Blue House staff begins making preparations for inter-Korean summit

Posted on : 2018-03-08 16:13 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
President Moon plans to set up a preparatory committee to ensure diplomatic progress continues to advance
The inter-Korean communications hotline at the Joint Security Area in Panmunjeom. (provided by Unification Ministry)
The inter-Korean communications hotline at the Joint Security Area in Panmunjeom. (provided by Unification Ministry)

After South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s special delegation to North Korea reached an agreement to hold a third inter-Korean summit at the end of April and to install a direct hotline between Moon and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the Blue House has become a buzz of activity. With barely 50 days remaining before the summit, a team must be created to prepare for the summit, and a plan must also be drafted for installing the hotline linking the two leaders.

During a luncheon with the leaders of the five main ruling and opposition parties on Mar. 7, Moon informed the party leaders about his plan to “set up a pan-governmental summit preparatory committee that will use the virtuous cycle of improving inter-Korean relations and resolving the North Korean nuclear issue to make progress on establishing peace on the Korean Peninsula.”

The Blue House’s current plan is to set up a summit preparatory committee based on the two previous inter-Korean summits, which were held in 2000 and 2007. Moon’s chief of staff Im Jong-seok has been mentioned as the ideal person to chair the committee, given his responsibility for coordinating government agencies dealing with foreign affairs and national security. When Roh Moo-hyun was president in 2007, Moon, then Roh’s chief of staff, chaired the summit preparatory committee.

Blue House National Security Office director Chung Eui-yong is another candidate to chair the committee in order to carry on his experience and success with the special delegation. The preparatory committee is likely to include the Unification Minister, the Foreign Minister, the Defense Minister, the director of the National Intelligence Service and the head of the Office of Government Policy Coordination at the Office of the Prime Minister. A preparation and planning team centered on the Unification Ministry and a secretariat composed of working-level supervisors from the relevant ministries are likely to be established under the preparatory committee.

President Moon told party leaders during the luncheon that, along with preparing for the inter-Korean summit, he will also be activating various channels of dialogue with North Korea, including high-level talks, Red Cross talks and military talks. As for the hotline between Moon and Kim that South and North Korea agreed to set up, Seoul is reportedly planning to have the hotline link Moon’s office in the Blue House to the secretariat at Kim Jong-un’s office.

“Pictures of the first phone call will be released to the media prior to the summit, and it would look strange for [the president] to have to go somewhere other than his office to make the call,” an official from the Blue House said. While it was not confirmed whether North Korea would also be installing the hotline in Kim’s office, the creation of the first direct hotline between the leaders of South and North Korea is of particular significance.

The hotline between the leaders of South and North Korea that resulted from the inter-Korean summit on June 15, 2000, was installed and operated in the two sides’ intelligence agencies. This direct phone line was severed in 2008, during the president of Lee Myung-bak, and restored along with inter-Korean relations early this year. Since then, it has reportedly been used for deliberations about North Korean visits to the South and vice versa.

The direct phone line between the leaders of the two sides is being added to the intelligence lines, the military lines and the line at Panmunjeom, diversifying the means of communication and elevating the rank of the people involved.

By Kim Bo-hyeop and Kim Jin-eun, staff reporters

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

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