North Korea's Kim wants another Trump summit to speed denuclearisation

South Korean President Moon Jae-in says he was told by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that he wants a second summit with President Donald Trump as soon as possible and the US secretary of state to come to Pyongyang for nuclear talks.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, first lady Kim Jung-sook, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his wife Ri Sol-ju attend a luncheon at Samjiyon Guesthouse in Ryanggang province, North Korea. September 20, 2018.
Reuters

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, first lady Kim Jung-sook, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his wife Ri Sol-ju attend a luncheon at Samjiyon Guesthouse in Ryanggang province, North Korea. September 20, 2018.

North Korea's Kim Jong-un wants a second summit with US President Donald Trump soon, to hasten denuclearisation, but a key goal is declaring an end this year to the 1950-53 Korean War, the South's President Moon Jae-in said on Thursday.

Moon said he and Kim spent most of a three-day summit discussing how to break an impasse and restart nuclear talks between Pyongyang and Washington. The US and North Korea remain at odds over which should come first, denuclearisation or ending the war.

Kim, who recently proposed another summit with Trump after their unprecedented June talks in Singapore, said the North was willing to "permanently dismantle" key missile facilities in the presence of outside experts, and the Yongbyon main nuclear complex, if the US took corresponding action.

TRT World's Reagan Des Vignes reports.

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The joint statement from the summit stipulates Kim's commitment to a "verifiable, irreversible dismantlement" of the nuclear programmes, and ending the war would be a first US reciprocal step, Moon said.

"Chairman Kim expressed his wish that he wanted to complete denuclearisation quickly and focus on economic development," Moon told a news conference in Seoul, shortly after returning from the summit with Kim in Pyongyang.

"He hoped a second summit with Trump would take place in the near future, in order to move the denuclearisation process along quickly."

Moon said Kim was also open to the inspection of a nuclear test site in the northwest town of Punggye-ri, which he called the North's sole existing facility for underground detonations.

While Pyongyang has stopped nuclear and missile tests this year, it failed to keep its pledge to allow international inspections of its dismantling of the Punggye-ri site in May, stirring criticism that the move could be reversed.

Representatives of the White House and the US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday he had invited the North's foreign minister to meet in New York next week and other Pyongyang officials to Vienna for talks with nuclear envoy Stephen Biegun.

TRT World's North America correspondent Jon Brain reports on the future of NK-US relations from Washington.

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Ending the Korean War

Kim pledged to work toward the "complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula" during two meetings with Moon and his encounter with Trump, but follow-up negotiations on how to implement the vague commitments have since faltered.

Washington calls for concrete action, such as a full disclosure of North Korea's nuclear and missile facilities, before satisfying Pyongyang's key demands, including an official end to the war and the easing of international sanctions.

The war ended in an armistice, rather than a peace treaty, meaning US-led United Nations forces, including South Korea, are technically still at war with the North.

But there have been concerns in South Korea and the United States that ending the war would ultimately prompt China and Russia, if not North Korea, to demand that the United Nations Command (UNC), which overlaps with US forces in South Korea, be disbanded and leave.

Seoul aims to jointly announce with the United States an end to the war within this year, a measure Moon said he would discuss with Trump when they meet next week at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

An end-of-war declaration would not affect the presence of US troops and the UNC in the South, Moon said, adding that Kim shared his view.

"It would be a political declaration that would mark a starting point for peace negotiations," Moon said.

"A peace treaty would be sealed, as well as normalisation of North Korea-US relations, after the North achieves complete denuclearisation." 

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