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South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un jointly announce the Panmunjom Declaration on Apr. 27 after their first inter-Korean summit in Panmunjom. (Kim Gyoung-ho

Two battle lines are drawn across the Korean Peninsula, which remains mired in the Cold War – the military and political confrontations between South and North Korea on the one hand and North Korea and the US on the other. In the Panmunjom Declaration, which was formulated during their first summit on Apr. 27, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un state that “there will be no more war on the Korean Peninsula.”

This was effectively an “end-of-war declaration” by the two leaders. During the same event, Moon also promised that “we will never look back anymore.”

The agenda of the Pyongyang summit is the same as the Apr. 27 Panmunjom summit – peace. The difference, however, is that the peace being pursued this time is much more specific and elaborate than the agenda of the first summit, which included the three main points of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, the establishment of a peace regime and the development of inter-Korean relations.

The three points of the Pyongyang summit that were announced on Sept. 7 by Blue House National Security Office Director Chung Eui-yong after returning from a meeting with Kim in Pyongyang on Sept. 5 are the assessment of the implementation of the Panmunjom Declaration and the confirmation of its direction for the future, the issue of mutual prosperity and the establishment of permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula, and the deliberation of a practical method for achieving the denuclearization of the peninsula.

Multiple sources and government officials who are familiar with the process of preparing for the summit agreed that the highlight of the Pyongyang summit will be progress on building military trust between South and North Korea. This means that one of the main events during the Pyongyang summit will be the announcement of a practical plan for implementing the second point of the Panmunjom Declaration, namely alleviating acute military tension and eliminating the danger of war.

“During this summit, I intend to focus my efforts on resolving inter-Korean military tension and resolving hostile relations,” Moon stressed during a cabinet meeting on Sept. 11. This is a strategic move aimed at using the easing of inter-Korean military hostility to help speed up the development of relations between North Korea and the US, which have been slow to take reciprocal measures including steps toward denuclearization and formally ending the Korean War. This move is simultaneously aimed at clearing the way for the shared prosperity of South and North Korea, which has been blocked by sanctions on North Korea.

During his Liberation Day address on Sept. 16, Moon said that “peace is the economy,” while North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho said during a speech in the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) on Aug. 4 that “in order to carry out the strategic line of focusing all efforts on building the economy, a peaceful environment on the Korean Peninsula and its environs is more important than ever before.”

This reflects South and North Korea’s shared commitment to pave the way toward the door to mutual prosperity, including economic cooperation, by moving more quickly to resolving their military standoff even if progress on North Korea-US relations, including denuclearization, is slower than expected.

South and North Korea have already created an outline for a military agreement aimed at implementing the Panmunjom Declaration through military meetings that brought together both generals and lower-level officials. This is an attempt to pave the way toward resolving the military confrontation on the ground, in the sea and in the air.

On the ground in the DMZ, an agreement has basically been reached on shutting down guard posts (GPs) on a trial basis, launching a joint program to recover remains of soldiers and demilitarizing the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom. In the sea – where the military demarcation line agreed upon in the Armistice does not extend – the two sides have agreed to set up a no-fire maritime zone, but they haven’t been able to agree on launching a joint fishing zone in the Yellow Sea on a trial basis because of the conflict regarding South Korea’s Northern Limit Line (NLL) and the line claimed by North Korea. This matter will have to be hashed out by the two leaders. In the air, there’s the possibility of agreeing to expand the DMZ no-fly zone.

“We’re attempting to go beyond confidence-building between our militaries and to basically take rudimentary steps toward operational arms control,” Chung Eui-yong said during his keynote address for the Seoul Security Dialogue on Sept. 13, expressing the ambition to lay a strong stepping stone toward “disarmament in a phased manner” (Article 3, Clause 2, of the Panmunjom Declaration) during the Pyongyang summit.

The key of the denuclearization part of the agenda is the “practical measures” that the two leaders are supposed to discuss. It’s important to focus on the fact that the phrase “practical measures” emerged for the first time after the special delegation’s visit to North Korea on Sept. 5. The expression “practical” focuses on action, rather than words and documents.

This hints at the possibility that the summit will result in an approach that departs from the US-oriented paradigm that has been in place since the North Korea-US summit on June 12, with its focus on swapping North Korea’s disclosure of nuclear facilities for an end-of-the-war declaration.

“Swapping disclosure for an end-of-war declaration is a frame that the US was wrong to set up,” said one well-informed source.

But it would be difficult to predict what “practical method of denuclearization” the two leaders could come up with. “So much has been said that we won’t know what will actually happen until we’ve seen the results of the two leaders’ deliberations,” cautioned one senior official in the area of foreign policy and security.

“The full-fledged development of inter-Korean relations will have to wait until the sanctions on North Korea have been lifted. We will pursue the development of inter-Korean relations to the extent possible within the framework of international sanctions,” Moon said during a luncheon on Sept. 13 with a panel of senior advisors for the inter-Korean summit.

The implication was that no new large-scale economic cooperation projects will be announced during the Pyongyang summit. But that doesn’t necessary mean there won’t be any agreement about economic cooperation.

During his celebratory address for Liberation Day in which Moon said that “peace is the economy,” he proposed holding a ground breaking ceremony for connecting South and North Korean highways and railroads within the year, launching an East Asian railroad community and setting up a “special unification economy zone” in the border area around Gyeonggi and Gangwon provinces, but it remains to be seen whether the two leaders will reach an agreement on these proposals.

While Moon is in Pyongyang, there’s also expected to be extensive discussion of a wide range of economic cooperation projects that anticipate a time after sanctions on North Korea have been lifted. This is confirmed by the fact that the leaders of South Korea’s four largest chaebols as well as the heads of POSCO, the Korea Rail Corporation (Korail) and the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) are included on the special delegation roster that was announced by the Blue House on Sept. 16.

It’s also worth noting the inclusion of Hyundai Group Chairman Hyun Jeong-eun and the head of the Corporate Association of the Kaesong Industrial Complex, figures who are directly connected with the longtime discontinuation of tours to Mt. Kumgang and the Kaesong Industrial Complex.

Could Kim agree to a return visit to the South?

Though it’s not one of the three points on the agenda, another question is whether there will be any discussion of Kim paying a return visit to South Korea for a fourth summit with Moon. Seoul has yet to make any public mention of this, but a great deal of effort has reportedly been made during the closed-door deliberations between the two sides toward this end.

While the summit in Panmunjom on Apr. 27 technically took place on the southern side of the military demarcation line, that was still a special case, being inside the Joint Security Area. An agreement for Kim to visit Seoul or Jeju would be significant, as it would represent a new forum for an inter-Korean summit.

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer, and Noh Ji-won, staff reporter

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