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Seoul, South 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-level diplomacy aimed at ridding the country of North Korea's nuclear weapons.
In a speech to Parliament, Moon said that a second North Korean-US conflict was planned. 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 had already said that Kim would have told him that he would travel to Seoul 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 use diplomacy to solve the nuclear problem.
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 to 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 questioned the possibility that Kim's trip to Seoul will take place by December.
Moon, a Liberal who took office last year, is in favor of a negotiated settlement of the international stalemate that has lasted 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 faced growing skepticism about whether his policy of engagement would end the nuclear stalemate against the ups and downs of his diplomatic thrust. Many conservatives in South Korea and the United States claim that North Korea does not intend to give up its nuclear program entirely, but only in order to gain time to perfect its weapons program.
Since the start of the nuclear talks earlier this year, North Korea has suspended nuclear testing and missiles and dismantled its nuclear test site. The United States has suspended some of its annual military exercises with South Korea, but is reluctant to provide the North with significant political or economic benefits unless it takes more serious disarmament measures.
