Kim Jong Un will soon travel to Seoul: Moon

SEOUL, North Korea – South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Thursday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would be traveling to Seoul "soon" as part of a wave of high diplomacy. level to rid North Korea of ​​its nuclear weapons.

In a speech to Parliament, Moon said a second North American war against Korea The summit is "near" and Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to visit North Korea soon. Moon also said that he was expecting Kim to visit Russia soon and that he will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Moon has already said that Kim would have told him that he will be going to Seoul sometime later this year when the leaders met in Pyongyang in September. The South Korean presidential office said Thursday later that he had nothing to add to Moon's speech on Kim's trip. His comments were consistent with previous statements, said the Blue House. They suggest that Moon is determined to pursue diplomacy to solve the nuclear problem.

"Now, based on mutual trust, North and North Korea and the United States will achieve the complete denuclearization and lasting peace of the Korean Peninsula.," Said Moon. "It's an opportunity that comes as a miracle – it's something we should never miss."

The prospects for a second summit between Kim and President Donald Trump have improved after the fourth visit of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the North. Korea earlier this month. But no breakthrough ensued. US officials have recently announced that a second Trump-Kim summit would likely take place early next year. Some experts have doubted the possibility that Kim's trip to Seoul will be realized by December

Moon, a liberal who took office last year, is in favor of a negotiated resolution of the international stalemate that has prevailed for several decades in the face of North Korea's nuclear ambitions. He facilitated a series of high-level exchanges between the United States and North Korea, including their first-ever summit in Singapore in June.

But Moon is facing growing skepticism about whether its policy of engagement will end the nuclear stalemate between ups and downs. down in its diplomatic thrust. Many conservatives in South Korea and the United States said that North Korea did not intend to completely abandon its nuclear program, but only the time needed to perfect its nuclear program. # 39; armament.

Since entering the nuclear negotiations earlier this year, North Korea has ended nuclear power. and missile testing and dismantled its nuclear test site. The United States has suspended some of its annual military exercises with South Korea, but is reluctant to bring significant political or economic benefits to the North unless it takes more serious disarmament measures.

The two Koreas remain divided along the most fortified border in the world. for three years, the Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice. If Kim, a third-generation hereditary leader, traveled to Seoul, he would be the first North Korean leader to cross the border with the South since the end of the war. Last year, fears of a second war on the peninsula grew when he traded threats of destruction and rude insults with Trump about North Korea's willingness to to develop a nuclear missile capable of striking the American continent.