Good start but short on details

Global experts show mixed responses to summit

By Kim Jae-kyoung

Sean King

SINGAPORE ― Hopes for lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula are greater than ever following Friday's historic inter-Korean summit between President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Some Koreans say they were highly impressed by Kim's sincere attitude. Others are already talking about unification.

However, international experts have given a mixed response to the first inter-Korean summit in a decade, saying it is too early to let guards down just because of the amicable atmosphere the talks created.

They said it was a good start but South Korea and the international community still need to maintain cautious optimism because the agreements made failed to give details about denuclearization.

Liang Tuang Nah

"The summit was better than expected because it actually occurred and progressed without obvious glitches," Katharine Moon, a professor of political science and the Wasserman Chair of Asian Studies at Wellesley College, told The Korea Times.

"Both leaders brought political and personal gravitas to the summit, and it is no small feat that Kim Jong-un walked over to the South Korean side."

Noting summits in 2000 and 2007 were in North Korea, she said: "This is completely different because Kim placed his feet on capitalist soil and enemy territory." Moon is also a senior research fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Liang Tuang Nah, a Singapore-based specialist on nuclear weapons politics and North Korean affairs, said what was significant was Kim's willingness to meet Moon on the South's soil.

Tara O

"Given the strong nationalist self-image of the North's leadership, I had assumed that it was more likely that Kim would have wanted Moon to travel to Pyongyang for their first meeting as an acknowledgement of the former's status," he said.

"That the summit was actually held at Panmunjeom could have been Kim's attempt to signal that he is willing to set aside North Korean hubris and project the image of a respectable national leader."

Nah, a research fellow at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies at RSIS in Singapore, said the spirit of national reconciliation evident in the declaration is arguably the same as the sentiments shared by Seoul and Pyongyang during earlier summits.

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"However, some parts stand out due to deeper implications, such as a sub-statement where 'both sides agreed to ... fully implement all existing agreements and declarations adopted between the two sides thus far,'" he said.

Katharine Moon

He thinks this line implies that Pyongyang has renewed its commitment to the 1992 Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

"This could potentially be used in future nuclear negotiations to prevent Northern delegations from stalling," he said.

Another noteworthy point from the sub-statement, from Nah's perspective, is that the declaration substantiates President Moon's agreement to attend another summit with Kim in autumn.

"This will give South Korea at least another five months of stability as the North will be on its best behavior in the short term. This should boost southern business confidence," Nah said.

Will North Korea de-nuke?

Despite the overall positive response to the summit, many analysts still remain skeptical over the North's complete denuclearization, saying the talks have built rapport but the joint declaration lacks details.

"I believe the North will pursue some aspects of de-escalating their nuclear programs but they will not aim for complete denuclearization unless and until they feel more secure _ from U.S. military power/threats and through continued interactions with the South," Katharine Moon said.

Some believe there is little chance Kim will give up his country's nuclear weapons program unless the U.S completely withdraws from South Korea.

Tara O, an adjunct fellow at Pacific Forum CSIS, said the two Koreas agreed on the "complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," not "denuclearization of North Korea."??

"This means denuclearization of South Korea," she said.?"South Korea doesn't have a nuclear weapons program, so that means the nuclear umbrella and military capabilities of the U.S.

"So that was not about denuclearizing North Korea. It was about a U.S. military withdrawal from the Korean Peninsula, and the end of the alliance that provides such capability."

Sean King, senior vice president of Park Strategies, concurred.

"This kind of talk is nothing more than North Korean code for severing America's defense commitment to South Korea," he said.

Citing the German unification case, he stressed that focus should be on flooding North Korea with as much outside information as possible to bring meaningful changes to the North.

"While the situations are not directly analogous, outside media and information were key in leading East Germans to question their own government," he said.

"East Germans watched West German television to not only find out what was going on in West Germany but, perhaps more importantly, to find out what was actually going on in their own East Germany."