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US President Donald Trump in a meeting with key personnel on Aug. 24. Pictured from the left are Andrew Kim

The Blue House voiced disappointment with the abrupt cancellation on Aug. 26 of a North Korea visit by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, but said it would continue unaffected with its plans for a September inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang.

“We did have hopes for Secretary Pompeo’s North Korea visit, but unfortunately it did not happen,” Blue House spokesperson Kim Eui-kyum said that day.

“We got the sense that shifting the paradigm on Korean Peninsula issues is a tremendously difficult task,” he added.

The Blue House had been hoping that Pompeo’s visit – which would have been his fourth – would help to break North Korea-US relations out of their stalemate in the denuclearization negotiations and flesh out the details of the inter-Korean summit in September.

President Moon Jae-in discussed countermeasures after hearing reports at his Blue House residence that day on the cancellation of Pompeo’s visit and the current situation between Pyongyang and Washington from Blue House National Security Office director Chung Eui-yong, National Intelligence Service director Suh Hoon, Minister of Foreign Affairs Kang Kyung-wha, and Minister of Unification Cho Myung-gyon.

But the Blue House said the cancellation of Pompeo’s visit would not affect its preparations for the September inter-Korean summit.

“With Secretary Pompeo cancelling his North Korea visit, it now appears that President Moon Jae-in’s role has grown,” spokesperson Kim said.

“The objective situation is one in which President Moon now has a greater role as catalyst and mediator in breaking through the impasse and broadening the scope of understanding amid the strain in North Korea-US relations,” he continued, adding that the inter-Korean summit would “be pursued without setbacks.”

Another Blue House senior official cautioned that it would be “overly optimistic to suggest the cancellation of Secretary Pompeo’s North Korea visit has no effect whatsoever on the inter-Korean summit in September.”

But the official stressed, “The current is not going to stop, as it is evident that progress in inter-Korean relations is helpful in denuclearization and the establishment of peace on the Korean Peninsula.”

At the same time, some are voicing fears that the outcome of the inter-Korean summit could prove paltry if no North Korean visit by Pompeo takes place beforehand.

“It may be difficult to reach any high-level agreement if the summit takes place without any meaningful agreements having been reached between North Korea and the US,” said Cho Sung-ryul, senior research fellow for the Institute for National Security Strategy. “It could end up a very limited meeting with more of a working-level character.”

The opening of a joint inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong, which had been predicted to take place during the month of August, is also increasingly likely to be postponed, sources said.

By Seong Yeon-cheol and Kim Ji-eun, staff reporters

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