rapprochement with the regime the most important policy of his young presidency, and he will have much at stake when he arrives at the Freedom House on the southern side of the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) on Friday to meet his North Korean counterpart, who, in turn, may have put his own life at stake.
Despite the gathering storm clouds, Bennett is hopeful. “Moon does not have the option of walking away, but the meetings before the summit have gone pretty well, so [many] of the agreements already exist and only need to be ratified”.
This would presumably include Moon’s announcement on Thursday that – in addition to halting its weapons programmes and acceding to US-South Korea joint military drills – North Korea will no longer demand a US withdrawal from South Korea as a precondition for denuclearisation. Another recent agreement expected to be formalised at the summit is the conclusion of the armistice and official ending of the Korean war.