[ad_1]
Shin Beomchul, senior scientist at the Asan Institute for Political Studies and former director general for policy planning at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of South Korea, warned that Moon had "taken a big risk" by continuing to so aggressive the inter-Korean cooperation, even without significant concessions from the North on its nuclear weapons.
"I think Moon Jae-in's bet is this: first trust North Korea, then check later," he said. "Trust is essential, but denuclearization is the most important on the Korean peninsula."
Shin said that North Korea would gain confidence if it allowed credible inspections and provided a complete description of its nuclear weapons, the amount of enriched uranium in its possession and all its associated facilities.
"I think we need to monitor North Korea's real action on denuclearization and gradually expand our cooperation with the North. I think that confidence building is too fast, compared to North Korea's effort to denuclearize. "
This is not the view of the South Korean Foreign Minister, Kang Kyung-wha, who recently claimed that the demand for a complete nuclear inventory could complicate the negotiations at this stage. She added that the United States should first consider building confidence, for example a declaration ending the Korean War, suspended during an armistice in 1953.
US officials fear that an end-of-war declaration will allow North Korea to demand the withdrawal of US troops from South Korea.
Shin warned that if denuclearization talks fail, this could cause "friction" in South Korea-US relations, in part because of Seoul's key role in communicating the Pyongyang program .
Jenny Town, a research analyst at the Stimson Center in Washington and editor of the influential 38 North website, said she thought Moon had stressed too much the importance of Kim's commitments up to present.
Town said at a conference in Seoul that if Trump felt fooled or frustrated, the answer "could get very quickly ugly."
However, experts close to Moon claim that he has managed the risks.
Kim Joon-hyung, a professor at Handong Global University, a member of a presidential planning committee responsible for security and foreign policy, said Moon was "very cautious" about his role as mediator between the states. And the North on the nuclear issue. If South Korea insisted too much, the United States would feel under pressure, he said.
At the same time, Moon acts as an "accelerator of the Korean peace process" and tries to "break 70 years of mistrust" on the peninsula. "We should be critical, not cynical – I think this time is different," said the professor.
Kim, the North Korean defender, said that she thought the mood had changed.
She said that Kim Jong Un had already seemed "foreign" to many South Koreans, but the recent highs had allowed the world to hear his voice and see him move, making him more like a human being. .
"But that does not mean that what Kim Jong Un does is good," she told Teach's North North Korean Refugees office, a non-profit NGO that helped her improve her English skills to become a confident public speaker.
Although she hopes for a closer integration of the two Koreas, she really wants to stop human rights violations in the North. Having already written a book about her experiences, she plans to start a master's degree in sociology.
"My story is not over," she said. "I hope the change will come true. However, I do not trust Kim's diet. "
