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SEOUL — Mr Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, will visit South Korea “in the near future,” he said on Wednesday (Sept 19) after meeting with the South’s president, Mr Moon Jae-in.
At a joint news conference with Mr Kim in North Korea, Mr Moon said he expected Mr Kim to visit Seoul, the South’s capital, before the end of the year.
Such a trip would be the first by any North Korean leader, another dramatic moment in the flurry of diplomacy around the North’s nuclear weapons program in recent months.
Mr Kim also said the two leaders had “made a firm commitment to exert active efforts to make the Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons and nuclear threat and turn it into a land of peace.”
His verbal statement did not mention any specific denuclearisation measures. But a joint statement he signed with Mr Moon on Wednesday said that the two leaders “shared an understanding” that “practical progress” was needed to achieve a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.
Based on that understanding, North Korea has agreed to “permanently dismantle” its missile-engine test facility and a missile launchpad in Dongchang-ri, in northwestern North Korea, and to allow outside inspectors to watch that process, the joint statement said.
The Dongchang-ri complex has been a key test centre for the North’s intercontinental ballistic missile program.
North Korea also promised to take additional steps, such as the “permanent dismantlement” of facilities in its main nuclear complex in Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, if the United States takes “corresponding measures,” the statement said.
The North has been demanding that Washington join the two Koreas in making a joint declaration ending the Korean War.
Mr Kim has previously committed to working toward denuclearisation, in joint statements with both Mr Moon and President Donald Trump.
His remarks in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, represented the first time he had made such a commitment verbally before an international audience. The news conference was broadcast live.
In a late-night tweet, Mr Trump described Mr Kim’s announcements as “Very exciting!”
The two leaders’ summit meeting in Pyongyang was their third, a three-day visit during which they planned to discuss improving inter-Korean ties and easing tensions along their countries’ border, the most militarised in the world.
It was Mr Moon’s first visit to Pyongyang as South Korea’s leader, and it came after the two met on the border in April and May.
The big question hovering over the talks has been whether Mr Kim would agree to take steps to convince Washington that he is willing to denuclearise.
American officials want to see concrete steps from the North, including submitting a full list of its nuclear weapons and facilities and fissile materials, and freezing of its nuclear activities.
Soon after Mr Moon arrived on Tuesday, Mr Kim expressed optimism about the future of the negotiations, thanking his counterpart for helping bring about his June summit meeting with Mr Trump in Singapore.
“Thanks to that meeting, the situation around the Korean Peninsula has stabilised, and we can now expect more progress,” Mr Kim said at the start of a two-hour meeting with Mr Moon at the headquarters of the ruling Workers’ Party, according to pool reports from South Korean journalists in Pyongyang.
South Korean analysts warned that much was at stake in Mr Moon’s efforts to mediate a breakthrough in the stalled dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang.
If he failed to coax Mr Trump and Mr Kim to hold a second summit meeting, they said, the Korean Peninsula might revert to the roiling tensions that put the region on the brink of war last year.
When Mr Moon’s special envoys visited Mr Kim in Pyongyang earlier this month, he told them that he was willing to denuclearise within Mr Trump’s first term.
But he said he would start taking phased actions toward that goal only if Washington reciprocated with “simultaneous” measures to prove that it was no longer hostile, the envoys said. At the same time, the North is continuing to expand its nuclear arsenal.
As a first step, the North wants the US to declare an end to the 1950-53 Korean War. The war was halted in a truce, not formally with a peace treaty, 65 years ago, leaving the peninsula still technically at war.
Next week, Mr Moon is expected to brief Mr Trump during a trip to the United Nations. Then, Mr Trump is expected to decide whether he will meet with Mr Kim again. White House officials said last week that Mr Kim had recently proposed a second meeting.
“If my visit helps restart North Korea-US dialogue, that itself will be highly meaningful,” Mr Moon said on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, Mr Kim greeted Mr Moon at the Pyongyang airport, kicking off a spectacle that stressed the ethnic affinity of the two Koreas, while giving few clues to whether he is willing to give up his nuclear weapons.
When Mr Moon stepped off his plane, a smiling Mr Kim was waiting on the tarmac with a military honour guard and a large crowd of Pyongyang citizens mobilised for his arrival.
After the two leaders hugged each other and moved to their cars, the crowd fervently chanted “Hurrah!” and “Peace and prosperity!” while waving plastic flowers and “Korea-is-one” flags that showed an undivided Korean Peninsula.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in is greeted at an official welcome ceremony at Pyongyang Sunan International Airport, in Pyongyang. Photo: Reuters
As the motorcade carrying Mr Moon and Mr Kim to a state guesthouse wove through Pyongyang, huge crowds, mostly women clad in bright flowing dresses, lined the boulevard, waving pink flowers and chanting for reunification.
Over the years, the North’s propaganda toward the South has mostly focused on ridiculing it as an “American running dog.” But when it seeks warmer ties with the South, it also stresses the ethnic affinity of the two nations.
Tuesday’s crowds were clearly mobilised to demonstrate the North Koreans’ adoration for Mr Kim and their support for his uriminzokkiri, or “among our nation,” policy of stressing inter-Korean cooperation while the North engages in a nuclear standoff with the Americans.
The highly choreographed crowds remain a regular phenomenon in North Korea, where the state routinely mobilises the populace as a way of keeping them loyal and disciplined, analysts say.
The motorcade passed major landmarks of Pyongyang: the Tower of Eternal Life, which honors Mr Kim’s grandfather and father, who ruled before him; Ryomyong Street, lined with pastel-colored skyscrapers built as Mr Kim’s signature project; and the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, where the Kims lie in state inside glass boxes.
Showing Mr Moon and his wife, Kim Jung-sook, to their suite in the state guesthouse, Mr Kim sounded apologetic about the state of the North’s economy, as he has before with Mr Moon. “This is shabby, compared to what we can find in developed countries,” he said.
On Tuesday morning, North Korea’s state media told its people of Mr Moon’s planned visit, saying it would “offer an important opportunity in further accelerating the development of inter-Korean relations that is making a new history.” It did not make any reference to its nuclear weapons program.
THE NEW YORK TIMES