Moon steps in when Trump and Kim fall out

Seoul

WHEN US President Donald Trump abruptly scrapped their planned summit, Kim Jong Un sought out someone he knew would come over for a chat: South Korean leader Moon Jae-in.

Mr Moon's surprise meeting with the North Korean leader on Saturday shows he's willing to do what it takes to keep diplomacy on track and avoid a return to threats of war over North Korea's nuclear programme. Mr Moon called the gathering a meaningful attempt to clear up "some difficulties in communication" as the two leaders shared warm words on the northern side of their border.

More significantly, Mr Moon secured the restart of ministerial-level inter-Korean talks on June 1, followed by a dialogue between military leaders and a Red Cross meeting to reunite families separated by the war. North Korea, which cancelled the talks earlier this month in a sign of reemerging tensions, said the two leaders agreed to "meet frequently in the future". Mr Moon pledged to visit Pyongyang later this year.

For the moment, Mr Moon has maintained an appearance as a neutral middleman who can bridge the gap between Mr Trump and Mr Kim, two reactive leaders who create a high risk of miscalculation. Yet over the longer term, Mr Moon's desire to cut a peace deal with North Korea during his single five-year term means Mr Trump could find it harder to enforce his "maximum pressure" campaign if talks break down again.

Mr Kim has now separately met Mr Moon and Chinese President Xi Jinping twice in the past three months, and both leaders have pledged to strengthen ties with his regime. South Korea and China account for almost all of North Korea's land borders, so their support is essential for enforcing sanctions ramped up last year after Mr Kim declared the ability to strike the United States with a nuclear weapon.

"With South Korea and China already talking to the North, it's hard for Trump to reignite his campaign at this point or after the summit fails," said Namkoong Young, who has advised South Korea's Unification Ministry and the Foreign Ministry on policy for almost 10 years.

"In Trump's thinking, his 'maximum pressure' would've resulted in Kim kneeling and returning to dialogue in surrender anyway if it reached the boiling point," he added. "But Moon interrupted this by reinstating inter-Korean exchanges."

Mr Trump's team believes the "maximum pressure" campaign to strangle North Korea's economy is working, and Mr Kim's regime will have to come to the table eventually, according to a person familiar with the administration's thinking.

North Korea's push to get the summit back on track shows that it's probably looking for sanctions relief, even as Mr Kim retains concerns about his own security.

Even so, Mr Trump has clashed with both China and South Korea over the best approach to dealing with Mr Kim, as well as on issues like trade.

Before cancelling the summit last week, Mr Trump said that China had eased up enforcement of sanctions on its border. Bloomberg News reported Friday that China is still severely restricting cross-border trade, although optimism is growing that commerce will once again increase.

Mr Moon, meanwhile, didn't get an advance warning from Mr Trump that he was cancelling the summit even though the leaders had met only 48 hours earlier. He expressed frustration immediately afterward, calling the move "very regrettable". South Korean officials have since attributed the communications gap to time differences.

China, South Korea and the US all back denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, but differ on how to make that happen. The Trump-Kim summit hit a snag after North Korea lambasted US Vice President Mike Pence and National Security Adviser John Bolton for suggesting it give up its nuclear weapons before receiving anything in return - the so-called Libya model.

Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi agreed in 2003 to give up his weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear arms, in return for sanctions relief. He ended up getting killed at the hands of US-backed rebels less than a decade later.

"Chairman Kim clearly appealed once again that his intent to completely denuclearise the Korean Peninsula is firm," Mr Moon said. "What's unclear for Chairman Kim, in my opinion, is not his willingness for denuclearisation, but whether he can certainly trust the US saying that it'll end hostile relations and guarantee the security of his regime after his denuclearisation."

In a conciliatory statement on Friday aimed at getting the summit back on track, North Korea said it favoured a "Trump formula" to resolve tensions and praised the president for agreeing to meet Mr Kim. His regime has couched denuclearisation in global terms and called for a step-by-step process, saying it would have no need for nuclear weapons once its leadership felt secure.

South Korea is reviewing ways to address North Korea's security concerns, including turning the current armistice into a peace agreement, a senior Moon administration official said on Sunday. Mr Moon said he would seek a trilateral summit with Mr Trump and Mr Kim to officially end the war if their meeting is successful.

Still, there's no sense of a consensus yet on denuclearisation. Mr Moon sidestepped a question on Sunday on whether Mr Kim clearly mentioned if he would agree to the US demand for complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearisation, saying that the two sides would need to discuss it at working-level talks. BLOOMBERG