hankyoreh

Hong Seok-hyeon

Special envoys to the US and Japan bearing a personal letter from President Moon Jae-in departed for Washington and Tokyo on May 17.

“The most important thing, of course, is sharing our views with the US on the issues of the South Korea-US alliance and solutions to the North Korean nuclear issue and increasing our mutual understanding,” said Hong Seok-hyeon, the special envoy to the US, when asked before departing from Incheon Airport on the morning of May 17 about what message he would deliver to the US. Hong previously served as the chairman of the Joongang Ilbo and JTBC, and he is currently the director of the Korean Peninsula Forum.

On May 18, Hong met with Donald Trump at the White House for 15 minutes, and conveyed a letter from President Moon. Trump said he expects positive results on the North Korean nuclear issue through close cooperation with the Moon administration. Hong told reporters that Trump said he understands the domestic issues around THAAD in South Korea.

The most noteworthy of the remarks made by Hong on May 17 were what he said about the THAAD missile defense system, which is being deployed with US forces in South Korea. In regard to Moon’s promise during his presidential campaign to give the National Assembly an opportunity to ratify the THAAD deployment, Hong said, “[THAAD] was also mentioned in [the president’s] instructions. Since Moon has others to deal with now that he’s president, there will probably be some differences with what he said as a candidate.”

“The president‘s remarks, at least as far as I understand them, were not so much about a disagreement with the US as they were about procedural issues inside South Korea,” Hong added.

The Blue House “is not emphasizing the removal of THAAD itself,” said a Blue House official who was asked about Hong’s remarks. “But because of the issue of the cost, we intend to look into procedural issues domestically and to initiate a public discussion by seeking the approval of the National Assembly.”

In regard to the question of renegotiating the South Korea-US Free Trade Agreement, which US President Donald Trump has mentioned previously, Hong said that “That‘s an issue we don’t need to bring up unless the US brings it up first.”

Hong is expected to meet with officials from the Trump administration to arrange the schedule and the agenda for the US-South Korean summit that is supposed to take place in late June. It was not confirmed whether Hong’s delegation would be personally delivering Moon’s letter to Trump.

On the afternoon of May 17, Minjoo Party lawmaker Moon Hee-sang, President Moon’s special envoy to Japan, sat down with Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida at the ministry’s office in Tokyo in a meeting that lasted more than 40 minutes. “I told him that the mood is such that the majority of the [South Korean] public are emotionally unable to accept the comfort women agreement,” Moon said when asked whether he and Kishida had discussed the comfort women issue. “I said we should squarely face what was said in the Kono, Murayama and Naota Kan statements and the joint declaration between [former Japanese Prime Minister] Keizo Obuchi and [former South Korean President] Kim Dae-jung and take that as the basis for both trying to use wisdom,” Moon went on to say. Moon also said that neither the issue of “renegotiating” the comfort women agreement nor South Korea and Japan‘s military information sharing agreement (called the General Security of Military Information Agreement, or GSOMIA) came up during the meeting. Moon had recently spoken of the need for a “third way” (as opposed to renegotiating the comfort women agreement), but on May 17 he explained that this was his “personal view.” The special envoy is scheduled to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the morning of May 18.

“They will explain the president’s basic political and diplomatic direction and will convey the president‘s wish for future-oriented development,” said a source on the president’s diplomacy and security task force when asked about the special envoys‘ role.

By Kim Ji-eun, staff reporter, and Cho Ki-weon, Tokyo correspondent

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