SEOUL - Senior South Korean officials, including President Moon Jae-in, are launching a series of meetings with U.S. counterparts, in a bid to jumpstart stalled denuclearization talks with North Korea and mend fraying ties in their alliance.
Moon will hold a summit meeting with President Donald Trump in Washington on April 11 to discuss North Korea and other alliance issues, the White House said on Friday.
“The alliance between the United States and the Republic of Korea remains the linchpin of peace and security on the Korean peninsula and in the region,” it said in a statement.
The second summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un fell apart in Hanoi in February over differences about the limits Pyongyang was ready to put on its nuclear programs and how willing the U.S. was to ease sanctions.
Trump’s failure to seal a deal was a blow to Moon, who has been vocal in his conviction that Kim is willing to abandon his nuclear arsenal.
Washington and Seoul have also tussled over the cost of U.S. troops in South Korea, with Trump demanding that Seoul pay more toward maintaining some 28,500 of them.
The North has nearly completed work to rebuild its Sohae missile launch site in the northwestern town of Tongchang-ri that Kim, at his first summit with Trump last June, had vowed to dismantle, South Korean lawmakers said on Friday.
The lawmakers, briefed by Seoul’s intelligence agency, added that a uranium enrichment facility at the North’s Yongbyon main nuclear complex was operating normally, though SEOUL - Senior South Korean officials, including President Moon Jae-in, are launching a series of meetings with U.S. counterparts, in a bid to jumpstart stalled denuclearization talks with North Korea and mend fraying ties in their alliance.
Moon will hold a summit meeting with President Donald Trump in Washington on April 11 to discuss North Korea and other alliance issues, the White House said on Friday.
“The alliance between the United States and the Republic of Korea remains the linchpin of peace and security on the Korean peninsula and in the region,” it said in a statement.
The second summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un fell apart in Hanoi in February over differences about the limits Pyongyang was ready to put on its nuclear programs and how willing the U.S. was to ease sanctions.
Trump’s failure to seal a deal was a blow to Moon, who has been vocal in his conviction that Kim is willing to abandon his nuclear arsenal.
Washington and Seoul have also tussled over the cost of U.S. troops in South Korea, with Trump demanding that Seoul pay more toward maintaining some 28,500 of them.
The North has nearly completed work to rebuild its Sohae missile launch site in the northwestern town of Tongchang-ri that Kim, at his first summit with Trump last June, had vowed to dismantle, South Korean lawmakers said on Friday.
The lawmakers, briefed by Seoul’s intelligence agency, added that a uranium enrichment facility at the North’s Yongbyon main nuclear complex was operating normally, though ...(More on P4)...(12)