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Explainer
Will Kim give up his nukes? All eyes on the inter-Korean summit
The leaders of North and South Korea will meet on Friday for the first summit in a decade. What do both sides want and how likely are they to happen?
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Updated
By Kelsey Munro
Image: A marine soldier walks by a TV screen in Seoul showing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in. (AP)
US President Donald Trump’s surprise plan to meet the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in the coming weeks has grabbed all the headlines. But seasoned Korea watchers say the Inter-Korean summit on 27 April is more important.
How did we get here?
Just six months ago, the world appeared to be racing headlong towards nuclear conflict on the Korean peninsula. North Korea tested a hydrogen bomb and intercontinental ballistic missiles that could reach the US. Mr Trump threatened “fire and fury”, Mr Kim threatened Guam. In an unprecedented move, China and Russia backed US plans in the Security Council for heavy sanctions against the North.
But then came February’s Winter Olympics in South Korea, and with it, friendly overtures from the North to the South. Mr Kim’s sister Kim Yo-jong represented him at the Games and held extensive talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
Following a meeting between South Korean envoys and Mr Kim in early March, on 8 March – slated for late May or early June. Not to be outdone, China’s President Xi Jinping delivered a surprise summit of his own with Mr Kim visiting Beijing on 25 March. Signals that the North Korea leadership was ready to talk came loud and clear from the Beijing meeting: Kim said denuclearisation was the will of his ancestors.
And now, President Moon will meet the North Korean leader on 27 April in the demilitarised zone between the two countries, Panmunjom.
South Korea's President Moon Jae-in with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's sister Kim Yo Jong on February 10. Source: KCNA/AFP/Getty Images
Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping in Beijing on 27 March. Source: KCNA/Getty Images
But why has North Korea, an isolated nation which does not have normal diplomatic channels to talk with South Korea or any other US allies, performed such a dramatic about-face? Perhaps only Kim knows the real reason.
Professor Kim Sung-chull from the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University told SBS News: “South Koreans are all the more curious about the motivation of Kim's sudden attitude change - [was it] Trump's maximum pressure, [Kim’s] completion of nuclear capability, or both of them?”
Mr Trump last week said the inter-Korean summit could, to formally close the conflict.
What does Kim want?
Good question. There is deep scepticism among Northeast Asian security experts about the North Korean regime's real intentions; because in the past conciliatory approaches to the North have seen Pyongyang gain financially and yet continue to develop weapons in defiance of international agreements.
A central question is what exactly Kim is talking about when he talks about denuclearisation. Some analysts think he is talking about the removal of all nuclear weapons; that is, he will give up his nukes if the US do too, and there is a full US forces withdrawal from the Korean peninsula, which neither Seoul nor Washington will countenance.
Professor Kim Sung-Chull said he believed the North’s primary aim is to weaken or break the US-South Korea alliance. Part of this, he said, was efforts like fielding the unified Korea team at the Winter Olympics to win the hearts and minds of the South, to press ideas of Korean kinship over the US alliance.
“In addition, the summit is the second chance for Kim to locate himself at the international stage, following the China visit last month,” Professor Kim said. “He is highly likely to exert conditions, for instance, that the US guarantees the North Korean regime and peace on the peninsula.”
What does the South want?
President Moon’s government “expects Kim Jong-un to clearly express the intention of denuclearisation and make room for South Korea to play mediator between the North and the US," Professor Kim Sung-han, the Dean of International Studies at Korea University in Seoul told SBS News.
The South has signalled it will push for a phased-in deal to permit North Korea to give up its nukes in stages. This is distinct from the US position which has previously called for a commitment to denuclearisation as a precondition for talks.
In South Korean domestic politics, Mr Moon’s Democratic Party of Korea has traditionally sought conciliation and engagement with the North, against the conservative side of politics’ harder and more militaristic line. Elected with just 41 per cent of the vote, even after his conservative predecessor Park Geun-hye was swept from office and , Mr Moon doesn’t exactly have a sweeping mandate.
People hold signs reading "successful summit between South and North Koreas" during the welcoming event for the summit in downtown Seoul on 21 April. Source: AP
But since Mr Moon came to office, the South has secured some concessions from the North: Kim agreed to hold this summit in Panmunjom, the truce village in the fortified border between the two Koreas, instead of Pyongyang where the previous two summits were held. Before the summits were announced Kim promised to refrain from any more nuclear or missile tests while talks are ongoing. , so the two countries can talk to each other, has been reopened and there are plans to establish a direct line between the two Korean leaders.
Will there be a positive outcome?
History will temper the South’s expectations of the North’s commitment to peace talks. This Inter-Korean summit will be the first in a decade and only the third since the end of the Korean War, following the 2000 meeting between President Kim Dae-jung and Chairman Kim Jong-il, the current North Korean leader's father; and the 2007 summit between President Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Jong-Il.
President Moon was chief of staff to President Roh in 2007, so he has close experience of how negotiations with the North have unfolded in the past. Not well, in short.
Two years after the 2000 Inter-Korean summit, US President George W. Bush labelled the North among his three “axis of evil” countries, and a year later Pyongyang withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and declared itself a nuclear-armed power.
There was somewhat more optimism after the 2007 summit, which paralleled the Six-Party Talks between the Koreas, Russia, the US, China and Japan; but President Roh lost office a few months after the two Koreas reached a joint peace agreement known as the October 4 declaration. Talks later broke down after Pyongyang missed key disarmament deadlines, and by May 2009, the North broke the agreement again by conducting its second nuclear weapon test.
Some revival of the October 2007 agreement which laid out steps towards peace would be on the cards for this summit, Professor Kim Sung-han said. In his view it is not too optimistic to hope for “Kim Jong-un to clearly express his will to give up nuclear weapons and propose a rough roadmap for denuclearisation.”
But Professor Kim Sung-chull disagrees. “ It would be too optimistic if anyone expects a concrete outcome particularly on denuclearisation at the coming summit,” he said. “Kim Jong-un is unlikely to unveil his detailed plan about the issue. Basically, North Korea does not want to discuss the nuclear issue with South Korea. They treat it as an issue between North Korea and the US.”
How will it impact the Trump-Kim summit?
Heavily. US-based Korea expert David Kang argues in a piece published on the that if the Inter-Korean summit doesn’t go well, the Trump-Kim summit won’t even happen.
Other observers point out that the experienced South Korean team with its deep understanding of the history, culture and complexities of the North is in a far better position than the notoriously erratic and uninformed US president to negotiate a sensible outcome.
The Americans want what they call CVID, “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation”, moves towards which the North Koreans have consistently resisted or subverted since the beginning of the Six Party Talks in the early 2000s. At best, the Inter-Korean summit will improve the US understanding of what Kim means when he talks about denuclearisation, and set up conditions and negotiating points for a productive Trump-Kim summit.
