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President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un

President Moon Jae-in hinted at a possible trilateral summit with North Korea and the US during a meeting on Mar. 21 of a preparatory committee for an upcoming inter-Korean summit, while stressing that the talks ahead need to lead to a full resolution to the issue of nuclear weapons and peace on the Korean Peninsula.

With his remarks, Moon shared some of the vision he is sketching for establishing peace on the peninsula after the inter-Korean summit in late April and a North Korea-US summit planned for May. They were read as stating his commitment to taking advantage of progress with denuclearization and Korean Peninsula affairs through the two summits to declare an official end to the Korean War – ending the Cold War regime on the peninsula and institutionalizing peaceful coexistence – while pursuing the normalization of North Korea-US relations, including economic cooperation and diplomatic ties.

Moon stressed Washington’s role in establishment a permanent peace regime on the peninsula numerous times during the meeting. Emphasizing that peace will not be achieved through an agreement by South and North alone, he insisted on “guarantees from the US.”

“For that to happen, North Korea-US relations need to be normalized. Not only that, but progress should also be made on economic cooperation between North Korea and the US,” he said, calling on the preparatory committee to adopt these goals and predictions as it goes about preparing for the summit. Under the current armistice system, the declaration of an end to the war and signing of a peace agreement by South and North would not be possible without guarantees from the US and other countries involved.

In Moon’s view, a peace regime can only be established firmly with measures to institutionalize guarantees on the Pyongyang regime’s security within a broader framework that includes a declaration ending the war, a peace agreement, and an end to hostile relations and the start of economic cooperation and diplomatic ties between North Korea and the US.

Moon’s vision becomes even clearer when the October 4 inter-Korean joint declaration from 2007 is taken into account. That declaration of advancement in inter-Korean relations, peace, and prosperity was spearheaded by Moon when he was chairman of the inter-Korean summit preparatory committee during the Roh Moo-hyun administration. The fourth item in that eight-item declaration – which carried on from the June 15 Declaration produced by the first inter-Korean summit in 2000 – stated that both sides “recognize the need to end the current armistice regime and build a permanent peace regime” and “have also agreed to work together to advance the matter of having the leaders of the three or four parties directly concerned to convene on the Peninsula and declare an end to the war.”

The “three or four parties” is interpreted as a reference to either the US, China, and North Korea as signatories to the armistice agreement or South and North Korea, the US, and China as parties to the conflict. Moon’s prediction is that if both the inter-Korean and North Korea-US summits proceed smoothly, the leaders of South and North Korea and the US may be able to meet and discuss the next steps toward the denuclearization and a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. With Beijing joining in as well, it may be possible to pursue both a declaration ending the Korean War and a multilateral peace regime in Northeast Asia.

“President Moon has used the words ‘goal’ and ‘vision’ a lot with the preparatory committee,” a senior Blue House official said.

“He is saying that we should be looking far ahead as we approach our duties rather than focusing too much on practical handling of immediate goals,” the official explained.

Moon’s emphasis on the importance of North Korea-US economic cooperation falls along similar lines. Lifting sanctions and helping North Korea become a “normal state” and member of the international community as denuclearization progresses will require the establishment of diplomatic ties between Pyongyang and Washington and the amendment or abolition of US laws barring North Korea from engaging in external economic activities.

For North Korea to pursue reforms and openness, it will first need to join the IMF and World Bank. Both China and Vietnam were able to pursue policies of full-scale reforms and openness after establishing diplomatic ties with the US and joining the two organizations.

Blue House spokesperson Kim Eui-kyum reported Moon as calling on the committee members to “prepare for an inter-Korean summit agreement that includes all of the basic terms agreed upon at the last two summits for National Assembly ratification.” Since his presidential run last year, Moon has stressed the importance of parliamentary ratification to “institutionalize” the basic agreement terms with Pyongyang, if only to ensure continuity in inter-Korean relations.

“If [the agreement] includes all of the basic agreement terms from the past plus the results from this summit, it creates something along the lines of a legally binding ‘inter-Korean basic treaty’ like the basic treaty between East and West Germany that served as a cornerstone for German reunification,” said University of North Korean Studies professor Koo Kab-woo.

By Kim Bo-hyeop and Jung In-hwan, staff reporters

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