Koreas arrange new summit, North ‘committed to denuclearization’

North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un has reiterated his commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, state media report, as Pyongyang and Seoul arrange a third summit.

“The North and the South should further their efforts to realize the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Thursday cited Kim as saying when he received a high-level South Korean delegation in Pyongyang on Wednesday.

KCNA said Kim wanted the peninsula — the site of long-running tensions and massive military activity by the United States and its regional allies — to become “the cradle of peace.”

“It is our fixed stand and his (Kim’s) will to completely remove the danger of armed conflict and horror of war from the Korean Peninsula and turn it into the cradle of peace without nuclear weapons and free from nuclear threat,” it said.

The high-level South Korean presidential delegation traveled to Pyongyang on Wednesday to arrange a new inter-Korean summit and break a deadlock in denuclearization talks between the North and the US.

The delegation was led by South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s special envoy Chung Eui-yong.

KCNA said the North Korean leader and the delegates exchanged “wide-ranging opinions” over the schedule for the potential summit and “came to a satisfactory agreement.”

Summit due later in September

After his return from the North, Chung announced that the leaders of the two Koreas would hold the summit in Pyongyang from September 18 to 20.

It would be the third summit between Kim and Moon.

The two Koreas fought a war in the early 1950s. It ended with a truce and not a peace treaty. Ever since, the US military, which fought in the war on behalf of South Korea, has maintained massive presence in the region, holding up the prospect of alleged North Korean aggression.

But Kim initiated a rapprochement with South Korea in January, and soon met with President Moon — once in April and another time in May.

A message for the US

The US also sought to diplomatically engage North Korea. US President Donald Trump held a summit of his own with Kim in Singapore in July.

Follow-on diplomacy between Washington and Pyongyang has however stalled.

Chung, the South Korean presidential envoy, said Kim had expressed his “intention to work closely with the US” and “achieve the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” but had also expressed a “sense of frustration” with the international community for not appreciating Pyongyang’s “very significant and meaningful” steps.

According to Chung, the North Korean leader stressed that Pyongyang had dismantled its nuclear test site in Punggye-ri, where nuclear tests “have been made impossible for good.”

“Chairman Kim asked us to convey the message to the US that the US (should) help create situations where he would feel his decision to denuclearize was a right move,” Chung added.

Trump, who hopes to make a success of his diplomacy with North Korea, is likely to take the developments positively. He had earlier expressed hope that the South Korean envoy would bring good news from North Korea and that a third inter-Korean summit would be successful.

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