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US President Donald Trump talks with Kim Yong-chol

The successful conclusion of the meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Yong-chol, vice chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea and director of the WPK United Front Department, at the White House on June 1 finalizes Trump’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, which is scheduled to take place in Singapore on June 12. In light of the considerable skepticism about whether the Trump-Kim summit would actually be pulled off, Kim Yong-chol’s visit to the US can be considered a definite success simply for making the summit a reality.

While trust makes negotiations possible, there are sometimes cases in which dialogue makes it possible to build trust. It is fortunate that North Korea and the US, which have long been in a hostile relationship, appear to have gained a little confidence about achieving success in the denuclearization talks through various working-level meetings, Kim Yong-chol’s visit to the US and the delivery of Kim Jong-un’s personal letter. It is to be hoped that this mood will be sustained not only during the summit in Singapore but also in subsequent developments.

Trump’s confirmation that the summit will take place was only one of several notable aspects of his remarks following his meeting with Kim Yong-chol. “I never said it goes in one meeting. [. . .] The process will begin on June 12th in Singapore,” he said.

This can be interpreted as representing a departure from the “all-in-one” approach and as signifying the recognition that dismantling North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile program will take some time. While we cannot conclude that the disagreement over the North’s desire for gradual denuclearization has been resolved, this is a positive signal that Trump is viewing the issue of North Korea’s nuclear program a little more realistically.

Of particular interest is the fact that Trump stated that officially ending the Korean War would be discussed prior to the North Korea-US summit. This statement increases the likelihood of South Korea, North Korea and the US declaring the end of the war after the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore, something that the South Korean government has been attempting to orchestrate. There has reportedly been considerable opposition in the US government to the idea of officially ending the Korean War before a peace treaty has been signed. But now that Trump has mentioned this himself, the situation has basically changed.

Declaring the end of the war would be of great symbolic significance since it would announce to the entire world that war has ended on the Korean Peninsula—the only place on earth where the Cold War technically continues—and that a great push toward peace, reconciliation and coexistence has begun. This is also critical in that it would relieve the anxiety that North Korea might feel about the mismatch of timing in the swap between denuclearization and a guarantee of regime security. Even though Trump has withdrawn his previous position and adopted a more practical approach, the regime security that the US can provide—by normalizing diplomatic relations and signing a peace treaty, for example—will only be possible after North Korea has completely dismantled its nuclear program.

The North likely wants a more definite guarantee, even if only a transitional one, during the denuclearization process. Even though a declaration of the end of the war is largely a political declaration, it can be regarded as being very significant since it means that the leaders of South Korea, North Korea and the US are declaring peace on the Korean Peninsula before the entire world.

Now that Trump has mentioned talking about declaring the end of the war, it would be ideal for Trump, Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in to make that declaration in Singapore immediately after the Trump-Kim summit on June 12. The Moon administration needs to thoroughly prepare for this possibility.

Even so, the key item on the agenda of the Trump-Kim summit will have to be North Korea’s denuclearization. If the focus on denuclearization leaves no time to spare on the practical matters of such a declaration, that need not happen at Singapore—another option would be to declare the end of the war on the anniversary of the armistice, on July 27. Whatever form it may take, we hope that the Trump-Kim summit will lead to a declaration of the end of the war by Trump, Kim and Moon.

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