The Korea Times
President Moon Jae-in and his U.S. counterpart, Donald Trump, plan to hold a summit next month in Washington D.C. the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said Friday, amid a stalemate in nuclear talks between the U.S. and North Korea.
Moon will arrive in the U.S. on April 10 and hold a summit with Trump the following day, his office said.
It will be their first meeting since the breakdown of last month’s summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Hanoi.
“The leaders will have in-depth talks to discuss ways to strengthen the Seoul-Washington alliance and to coordinate their stance on setting up a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula through complete denuclearization,” Yoon Do-han, senior secretary for public relations, said at a briefing.
The Trump-Kim summit ended without any agreement due to differences on the scope of North Korea’s denuclearization and sanctions relief by Washington.
The U.S. said the North demanded the lifting of sanctions “in their entirety” in exchange for its offer to dismantle only the main Yongbyon nuclear complex. Washington wants denuclearization in other areas, reportedly including uranium enrichment facilities hidden elsewhere.
But the North claimed that it only demanded partial relief of sanctions linked to people’s livelihoods and that the U.S. pressed the North to do more in addition to removing the Yongbyon facilities.
The U.S. said it remains open to dialogue with North Korea despite the summit breakdown, and will seek denuclearization talks while maintaining pressure and sanctions on the North. (Yonhap)