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Chairman Kim Jong Un and President Moon Jae-i In convene a surprise meeting on, May 26, 2018, at Panmunjom to push the peace process forward. On May 24, 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump , cancelled his June 12 summit meeting with Chairman Kim Jong Un in response to a statement by North Korean Foreign Vice Minister, Choe Son Hui, admonishing U.S. Vice President Mike Pence for warning North Korea that it could suffer the same fate as Libya if it did not make a deal with the United States. North Korea’s First Vice Minister, Kim Kye Gwan, expressed “regret” on May 25, 2018 at Trump’s decision to cancel the summit, explaining that Madame Choe’s remarks were “a reaction to the unbridled remarks made by the U.S. side which has long pressed the DPRK unilaterally to scrap nuclear program ahead of the DPRK-U.S. summit.” He also stated, “But we remain unchanged in our goal and will to do everything we could for peace and stability of the Korean peninsula and humankind, and we, broad-minded and open all the time, have the willingness to offer the U.S. side time and opportunity.” On May 25, 2018, Trump told reporters that Kim’s statement “was a very nice statement” and later that evening he tweeted, “We are having very productive talks with North Korea about reinstating the Summit which, if it does happen, will likely remain in Singapore on the same date, June 12th, and, if necessary, will be extended beyond that date.” Doubling down on the prospect of rejuvenating the June 12 Summit, Chairman Kim and South Korean president Moon Jae-in convened an unannounced and unprecedented summit on the northern side of Panmunjom, within the demilitarized zone (DMZ), the next day. “The two heads of state had a frank exchange of views on the implementation of the April 27 summit agreement and for the successful holding of the North Korea-United States summit,” President Moon’s spokesperson, Yoon Young-chan, reported. It is expected that a joint statement announcing the outcome of Chairman Kim and President Moon’s second summit will be released on Sunday, May 27,, 2018.  In the meantime, what follows are the English and Korean texts of Kim Kye Gwan’s statement of May 25, 2018, inviting the United States back to the peace table. Statement of DPRK First Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Pyongyang, May 25 (KCNA) — Kim Kye Gwan, first vice-minister of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK, issued the following statement Friday upon authorization: The historic summit is now high on the agenda between the DPRK and the U.S., and the preparations for it are being pushed forward at the final stage amid the remarkably great concern of the world. The sincere pursuit and active efforts made by the DPRK to end the relations of hostility and distrust that have lasted for decades and build a new landmark for the improvement of the DPRK-U.S. relations have commanded unanimous sympathy and support from the public at home and abroad. But suddenly President of the United States of America Trump made public his official stand on May 24 to cancel the DPRK-U.S. summit that had already been made a fait accompli. Explaining the reason for it, he said that the statement made by Vice Foreign Minister of the DPRK Choe Son Hui carried “tremendous anger and open hostility” and that it is not appropriate to hold the meeting at present, a precious one that has long been planned. I would like to take this expression of his stand on the DPRK-U.S. summit as a decision not consistent with the desire of humankind for peace and stability in the world, to say nothing of those in the Korean peninsula. As for the “tremendous anger and open hostility” referred to by President Trump, it is just a reaction to the unbridled remarks made by the U.S. side which has long pressed the DPRK unilaterally to scrap nuclear program ahead of the DPRK-U.S. summit. The inglorious situation today is a vivid expression of the severity of the present status of the hostile DPRK-U.S. relations of long historical roots and the urgent necessity for the summit meeting for the improvement of the ties. As far as the historic DPRK-U.S. summit is concerned, we have inwardly highly appreciated President Trump for having made the bold decision, which any other U.S. presidents dared not, and made efforts for such a crucial event as the summit. His sudden and unilateral announcement to cancel the summit is something unexpected to us and we can not but feel great regret for it. It is hard to guess the reasons. It could be that he lacked the will for the summit or he might not have felt confident. But for our part, we have exerted sincere efforts, raising hope that the historic DPRK-U.S. summit meeting and talks themselves would mark a meaningful starting point for peace and security in the region and the world and the improvement of the bilateral relations as the first step forward to settling the issue through dialogue. We even inwardly hoped that what is called “Trump formula” would help clear both sides of their worries and comply with the requirements of our side and would be a wise way of substantial effect for settling the issue. The chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the DPRK has also exerted all efforts for the preparations for the summit, saying that the meeting with President Trump could help make a good start. The U.S. side’s unilateral announcement of the cancellation of the summit makes us think over if we were truly right to have made efforts for it and to have opted for the new path. But we remain unchanged in our goal and will to do everything we could for peace and stability of the Korean peninsula and humankind, and we, broad-minded and open all the time, have the willingness to offer the U.S. side time and opportunity. The first meeting would not solve all, but solving even one at a time in a phased way would make the relations get better rather than making them get worse. The U.S. should ponder over it. We would like to make known to the U.S. side once again that we have the intent to sit with the U.S. side to solve problem regardless of ways at any time. -0- 조선외무성 제1부상 담화 발표 조선민주주의인민공화국 외무성 제1부상 김계관은 25일 위임에 따라 다음과 같은 담화를 발표하였다. 지금 조미사이에는 세계가 비상한 관심속에 주시하는 력사적인 수뇌상봉이 일정에 올라있으며 그 준비사업도 마감단계에서 추진되고있다. 수십년에 걸친 적대와 불신의 관계를 청산하고 조미관계개선의 새로운 리정표를 마련하려는 우리의 진지한 모색과 적극적인 노력들은 내외의 한결같은 공감과 지지를 받고있다. 그런 가운데 24일 미합중국 트럼프대통령이 불현듯 이미 기정사실화되여있던 조미수뇌상봉을 취소하겠다는 공식립장을 발표하였다. 트럼프대통령은 그 리유에 대하여 우리 외무성 최선희부상의 담화내용에 《커다란 분노와 로골적인 적대감》이 담겨져있기때문이라고 하면서 오래전부터 계획되여있던 귀중한 만남을 가지는것이 현 시점에서는 적절치 않다고 밝히였다. 나는 조미수뇌상봉에 대한 트럼프대통령의 립장표명이 조선반도는 물론 세계의 평화와 안정을 바라는 인류의 념원에 부합되지 않는 결정이라고 단정하고싶다. 트럼프대통령이 거론한 《커다란 분노와 로골적인 적대감》이라는것은 사실 조미수뇌상봉을 앞두고 일방적인 핵페기를 압박해온 미국측의 지나친 언행이 불러온 반발에 지나지 않는다. 벌어진 불미스러운 사태는 력사적뿌리가 깊은 조미적대관계의 현 실태가 얼마나 엄중하며 관계개선을 위한 수뇌상봉이 얼마나 절실히 필요한가를 그대로 보여주고있다. 력사적인 조미수뇌상봉에 대하여 말한다면 우리는 트럼프대통령이 지난 시기 그 어느 대통령도 내리지 못한 용단을 내리고 수뇌상봉이라는 중대사변을 만들기 위해 노력한데 대하여 의연 내심 높이 평가하여왔다. 그런데 돌연 일방적으로 회담취소를 발표한것은 우리로서는 뜻밖의 일이며 매우 유감스럽게 생각하지 않을수 없다. 수뇌상봉에 대한 의지가 부족했는지 아니면 자신감이 없었던탓인지 그 리유에 대해서는 가늠하기 어려우나 우리는 력사적인 조미수뇌상봉과 회담 그자체가 대화를 통한 문제해결의 첫걸음으로서 지역과 세계의 평화와 안전,두 나라사이의 관계개선에 의미있는 출발점이 되리라는 기대를 가지고 성의있는 노력을 다하여왔다. 또한 《트럼프방식》이라고 하는것이 쌍방의 우려를 다같이 해소하고 우리의 요구조건에도 부합되며 문제해결의 실질적작용을 하는 현명한 방안이 되기를 은근히 기대하기도 하였다. 우리 국무위원회 위원장께서도 트럼프대통령과 만나면 좋은 시작을 뗄수 있을것이라고 하시면서 그를 위한 준비에 모든 노력을 기울여오시였다. 그럼에도 불구하고 미국측의 일방적인 회담취소공개는 우리로 하여금 여직껏 기울인 노력과 우리가 새롭게 선택하여 가는 이 길이 과연 옳은가 하는것을 다시금 생각하게 만들고있다. 하지만 조선반도와 인류의 평화와 안정을 위하여 모든것을 다하려는 우리의 목표와 의지에는 변함이 없으며 우리는 항상 대범하고 열린 마음으로 미국측에 시간과 기회를 줄 용의가 있다. 만나서 첫술에 배가 부를리는 없겠지만 한가지씩이라도 단계별로 해결해나간다면 지금보다 관계가 좋아지면 좋아졌지 더 나빠지기야 하겠는가 하는것쯤은 미국도 깊이 숙고해보아야 할것이다. 우리는 아무때나 어떤 방식으로든 마주앉아 문제를 풀어나갈 용의가 있음을 미국측에 다시금 밝힌다.(끝) #Trump #KimJongUn #DPRK #KoreanWar #Nuclearweapons #MoonJaein #USDPRKSummit #NorthKorea

After meeting with women leaders in North Korea, the WomenCross DMZ delegation of fifteen international delegates crosses the DMZ to join South Korean women calling for a peace treaty, May 24, 2015, Paju city. (Stephen Wunrow, Korean Quarterly) Women Cross DMZ congratulates President Moon Jae-in, Chairman Kim Jong-un, and the people of both South Korea and North Korea on the historic Inter-Korean Summit and the Panmunjeom Declaration signed by both leaders on April 27, 2018. We celebrate the Declaration’s breakthrough announcement to the world that “there will be no more war   on the Korean Peninsula and thus a new era of peace has begun.” We applaud the courage and wisdom of the Korean leaders in committing to establish a permanent peace regime and a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, which recognizes the aspirations of movements in Korea and worldwide who have long worked for peace. Three years ago, we joined 10,000 Korean women, North and South, as we walked on the streets of Pyongyang, Kaesong and Paju calling for an end to the Korean War with a Peace Treaty, for the reuniting of families, and for women’s leadership in the peace process. Today, the two Korean leaders have brought us closer to this vision and set forth an unprecedented peace process. We applaud the two Koreas’ pursuit of dialogue with the United States and China to achieve the formal end of the Korean War by replacing the temporary ceasefire agreement with a Peace Treaty and thus establishing a permanent peace regime. We are inspired by the decision to transform the DMZ, so long a symbol of separation and enmity, into a Peace Park, and the West Sea, the site of violent skirmishes, into a Maritime Peace Zone. We laud the Declaration’s commitment to “realizing, through complete denuclearization, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula” and to pursuing the support and cooperation of the international community in this endeavor. We stress the global significance of this commitment, given that the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula would be not only crucial for peace in Korea but also pivotal to the total elimination of nuclear weapons from our world. We recognize the extensive multilateral diplomatic work ahead that will be necessary in order to achieve such denuclearization, and also the international commitments needed for ensuring peace in Korea, given North Korea pursued its nuclear weapons program as a deterrent against threats to its own security. As such, we commit as a global civil society movement to galvanize the support and cooperation of the international community towards ensuring that the need for nuclear weapons will remain only in the past. We welcome the Declaration’s announced resumption of civil-society exchanges on June 15, the anniversary of the 2000 Joint Korean Declaration, and family reunions on August 15, the commemoration of National Liberation Day in both Koreas. As an international peace organization calling for women’s inclusion in all levels of the peace building process, we are pleased to see that each delegation included a woman leader. Yet given the overwhelming evidence of the constructive role women’s peace movements play in helping to realize peace agreements — and far more durable ones — we urge the two governments to include the significant participation of women leaders in the official peace process. Peace processes are more than about halting a war and dividing power and resources – they establish the foundation for a postwar society. When women’s groups are involved in the official peace process, the prospects for lasting peace are far greater because  women influence its implementation. Furthermore, women’s perspectives, especially on gender equality and gender-based violence, are crucial to shaping how security is defined. When women are empowered in all aspects of their lives, countries are less likely to go to_war. As a U.S.-based organization with members around the world, Women Cross DMZ is committed to mobilizing women across the United States and on every continent to support the inter-Korean peace process now underway to the final resolution of the Korean War. One year ago, we wrote to President Trump reminding him that, “Peace is the most powerful deterrent of all” and urging him to do what no other U.S. president has done: bring a formal closure to the longest-standing U.S. conflict. One year later, President Trump said, “We hope to see the day when the whole Korean Peninsula can live together in safety, prosperity and peace. This is the destiny of the Korean people.” We look forward to President Trump’s historic meeting with Chairman Kim and their building on the momentum established by the Inter-Korean Summit by taking concrete action towards the signing of a Peace Treaty. The two leaders have the power to end decades of enmity and sow the seeds of friendship between the people of the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The April 27, 2018 Inter-Korean Summit will be remembered as the beginning of a new chapter in Korean history, the de-militarization of the Korean Peninsula, and a beacon of light, hope and peace for the world. ### #KoreaPeace #SouthKorea #PanmunjeomDeclaration #WomenCrossDMZ #NorthKorea

Activists gather in front of the U.S. embassy to demand peace for the Korean peninsula after the cancellation of the U.S. and North Korea summit on May 25, 2018 in Seoul, South Korea. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images) By Simone Chun | June 6, 2018 Originally published in Common Dreams Last month, I took part in an international women’s peace delegation to South Korea, led by Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire and Women Cross DMZ founder Christine Ahn. It was my first visit to my native Korea in over 3 years.  Everywhere I went, I witnessed the afterglow of the inspiring candlelight movement that restored democracy to the country, and sensed the deep conviction with which Koreans support the current peace process initiated by President Moon. Our delegation noted in one of its first official statements following its arrival in Korea: “What initiated the Panmunjom Declaration was the completely non-violent and peaceful civil revolution in 2016 that began with orderly marches of demonstration with warm candlelight through the winter.  The candlelight revolution was a true example of the UN’s Culture of Peace.” In addition to meeting with diplomatic representatives from the US, U.K, Japan, Sweden, and Canada, we participated in an all-day peace symposium at the National Assembly side by side with South Korean women peace activists. One of our South Korea colleagues commented that while women have been conspicuously absent from the process of warmaking in the Korean peninsula (at least from a policy standpoint) they most certainly ought to be part of the peace process. On the same day that President Moon and Chairman Kim held their second summit in Panmunjom, our delegation, accompanied by over 1200 Korean women, walked over 5 km in the sweltering 40-degree heat to cross the Unification Bridge on foot. Christine Ahn summed up all our sentiments when she later commented: “We were the first civilians to walk across the Unification Bridge.  As I took my first step onto the bridge, tears streamed down my face as I thought about how Korea was divided by the US and the former Soviet Union after 35 years of Japanese colonial occupation.” Returning to the United States however, I found a starkly different reality in the sustained attacks on the peace process–even the very idea of a peace treaty–by right-wing pundits, Neocon hawks, and corporate media promoting an aggressively maximalist standard. In this dialogue, the 4 million Korean and 35,000 American lives already lost to the Korean War, as well as the 80 million Koreans whose lives would hang in balance in any renewed conflict, are presented as mere footnotes. North Korea in particular, where poverty is rampant and 25% of children suffer from malnutrition, is presented as the perpetually “Threatening Other,” fully deserving to suffer from the US-led sanctions. American exceptionalism is celebrated without reservation. This disregard for the interests of Koreans themselves in this nominally inter-Korean conflict was a declaration authored by seven leading Democratic Senators, demand that President Trump to hold to a hard line in any negotiations with North Korea. The letter signed by Senators Mendendez, Schumer, Durbin, Warner, Feinstein, Leahy and Brown completely overlooked the recent progress toward peace evinced by the inter-Korean summit and the Panmunjom Declaration, and discounted the overwhelming support for the current peace process by Koreans. Further, it was oblivious to the hopes and interests of 80 million Koreans who, after surviving 35 years of brutal Japanese colonization, were forcibly divided over 65 years ago by the US and the former Soviet Union. The letter offers no alternative vision for peace on the Korean Peninsula and considers Korean interests only insofar as they serve the narrow political agenda of the Democratic party. It represents a bankrupt foreign policy view. On the occasion of our delegation’s visit to Korea, I had reached out to renowned scholar Professor Noam Chomsky, with whom I maintain a correspondence, for a statement in support of our mission. Contrasting the significance of the April 27 Declaration between the two Koreas with the apparently incoherent foreign policy approach of the United States, which plays a dominant role in any prospect for inter-Korean peace, Professor Chomsky commented: The April 27 Declaration of the two Koreas was a historic event, which promises a bright future for the people of Korea.  It calls for the two Koreas to settle their problems “on their own accord” and lays out a careful schedule to proceed, something quite new.  It also calls on the international community (meaning Washington) to support this process.  Unfortunately, the signals from Washington are at best mixed.  National Security Council advisor John Bolton, who has called for bombing North Korea at once, and Vice-President Mike Pence both invoked the “Libya model,” knowing full well its import.  President Trump cancelled the Singapore summit a few hours after North Korea had destroyed its main testing site as an important gesture of conciliation.  But these are pitfalls, not termination of the process.  With determination and good will the two Koreas can move forward with the plans outlined in the Declaration.  It is the task of the people of the United States to support them in this historic endeavor and to ensure that their own government does not undermine or in any way impede the process.  That can succeed.  It must succeed, for the welfare of Korea, and all of us. Professor Chomsky is right in pointing out that this initiative carried forward by the two Koreas is in fact “something quite new.”  The minimum that the United States can do during this historic moment is to refrain from harming the inter-Korean peace process. It’s time that American politicians, both Democratic and Republicans, give Koreans a chance to shape their own destiny. Dr. Simone Chun serves on the Steering Committee of the Alliance of Scholars Concerned About Korea and is a member of the Korea Policy Institute and the Korea Peace Network. #KoreaPeace #NorthKorea #SouthKorea #WomenCrossDMZ

On The Historic Inter-Korean Summit And The Upcoming U.S.-North Korea Summit June 7, 2018 Since the historic April 27 summit between the leaders of North and South Korea at Panmunjom, longstanding tensions and war threats on the Korean peninsula have given way to the promise of peace and reconciliation. Soon, another historic summit, between the United States and North Korea, will take place in Singapore. The two parties, which not too long ago were on the brink of war, will finally sit down to discuss a peaceful settlement to the Korean War. All eyes of the world will be on this momentous event, which could determine not only the fate of the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia but also the prospect of global peace. We—Korean Americans who have long fought for peace and the self-determined unification of the Korean peninsula, and allies who stand on the side of peace and justice and share a critical stake in the struggle for peace in Korea—wish to make clear our views on the recent inter-Korean summit and the upcoming U.S.-North Korea summit. 1. We applaud the Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity, and Unification of the Korean Peninsula. In the Panmunjom Declaration, the leaders of North and South Korea “solemnly declared before the 80 million Korean people and the whole world that there will be no more war on the Korean Peninsula and thus a new era of peace has begun.” They also pledged to work together for independent unification. The two leaders held hands as they crossed back and forth over the military demarcation line, demonstrating that the arbitrary line no longer has the power it once possessed as a symbol of division and confrontation. Should the governments of North and South Korea as well as the 80 million Koreans on the peninsula and the diaspora come together to implement the Panmunjom Declaration, we can realize peace, prosperity, and unification of the Korean Peninsula. 2. We welcome the U.S.-North Korea summit. We hope the scheduled U.S.-North Korea summit will end seven decades of hostile relations between the United States and North Korea and usher in a new era of peace—on the Korean Peninsula, in Northeast Asia as well as for the rest of the world. We recommend the following: 1) The United States and North Korea should agree to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and faithfully carry out the agreement. In the Panmunjom Declaration, North and South Korea “confirmed the common goal of realizing, through complete denuclearization, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.” Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula means not only eliminating North Korea’s nuclear weapons but also denuclearizing the land, air, and seas of the entire peninsula. This is not North Korea’s obligation alone. South Korea and the United States, which has in the past introduced and deployed close to one thousand tactical nuclear weapons in the southern half of the peninsula, also need to take concrete steps to create a nuclear-free peninsula. The plan to “denuclearize the Korean peninsula” is clearly outlined in the following past agreements: The 1992 Joint Declaration of South and North Korea on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula; The 1994 Agreed Framework between the USA and DPRK; and The 2005 Joint Statement of the Fourth Round of the Six Party Talks. In the 2005 Joint Statement of the Six Party Talks, North Korea “committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs,” while the United States “affirmed that it has no nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula and has no intention to attack or invade the DPRK with nuclear or conventional weapons,” and South Korea “reaffirmed its commitment not to receive or deploy nuclear weapons in accordance with the 1992 Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, while affirming that there exist no nuclear weapons within its territory.” In keeping with the recent inter-Korean summit, the U.S.-North Korea summit should produce an agreement for the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” and ban the testing, production, reception, possession, storage, stationing, and/or use of nuclear weapons on the entire Korean Peninsula. Moreover, the United States should stop all military action and exercises that deploy or introduce its strategic assets on the Korean Peninsula and abolish its nuclear umbrella over South Korea. Genuine peace on the Korean peninsula, which has housed nuclear weapons in both the North and the South and has been the site of acute military tensions for decades, should set a historic precedent and lead to global nuclear disarmament. Starting with the United States, all nuclear powers should take concrete steps to create a nuclear-free world. 2) A peace treaty is necessary for a lasting peace system on the Korean Peninsula. The Panmunjom Declaration states, “During this year that marks the 65th anniversary of the Armistice, South and North Korea agreed to actively pursue trilateral meetings involving the two Koreas and the United States, or quadrilateral meetings involving the two Koreas, the United States and China with a view to declaring an end to the War, turning the armistice into a peace treaty, and establishing a permanent and solid peace regime.” After the Korean War, the United States and North Korea signed an armistice that established a highly unstable system that has been at the root of all subsequent war threats on the Korean Peninsula. It’s time to declare an end to the Korean War and replace the armistice with a peace treaty to build a stable and lasting peace system on the Korean Peninsula. Only a peace treaty will prevent further threats of nuclear and conventional war on the Korean Peninsula. The United States and North Korea should take immediate mutual steps to prevent military conflict and alleviate tensions. They should establish and maintain a military hotline and communications channel and halt all military exercises and other provocative actions. The United States should withdraw the THAAD missile defense system in South Korea. And in step with North and South Korea, which have agreed to “carry out disarmament in a phased manner” in the Panmunjom Declaration, U.S. Forces in Korea should take corresponding measures to reduce its troops. 3) The United States and North Korea should end hostilities and normalize relations. The 2000 US-DPRK Joint Communique states, “Recognizing that improving ties is a natural goal in relations among states and that better relations would benefit both nations in the 21st century while helping ensure peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and in the Asia-Pacific region, the U.S. and the D.P.R.K. sides stated that they are prepared to undertake a new direction in their relations.” After agreeing to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and replace the armistice with a peace treaty, the United States and North Korea should begin talks to establish normal relations. As they did in the 2000 Joint Communique, the United States and North Korea should reaffirm “principles of respect for each other’s sovereignty and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs” and a “commitment to make every effort in the future to build a new relationship free from past enmity.” The United States and North Korea should normalize relations and promote civilian exchanges in the areas of economy, culture, science, education, sports, and travel to foster mutual understanding between the peoples of both countries. Above all, the United States needs to abolish its seven-decade policy of hostility and sanctions that isolate North Korea. It should lift all sanctions tied to North Korea’s nuclear program, take North Korea off the list of state sponsors of terrorism, and unfreeze North Korea’s assets. It should allow U.S. citizens to freely travel to North Korea. The United States and North Korea should also cooperate to recover the remains of U.S. servicemen in North Korea from the time of the Korean War as a step to addressing unresolved humanitarian issues and ending hostile relations. 3. We urge Washington’s political leaders to put aside party politics for peace. Past negotiations between the United States and North Korea have yielded meaningful moments of cooperation. There have been times when both sides made significant compromises with the shared goal of overcoming past hostilities and moving toward normalizing relations. They have produced outstanding agreements—the 1993 DPRK-U.S. Joint Statement, the 1994 Agreed Framework, the 2000 U.S.-DPRK Joint Communique, and the 2005 Joint Declaration of the Six Party Talks—that outline a path for resolving the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula, creating a lasting peace system, and normalizing relations between the two countries. However, none of these agreements were implemented. As a result, mistrust between the United States and North Korea only deepened and ultimately led us to the brink of nuclear war. With each change in administration in the United States, hard-won agreements made by the previous administration were essentially scrapped as the incoming administration adopted a default anti-North Korea posture. In light of this history, we have concerns about whether an agreement produced by the upcoming U.S.-North Korea summit will actually be honored by the current and future administrations. Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal underscores this concern. The Trump administration should approach the upcoming summit with North Korea with sincerity and a commitment to carrying out whatever agreement is reached. We also urge Congress to put aside partisan interests in the historic interest of achieving peace in Korea and the world. We urge Congress to resolve to support the Panmunjom Declaration between North and South Korea and the upcoming U.S.-North Korea summit. 4. We stand with all who struggle for a just and peaceful world. The actions of the Trump and previous administrations have been detrimental to peace in the world. The United States is responsible for endless war in Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen, bloodshed in Gaza, and escalating tension with Iran. While it pours billions of dollars into waging wars and maintaining troops abroad, its people face widespread unemployment and austerity programs that cut them off from decent education, healthcare and housing. U.S. militarism abroad has also led to increased militarization of the police and state-sanctioned violence against communities of color and gender non-conforming people at home. We stand with people of conscience everywhere who defend peace, self-determination, and justice. It is our hope that the Korean Peninsula–once a land of strife, brutalized by over a century of colonization, division and war–will become a source of strength and inspiration for all as a beacon for peace, reconciliation, and unification in the twenty-first century. Signed, Korean American Organizations (In alphabetical order) 615 U.S. Midwest Committee (6. 15 공동선언실천 미국중부위원회) 615 U.S. New York Committee (6.15 공동선언실천 뉴욕지역위원회) 615 U.S. West Coast Committee (6.15 공동선언실천 미서부위원회) Action One Korea (AOK) Channing and Popai Liem Education Foundation (임창영 ·이보배 교육재단) Citizen for Equality, Peace And Liberation (평등평화해방) Citizens Fighting for Social Justice (정상추 네트워크) Coalition of Koreans in America (미주희망연대) Deoham Korean American Community Church (시카고 더함교회) Eclipse Rising Fight For Voter’s Rights (유권자 권리를 소중히 여기는 사람들의 모임) Hella Organized Bay Area Koreans (호박) Hope Coalition of New York (희망세상 뉴욕모임) Houston Sewol HAMBI (휴스턴 세월호 함께 맞는 비) Korean American Alliance for Peace on the Korean Peninsula (한반도 평화를 위한 미주동포연대) Korea Culture and Heritage Society of New York (민족문제연구소 뉴욕지부) Korea is One (우리는 하나) Korea Policy Institute (코리아정책연구소) Korean American National Coordinating Council (재미동포전국연합회) Korean American Women Veterans Association (한국계 여성 제대 군인 모임) Korean Americans for Social Justice – Chicago (시카고 한인 민주연대) Korean Peace Alliance (진보의 벗) Minjung Solidarity of New York (민중당 뉴욕연대) NANUM Corean Cultural Center (우리문화나눔회) National Association of Korean Americans (미주동포전국협회) National Institute of Hahm Seokhon Philosophy, DC, Indianapolis, NY, Hahm Seokhon Peace Center (함석헌사상연구회) Network for Peace and Unification in USA (평화와 통일을 위한 연대) NY/NJ People in Solidarity with the Family of the Sewol Ferry; S.P. Ring New Jersey (뉴욕 뉴저지 세월호를 잊지않는 사람들의 모임) Nodutdol for Korean Community Development (노둣돌) One Corea Now One Heart for Justice (샌프란시스코 공감) Out of My Ultari Now (소식지 ‘내 울타리 밖에서는 지금’) Pan-Korean Alliance for Reunification in USA (조국통일범민족연합 재미본부) Peace21.org (내일을 여는 사람들) Peace and Unification Action of Boston (한반도의 평화와 통일을 위한 보스턴 동포들의 행동) Rohjjang Lovers, San Francisco (로짱러버스) Seattle Evergreen Coalition (시애틀 늘푸른연대) SoCal Organized Oppression-Breaking Anti-Imperialist Koreans (수박) Center for the Study of Korean Christianity (한국기독교연구소, 시카고) U.S. Support Committee for Korean Prisoners of Conscience (미주 양심수후원회) Woori Madang, Chicago (우리마당) World for People, Los Angeles (엘에이 사람사는 세상) Young Korean Academy of New York (미주 흥사단 뉴욕지부) 녹두모임(필라델피아) 코네티컷 세사모 콜로라도 세월호 모임 Other Korean Diaspora Organizations 416 Global Network Toronto (세월호를 기억하는 토론토 사람들) 416 Paris (416 해외연대파리) deCrypt, UK (디크립트–영국) Ireland Candlelight Action (아일랜드 촛불행동) Jakarta Candle Action (자카르타 촛불행동) Korean Minjung Cultur e.V, Europe (한국민중문화모임–유럽) Korean New Zealanders for a Better Future (더 좋은 세상 뉴질랜드 한인모임) National Institute of Hahm Seokhon Philosophy, London, UK headquarters (함석헌사상연구회– 영국대표부) Overseas Supporters of Korean Schools in Japan (해외 조선학교 지킴이) Remembering Sewol, UK Remembering Sewol Germany (NRW) (세월호를 기억하는 재독 NRW 모임) Remembering Sewol Sydney (416 세월호를 기억하는 시드니 행동) Sasase Ottawa (사람사는 세상 오타와) Solidarity of Korean People in Europe (한민족유럽연대) S.P.Ring Solidarity (스프링세계시민연대) Vienna Culture Factory (비엔나 문화 제작소) Endorsing Individuals Reverend Jesse Jackson, Civil Rights Leader and Founder of Rainbow/PUSH Professor Noam Chomsky, University of Arizona and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Jill Stein, Green Party presidential nominee 2012, 2016 Endorsing U.S. Organizations (In alphabetical order) About Face: Veterans Against the War Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea American Friends Service Committee ANSWER Coalition Anti-War Committee, Minnesota Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), Seattle Chapter Bayan USA Boston College Center for Human Rights and International Justice Brandywine Peace Community, Philadelphia PA Broome Tioga Green Party Catholic Worker Chelsea Uniting Against the War, Chelsea Massachusetts Coalition for Peace Action CODEPINK Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism Dallas Peace and Justice Center End the Wars Committee of Peace Action Wisconsin Environmentalists Against War Fellowship of Reconciliation Freedom Forward Friends of Iran’s Art and Culture Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space Global Peace Forum Granny Peace Brigade, New York Grassroots Global Justice Greater Boston Chapter of the Green-Rainbow Party Hawai’i Peace and Justice Institute for 21st Century International Relations International Action Center International League of People’s Struggles, US Justice for Muslims Collective Knowdrones.com Korean Quarterly Legacy of Equality, Leadership and Organizing (LELO) Martín-Baró Fund for Mental Health and Human Rights Massachusetts Peace Action Mid-Missouri Fellowship of Reconciliation Military Families Speak Out New Jersey Peace Action Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility Peace Action Peace Action Maine Peace Action Manhattan Peace Action New York State Peace Action San Mateo County Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine Peace and Justice Committee of Uptown Progressive Action, New York NY Peace and Social Concerns Committee, Central Philadelphia (Quakers) Peaceworkers, San Francisco CA PeaceWorks of Greater Brunswick, Maine Philadelphia Committee for Peace and Justice in Asia and the Pacific Popular Resistance Presbyterian Church USA Presbyterian Peace Network for Korea Progressive Democrats of America, San Francisco Chapter Project South RootsAction.org September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows Show Up! America United for Justice with Peace, Boston United for Peace and Justice Upstate New York Drone Action US Labor Against War US Peace Council Veterans For Peace Veterans For Peace / Chapter 021 (Northern New Jersey) War Prevention Initiative War Resisters League Western States Legal Foundation Win Without War Women Against Military Madness Women Cross DMZ Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Corvallis, Oregon branch Workers World Party World BEYOND War Young Greens of UMass Boston Endorsing International Organizations (In alphabetical order) Asia-Wide Campaign against U.S.-Japanese Domination and Aggression of Asia, Japan Association for Protection of Democratic Rights, India Association of Second Generation of A-bomb Survivors, Japan Canadian Voice of Women for Peace Coop Anti-War Cafe Berlin, Heinrich Buecker, Germany Global Rights of Peaceful People, Italy, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Ireland, Ukraine Humanitarian Battalion of Ireland and UK Hystorical and Cultural Center Mobius, Ireland Just Peace Committee, Vancouver, Canada Military Bases and Women Network, Japan New Zealand DPRK Society People Against War Network, Ireland – UK Roudousya Kyoutou, Japan Science for Peace, Canada Slobodan Milosevic International Committee, Hungary, Russia, U.S., Germany Solidarity Labor Union, Yamaguchi, Japan Yamaguchi City People to Accomplish the Constitution of Japan More Endorsing Individuals (In alphabetical order by last name) Dr. Tim Anderson, University of Sydney, Hands off Independent Korea (DPRK), Australia Máire Úna Ní Bheaglaoich, People’s Movement and Peace and Neutrality Alliance Leo Chang, Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea Cindy Domingo, US Women and Cuba Collaboration Hassan El-Tayyab, Policy and Organizing Director of Chicago Area Peace Action David Gibson, Peacehome Campaigns June and John Kelly, independent researchers and journalists (Ireland) Gaseul Jee, Overseas Supporters of Korean Schools in Japan Susan Lee, Justice for Sewol victims activist and artist (Australia) Andrew Leong, JD, Associate Professor, Philosophy Department, UMass Boston Joe Lombardo, Co-coordinator, United National Antiwar Coalition M. Brinton Lykes, Ph.D., Professor of Community-Cultural Psychology, Boston College Robyn Magalit Rodriguez, National Alliance for Filipino Concerns Koohan Paik, International Forum on Globalization Dr. Han S Park, President of Reuniting Families, Inc. Arnie Saiki, Moana Nui Action Alliance Rudy Simons, Peace Action Michigan, Korean War U.S. Army veteran Aaron Tovish, Executive Director, Zona Libre #KoreaPeace #peacetreaty #Reunification

Candlelight rally with unions on March 24 calling for an end to all hostile acts on all sides, signing a peace treaty and real denuclearization by all sides. Calling for a new era of peace and prosperity, the Panmunjom Declaration of April 27, 2018, offers hope for working people throughout Korea, and in the region.  Reprinted here is the statement on the Panmunjom Declaration of the Korean Public Service and Transport Workers’ Union, which is an affiliate of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. KPTU Position on the Panmunjom Declaration Today an historic agreement to dramatically improve relations between South and North Korea and achieve denuclearisation and a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula was reached between President Moon Jae-in and Chairman Kim Jong Un. The Korean Public Service and Transport Workers’ Union (KPTU) welcomes the agreements contained in the “Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Unification of the Korean Peninsula” and hopes that this will mark a turning point in Korean history. Through this agreement, the two leaders confirmed the joint goal of “realising, through complete denuclearisation, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula” and agreed to “actively seek the support and cooperation of the international community” towards denuclearisation. This agreement is welcomed by workers not only in Korea, but throughout East Asia and the world. We recall that real denuclearisation means not only North Korea’s abandonment of its nuclear weapons, but also removal of the nuclear threat from the United States, including withdrawal of the U.S.’ nuclear preemptive strike policy and  discontinuation of military exercises involving nuclear strategic assets. The root cause of the nuclear crisis surrounding the Korean Peninsula lies in the failure to truly end the Korean War. Recognising this, we sincerely welcome the commitment to actively pursue trilateral meetings involving the two Koreas and the United States, or quadrilateral meetings involving the two Koreas, the United States and China with a view to declaring an end to the war and concluding a peace treaty. Any plan for denuclearisation must be agreed to and implemented as part of a wider plan for establishing a peace regime. We have high hopes that such a plan will be discussed and agreed to during the U.S-North Korea Summit. In order to make this possible, the United States must be ready to agree to reverse its hostile policies towards North Korea, sign a peace treaty, normalise relations with North Korea and lifting sanctions at the upcoming summit. We state clearly that we will do everything in our power to push the US-North Korea Summit and the process of implementation afterwards in the right direction. We also place great significance in the two leaders’ reaffirmation of “the Non-Aggression Agreement between the two countries, which precludes the use of force in any form against each other”, and their agreement to “carry out disarmament in a phased manner.” These measures are important for creating the material conditions for a real peace. As a first step, the South Korean government must remove the THAAD system being illegally operated in the Soseongri Village. In addition, we note that these agreements indicate a direction different from that indicated in the US-South Korea joint statement of 30 June 2017, which states, “The ROK will continue to acquire the critical military capabilities necessary to lead the combined defence, and detect, disrupt, destroy, and defend against the DPRK’s nuclear and missile threats, including through interoperable Kill-Chain, Korean Air and Missile Defense (KAMD), and other Alliance systems.” As such, we understand this agreement between the U.S. and South Korea to increase South Korea’s war capacity to be null and void, and declare our intention to work for continuous disarmament. Finally, we welcome the agreement between the two leaders to strengthen civilian exchange and cooperation. In particular, as the union representing the public sector and workers in charge of rail and road transport, we assign great significance to the agreement to connect and modernize the rail and roads on the eastern transportation corridor as well as between Seoul and Sinuiju. We stress that the right to exchange, participation and leadership of South and North Korean workers in this process must be guaranteed. The ‘peace and prosperity” referred to in the Panmunjom Declaration must be shared equally by all. To this end we plan to deepen exchange and solidarity with the workers we will come into contact with on the Peninsula and Eurasian Continent through the process of integration. We are deeply aware of that the tasks we as workers must now undertake in order to bring about peace and reunification are now more varied and more urgent than before. We thus make clear our intention to increase our capacity in the area of anti-war, peace and unification work, in order to be able to concretise a workers’ vision for a peace regime and a unified nation, to fight for peace and prepare for the difficulties created by economic integration. 27 April 2018 Korean Public Service and Transport Workers’ Union #KoreaPeace #NorthKorea #PanmunjomDeclaration #SouthKorea

Chairman Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump at the Singapore Summit, June 12, 2018 By Paul Liem | June 13, 2018 After seventy years of cold war rivalry, nearly resulting in nuclear war last fall, Chairman Kim Jong Un of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (D.P.R.K.) and President Donald Trump of the United States met on Sentosa Island, Singapore, June 12, 2018, and with a hand shake set the stage for unprecedented bilateral relations between their countries. The two leaders pledged “to cooperate for the development of new U.S.-D.P.R.K. relations and for the promotion of peace, prosperity, and the security of the Korean Peninsula and of the world,” according to their joint statement. The post war division of Korea and the Korean War and its legacy, have cost millions of lives, resulted in the militarization of the Korean peninsula, the separation of millions of family members, most of whom have since died without ever having been reunited with their loved ones, and a bitter struggle in the north to survive the harshest of economic sanctions. In their joint statement President Trump agreed to provide “security guarantees” to the D.P.R.K. and Chairman Kim committed to “complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula” in accordance with the Panmunjom Declaration of April 17, 2018. Chairman Kim pledged also to dismantle a missile engine test site, as a show of good faith, and President Trump told reporters that he would “like to bring our soldiers home (from South Korea) … at some point,” but that the U.S. would cancel the U.S.-South Korea war games, which he described as “expensive” and “provocative,” in the meantime. President Trump also acknowledged that denuclearization would take time and indicated that sanctions might be eased earlier. “The sanctions will come off when we are sure that the nukes are no longer a factor,” he said. Underscoring the mutual respect with which the two leaders greeted each other is the very real possibility of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) occurring between their countries. MAD became an overriding factor in U.S.-D.P.R.K. relations last November when the latter acquired the ability to reach any city in the continental U.S. with a nuclear tipped ICBM. President Moon Jae In of the Republic of Korea (R.O.K.), with an eye towards kick starting a peace process, convinced President Trump in December to call off impending U.S. – R.O.K. war games and invited the D.P.R.K. to participate in the Winter Olympics. In kind Chairman Kim emphasized, in his New Year’s address, that the North and South should “work together to ease the acute military tension between the north and the south and create a peaceful environment on the Korean peninsula” and accepted President Moon’s invitation to the Olympics. So came the dramatic turn towards diplomacy between North and South Korea, and between the former and the U.S. In a statement released by the Blue House President Moon applauded Kim and Trump for their “courage and determination … to take a daring step towards change.” “We will be there together with North Korea along the way,” he said. Seventy years have passed. There is still no peace treaty, sanctions continue to weigh down upon the people of North Korea, and in spite of the Candlelight Revolution which brought President Moon to office in 2017, the R.O.K. armed forces still fall under the command of a U.S. general in time of war, and its peaceful villages still bear the weight of foreign troops, missile defense systems and war ships. But never before has the U.S. been willing to engage bilaterally with the D.P.R.K. to achieve nuclear disarmament, not just in the north, but across the Korean peninsula, and within the framework of a peace process to end, finally, the Korean War. Peace is the hope inspired by the Singapore Summit. What follows is the text of the joint statement, in English, followed by Korean. Joint Statement of President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea at the Singapore Summit Issued on: June 12, 2018 President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) held a first, historic summit in Singapore on June 12, 2018. President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un conducted a comprehensive, in-depth, and sincere exchange of opinions on the issues related to the establishment of new U.S.–DPRK relations and the building of a lasting and robust peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. President Trump committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK, and Chairman Kim Jong Un reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Convinced that the establishment of new U.S.–DPRK relations will contribute to the peace and prosperity of the Korean Peninsula and of the world, and recognizing that mutual confidence building can promote the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un state the following: 1. The United States and the DPRK commit to establish new U.S.–DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity. 2. The United States and the DPRK will join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. 3. Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. 4. The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified. Having acknowledged that the U.S.–DPRK summit—the first in history—was an epochal event of great significance in overcoming decades of tensions and hostilities between the two countries and for the opening up of a new future, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un commit to implement the stipulations in this joint statement fully and expeditiously. The United States and the DPRK commit to hold follow-on negotiations, led by the U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and a relevant high-level DPRK official, at the earliest possible date, to implement the outcomes of the U.S.–DPRK summit. President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have committed to cooperate for the development of new U.S.–DPRK relations and for the promotion of peace, prosperity, and security of the Korean Peninsula and of the world. DONALD J. TRUMP President of the United States of America KIM JONG UN Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea June 12, 2018 Sentosa Island Singapore 김정은 조선민주주의인민공화국 국무위원회 위원장과 도날드 제이. 트럼프 미합중국 대통령사이의 싱가포르수뇌회담 공동성명 김정은 조선민주주의인민공화국 국무위원회 위원장과 도날드 제이. 트럼프 미합중국 대통령은 2018년 6월 12일 싱가포르에서 첫 력사적인 수뇌회담을 진행하였다. 김정은위원장과 트럼프대통령은 새로운 조미관계수립과 조선반도에서의 항구적이며 공고한 평화체제구축에 관한 문제들에 대하여 포괄적이며 심도있고 솔직한 의견교환을 진행하였다. 트럼프대통령은 조선민주주의인민공화국에 안전담보를 제공할것을 확언하였으며 김정은위원장은 조선반도의 완전한 비핵화에 대한 확고부동한 의지를 재확인하였다. 김정은위원장과 트럼프대통령은 새로운 조미관계수립이 조선반도와 세계의 평화와 번영에 이바지할것이라는것을 확신하면서, 호상 신뢰구축이 조선반도의 비핵화를 추동할수 있다는것을 인정하면서 다음과 같이 성명한다. 조선민주주의인민공화국과 미합중국은 평화와 번영을 바라는 두 나라 인민들의 념원에 맞게 새로운 조미관계를 수립해나가기로 하였다. 조선민주주의인민공화국과 미합중국은 조선반도에서 항구적이며 공고한 평화체제를 구축하기 위하여 공동으로 노력할것이다. 조선민주주의인민공화국은 2018년 4월 27일에 채택된 판문점선언을 재확인하면서 조선반도의 완전한 비핵화를 향하여 노력할것을 확약하였다. 조선민주주의인민공화국과 미합중국은 전쟁포로 및 행방불명자들의 유골발굴을 진행하며 이미 발굴확인된 유골들을 즉시 송환할것을 확약하였다. 김정은위원장과 트럼프대통령은 력사상 처음으로 되는 조미수뇌회담이 두 나라사이에 수십년간 지속되여온 긴장상태와 적대관계를 해소하고 새로운 미래를 열어나가는데서 커다란 의의를 가지는 획기적인 사변이라는데 대하여 인정하면서 공동성명의 조항들을 완전하고 신속하게 리행하기로 하였다. 조선민주주의인민공화국과 미합중국은 조미수뇌회담의 결과를 리행하기 위하여 가능한 빠른 시일안에 마이크 폼페오 미합중국 국무장관과 조선민주주의인민공화국 해당 고위인사사이의 후속협상을 진행하기로 하였다. 김정은 조선민주주의인민공화국 국무위원회 위원장과 도날드 제이. 트럼프 미합중국 대통령은 새로운 조미관계발전과 조선반도와 세계의 평화와 번영, 안전을 추동하기 위하여 협력하기로 하였다. 2018년 6월 12일 싱가포르 쎈토사섬 조선민주주의인민공화국 국무위원회             미합중국                                  위원장                                 대 통 령 김        정        은                        도날드 제이. 트럼프 #Trump #KoreaPeace #Nuclearweapons #PanmunjeomDeclaration #NorthKorea

Chairman Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump Sign Joint Statement Following the Summit meeting of Chairman Kim Jong Un, and President Donald Trump, the official news service of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, KCNA, reported that the two leaders “expressed expectation and belief that the two countries which have lived in the quagmire of hostility, distrust and hatred would pass the unhappy past over and dynamically advance toward an excellent and proud future beneficial to each other and another new era, the era of the DPRK-U.S. cooperation would open up.”  “There was a comprehensive and in-depth discussion over the issues of establishing new DPRK-U.S. relations and building a permanent and durable peace mechanism on the Korean peninsula at the talks,” the report also said.  What follows is the full KCNA report of June 13, 2018 Historic First DPRK-U.S. Summit Meeting and Talks Held Pyongyang, June 13 (KCNA) — Kim Jong Un, chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea, chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and supreme commander of the Korean People’s Army, held the summit meeting and talks with Donald J. Trump, president of the United States of America, at Sentosa Island of Singapore on June 12, 2018 for the first time in the histories of the two countries. Thanks to the fixed decision and will of the top leaders of the two countries to put an end to the extreme hostile relations between the DPRK and the U.S., which lingered for the longest period on the earth on terms of acute confrontation and to open up a new future for the sake of the interests of the peoples of the two countries and global peace and security, the first DPRK-U.S. summit is to be held. Singapore, the country of the epoch-making meeting much awaited by the whole world, was awash with thousands of domestic and foreign journalists and a large crowd of masses to see this day’s moment which will remain long in history. Kim Jong Un left his lodging quarters at 8:10 a.m. local time and arrived at Capella Hotel on Sentosa Island of Singapore, the venue of the talks. Seen standing at the lobby of the venue of the talks where the top leaders of the DPRK and the U.S. will have the first meeting were the flags of the DPRK and the U.S. At 9:00 a.m. local time the respected Supreme Leader of the party, state and army of the DPRK Kim Jong Un met and shook hands with U.S. President Donald J. Trump for the first time. The top leaders of the two countries came to take their first step toward reconciliation for the first time in the 70 odd years-long history of standoff and antagonism since the division of the Korean Peninsula, and to stand face to face at the venue of dialogue. Chairman Kim Jong Un had a souvenir photo taken with President Trump. The two top leaders went to the conference room, having a familiar talk. Tete-a-tete talks were held between the two top leaders. Noting that it was not easy to get to where they were, Kim Jong Un made the meaningful words there was a past that gripped their ankles and prejudice and wrong practice covered their eyes and ears, but they overcame all that to come to this place and stand at a new starting point. The two top leaders had a candid exchange of views on the practical issues of weighty significance in putting an end to the decades-long hostile relations between the DPRK and the U.S. and making peace and stability settle on the Korean Peninsula. Then followed extended talks. Present there from the DPRK side were Kim Yong Chol and Ri Su Yong, vice-chairmen of the Central Committee of the WPK, and Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho. Present there from the U.S. side were Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, United States National Security Advisor John Bolton and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly. There was a comprehensive and in-depth discussion over the issues of establishing new DPRK-U.S. relations and building a permanent and durable peace mechanism on the Korean peninsula at the talks. Noting that he is pleased to sit face-to-face with President Trump and the U.S. side’s delegation, Chairman Kim Jong Unhighly praised the president’s will and enthusiasm to resolve matters in a realistic way through dialogue and negotiations, away from the hostility-woven past. Expressing belief that the summit talks would lead to improvement of the DPRK-U.S. relations, President Trump appreciated that an atmosphere of peace and stability was created on the Korean Peninsula and in the region, although distressed with the extreme danger of armed clash only a few months ago, thanks to the proactive peace-loving measures taken by the respected Supreme Leader from the outset of this year. Noting that many problems occurred due to deep-rooted distrust and hostility existing between the two countries, Kim Jong Un said in order to achieve peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and realize its denuclearization, the two countries should commit themselves to refraining from antagonizing each other out of mutual understanding, and take legal and institutional steps to guarantee it. He also underlined the need for the DPRK and the U.S. to take practical measures actively to carry out the issues discussed at the talks and the joint statement at an early date. Kim Jong Un made an immediate agreement on Trump’s proposal for recovering the remains of American soldiers and repatriating those already identified and gave an instruction to take a measure for settling it as early as possible. Noting that the building of lasting and durable peace-keeping mechanism on the Korean Peninsula is of weighty significance in ensuring peace and security in the region and the rest of the world, he said that it is urgent to make bold decision on halting irritating and hostile military actions against each other. Expressing his understanding of it, Trump expressed his intention to halt the U.S.-south Korea joint military exercises, which the DPRK side regards as provocation, over a period of good-will dialogue between the DPRK and the U.S., offer security guarantees to the DPRK and lift sanctions against it along with advance in improving the mutual relationship through dialogue and negotiation. Kim Jong Un clarified the stand that if the U.S. side takes genuine measures for building trust in order to improve the DPRK-U.S. relationship, the DPRK, too, can continue to take additional good-will measures of next stage commensurate with them. Kim Jong Un and Trump had the shared recognition to the effect that it is important to abide by the principle of step-by-step and simultaneous action in achieving peace, stability and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. That day, a luncheon was given in honor of the top leaders of the DPRK and the U.S. and participants in the talks. Exchanged at the luncheon were views on further animating communication, contact and visit between both sides to cement the achievements made at the DPRK-U.S. talks and remarkably develop the DPRK-U.S. relations. After the luncheon, the top leaders had a walk, deepening friendly feelings. Kim Jong Un, chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the DPRK, and Donald J. Trump, president of the USA, signed a joint statement of the historic Singapore summit talks. Kim Jong Un said that today both sides came to sign the historic joint statement heralding a new start, passing the past over, stating that the world would witness an important change. Kim Jong Un had a meaningful photo session with Trump to commemorate the signing of the historic document and bid him farewell. Chairman Kim Jong Un and President Trump expressed expectation and belief that the two countries which have lived in the quagmire of hostility, distrust and hatred would pass the unhappy past over and dynamically advance toward an excellent and proud future beneficial to each other and another new era, the era of the DPRK-U.S. cooperation would open up. Kim Jong Un invited Trump to visit Pyongyang at a convenient time and Trump invited Kim Jong Un to visit the U.S. The two top leaders gladly accepted each other’s invitation, convinced that it would serve as another important occasion for improved DPRK-U.S. relations. The DPRK-U.S. summit talks held in Singapore with success amid enthusiastic support and welcome of the whole world come to be a great event of weighty significance in further promoting the historic trend toward reconciliation and peace, stability and prosperity being created in the Korean Peninsula and the region and in making a radical switchover in the most hostile DPRK-U.S. relations, as required by the developing times. -0- (2018.06.13) 조미관계의 새 력사를 개척한 세기적만남 – 력사상 첫 조미수뇌상봉과 회담 진행 우리 당과 국가, 군대의 최고령도자 김정은동지께서 미합중국 대통령과 공동성명 채택 (평양 6월 13일발 조선중앙통신) 조선로동당 위원장이시며 조선민주주의인민공화국 국무위원회 위원장이시며 조선인민군 최고사령관이신 우리 당과 국가, 군대의 최고령도자 김정은동지께서 미합중국 대통령 도날드 제이.트럼프와 2018년 6월 12일 싱가포르의 쎈토사섬에서 조미 두 나라 력사상 처음으로 되는 수뇌상봉과 회담을 진행하시였다. 지구상에서 가장 장구한 세월 첨예하게 대립되고 지속되여온 조미사이의 극단적인 적대관계를 끝장내고 두 나라 인민의 리익과 세계의 평화와 안전을 위한 새로운 미래를 열어나가려는 수뇌분들의 확고한 결단과 의지에 의하여 금세기 최초의 조선민주주의인민공화국과 미합중국 수뇌회담이 진행되게 된다. 전세계가 하루하루 기다려온 세기적인 만남이 이루어지는 싱가포르의 곳곳에는 수천명의 내외신기자들과 수많은 군중들이 운집되여 력사에 길이 남을 이날의 순간순간을 주시하고있었다. 경애하는 최고령도자동지께서는 현지시간으로 오전 8시 10분 숙소를 떠나시여 회담장인 싱가포르 쎈토사섬의 카펠라호텔에 도착하시였다. 조미수뇌분들께서 첫 상봉을 하시게 될 회담장 로비에는 조선민주주의인민공화국 국기와 미합중국 국기가 나란히 걸려있었다. 현지시간으로 오전 9시, 우리 당과 국가, 군대의 최고령도자 김정은동지께서 미합중국 대통령 도날드 제이.트럼프와 상봉하시고 첫 악수를 나누시였다. 조선반도가 둘로 갈라져 대립과 반목의 력사가 흘러온 70여년만에 처음으로 조미수뇌분들이 화해를 향한 첫발을 내디디고 대화의 장에 마주서게 되였다. 경애하는 최고령도자동지께서는 트럼프대통령과 기념촬영을 하신 다음 담소를 나누시며 회담실로 향하시였다. 경애하는 최고령도자동지와 트럼프대통령사이의 단독회담이 진행되였다. 경애하는 최고령도자동지께서는 오늘 여기까지 와닿는 과정이 결코 헐치는 않았다고 하시면서 과거의 력사가 우리의 발목을 붙잡고 그릇된 편견과 관행들이 우리의 눈과 귀를 가리우기도 했지만 그 모든것을 과감하게 짓밟고 이렇게 이 자리에까지 왔으며 새로운 출발점에 서게 되였다는 뜻깊은 말씀을 하시였다. 조미수뇌분들께서는 수십년간 지속되여온 적대적인 조미관계에 종지부를 찍고 조선반도에 평화와 안정이 깃들도록 하는데서 중요한 의의를 가지는 실천적문제들에 대하여 솔직한 의견을 나누시였다. 조미수뇌분들의 단독회담에 이어 확대회담이 진행되였다. 확대회담에는 우리측에서 조선로동당 중앙위원회 부위원장들인 김영철동지, 리수용동지, 외무상 리용호동지가 참가하였다. 상대측에서는 미합중국 국무장관 마이크 폼페오, 미합중국 대통령 국가안전담당보좌관 죤 볼튼, 백악관 비서실장 죤 켈리가 참가하였다. 회담에서는 새로운 조미관계수립과 조선반도에서의 항구적이며 공고한 평화체제구축에 관한 문제들에 대한 포괄적이며 심도있는 론의가 진행되였다. 경애하는 최고령도자동지께서는 트럼프대통령을 비롯한 미국측대표단과 이렇게 자리를 같이한것을 기쁘게 생각한다고 하시면서 적대적과거를 불문하고 대화와 협상을 통해 현실적인 방법으로 문제를 해결하려는 대통령의 의지와 열망을 높이 평가하시였다. 미합중국 트럼프대통령은 이번 수뇌회담이 조미관계개선에로 이어지리라는 확신을 표명하면서 경애하는 최고령도자동지께서 올해초부터 취하신 주동적이며 평화애호적인 조치에 의하여 불과 몇개월전까지만 하여도 군사적충돌의 위험이 극도에 달하였던 조선반도와 지역에 평화와 안정의 분위기가 도래하게 되였다고 평가하였다. 경애하는 최고령도자동지께서는 두 나라사이에 존재하고있는 뿌리깊은 불신과 적대감으로부터 많은 문제가 산생되였다고 하시면서 조선반도의 평화와 안정을 이룩하고 비핵화를 실현하기 위하여서는 량국이 서로에 대한 리해심을 가지고 적대시하지 않는다는것을 약속하며 이를 담보하는 법적, 제도적조치를 취해나가야 한다고 말씀하시였다. 경애하는 최고령도자동지께서는 조미쌍방이 빠른 시일안에 이번 회담에서 토의된 문제들과 공동성명을 리행해나가기 위한 실천적조치들을 적극 취해나갈데 대하여 말씀하시였다. 경애하는 최고령도자동지께서는 트럼프대통령이 제기한 미군유골발굴 및 송환문제를 즉석에서 수락하시고 이를 조속히 해결하기 위한 대책을 세울데 대하여 지시하시였다. 경애하는 최고령도자동지께서는 조선반도에서 항구적이며 공고한 평화체제를 수립하는것이 지역과 세계평화와 안전보장에 중대한 의의를 가진다고 하시면서 당면해서 상대방을 자극하고 적대시하는 군사행동들을 중지하는 용단부터 내려야 한다고 말씀하시였다. 미합중국 대통령은 이에 리해를 표시하면서 조미사이에 선의의 대화가 진행되는 동안 조선측이 도발로 간주하는 미국－남조선합동군사연습을 중지하며 조선민주주의인민공화국에 대한 안전담보를 제공하고 대화와 협상을 통한 관계개선이 진척되는데 따라 대조선제재를 해제할수 있다는 의향을 표명하였다. 경애하는 최고령도자동지께서는 미국측이 조미관계개선을 위한 진정한 신뢰구축조치를 취해나간다면 우리도 그에 상응하게 계속 다음단계의 추가적인 선의의 조치들을 취해나갈수 있다는 립장을 밝히시였다. 조미수뇌분들께서는 조선반도의 평화와 안정,조선반도의 비핵화를 이룩해나가는 과정에서 단계별, 동시행동원칙을 준수하는것이 중요하다는데 대하여 인식을 같이하시였다. 이날 조미수뇌분들과 쌍방회담성원들이 참가하는 오찬이 있었다. 오찬에서는 조미회담의 성과를 공고히 하고 조미관계를 획기적으로 발전시켜나가기 위하여 쌍방사이에 의사소통과 접촉래왕을 보다 활성화해나갈데 대한 의견들이 교환되였다. 조미수뇌분들께서는 오찬이 끝난 후 함께 산책하시며 친교를 두터이하시였다. 조선민주주의인민공화국 국무위원회 위원장 김정은동지께서와 미합중국 도날드 제이.트럼프대통령은 력사적인 싱가포르수뇌회담 공동성명에 서명하시였다. 경애하는 최고령도자동지께서는 오늘 과거를 덮고 새로운 출발을 알리는 력사적인 공동성명에 서명하게 된다고 하시면서 세계는 중대한 변화를 목격하게 될것이라고 말씀하시였다. 경애하는 최고령도자동지께서는 트럼프대통령과 력사적인 문건을 채택한 기념으로 뜻깊은 사진을 찍으시고 작별인사를 나누시였다. 경애하는 최고령도자동지께서와 트럼프대통령은 적대와 불신, 증오속에 살아온 두 나라가 불행한 과거를 덮어두고 서로에게 리익이 되는 훌륭하고 자랑스러운 미래를 향하여 힘차게 나아가며 또 하나의 새로운 시대,조미협력의 시대가 펼쳐지게 될것이라는 기대와 확신을 피력하시였다. 경애하는 최고령도자동지께서는 트럼프대통령이 편리한 시기에 평양을 방문하도록 초청하시였으며 트럼프대통령도 김정은국무위원장께서 미국을 방문하여주실것을 초청하였다. 조미수뇌분들께서는 이러한 초청이 조미관계개선을 위한 또 하나의 중요한 계기가 될것이라고 확신하면서 이를 쾌히 수락하시였다. 전세계의 열광적인 지지와 환영속에 성과적으로 진행된 싱가포르조미수뇌회담은 조선반도와 지역에 도래하고있는 화해와 평화, 안정과 번영을 위한 력사적흐름을 보다 추동하고 가장 적대적이였던 조미 두 나라사이의 관계를 시대발전의 요구에 맞게 획기적으로 전환시켜나가는데서 중대한 의의를 가지는 거대한 사변으로 된다.(끝) (2018.06.13) #Trump #KoreaPeace #KimJongUn #DPRK #NorthKorea

The leaders of North and South Korea, Kim Jong Un and Moon Jae-in, cross the DMZ that divides the peninsula in a bid to make peace and reunify the country, August 27, 2018. (AFP) President Moon Jae-in of the Republic of Korea and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea issued the Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Unification of the Korean Peninsula, August 27, 2018, declaring that there will be “no more war on the Korean peninsula and thus a new era of peace has begun.” The declaration referred to the 2007 October 4 Declaration with regard to promoting “balanced economic growth and co-prosperity of the nation,” and reaffirmed the Non-Aggression Agreement “that precludes the use of force in any form against each other.”  In addition to these two agreements President Moon and Chairman Kim agreed to “fully implementing all existing agreements and declarations adopted between the two sides thus far.  These agreements would include the Joint Communique of July 4, 1972; the Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula of 1992 and the Joint Declaration of June 15, 2000. What follows is the full text of the declaration as published on the South Korean government website at www.koreasummit.kr. Apr 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Unification of the Korean Peninsula (Unofficial Translation) During this momentous period of historical transformation on the Korean Peninsula, reflecting the enduring aspiration of the Korean people for peace, prosperity and unification, President Moon Jae-in of the Republic of Korea and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea held an Inter-Korean Summit Meeting at the ‘Peace House’ at Panmunjom on April 27, 2018. The two leaders solemnly declared before the 80 million Korean people and the whole world that there will be no more war on the Korean Peninsula and thus a new era of peace has begun. The two leaders, sharing the firm commitment to bring a swift end to the Cold War relic of longstanding division and confrontation, to boldly approach a new era of national reconciliation, peace and prosperity, and to improve and cultivate inter-Korean relations in a more active manner, declared at this historic site of Panmunjom as follows : 1. South and North Korea will reconnect the blood relations of the people and bring forward the future of co-prosperity and unification led by Koreans by facilitating comprehensive and groundbreaking advancement in inter-Korean relations. Improving and cultivating inter-Korean relations is the prevalent desire of the whole nation and the urgent calling of the times that cannot be held back any further. ① South and North Korea affirmed the principle of determining the destiny of the Korean nation on their own accord and agreed to bring forth the watershed moment for the improvement of inter-Korean relations by fully implementing all existing agreements and declarations adopted between the two sides thus far. ② South and North Korea agreed to hold dialogue and negotiations in various fields including at high level, and to take active measures for the implementation of the agreements reached at the Summit. ③ South and North Korea agreed to establish a joint liaison office with resident representatives of both sides in the Gaeseong region in order to facilitate close consultation between the authorities as well as smooth exchanges and cooperation between the peoples. ④ South and North Korea agreed to encourage more active cooperation, exchanges, visits and contacts at all levels in order to rejuvenate the sense of national reconciliation and unity. Between South and North, the two sides will encourage the atmosphere of amity and cooperation by actively staging various joint events on the dates that hold special meaning for both South and North Korea, such as June 15, in which participants from all levels, including central and local governments, parliaments, political parties, and civil organizations, will be involved. On the international front, the two sides agreed to demonstrate their collective wisdom, talents, and solidarity by jointly participating in international sports events such as the 2018 Asian Games. ⑤ South and North Korea agreed to endeavor to swiftly resolve the humanitarian issues that resulted from the division of the nation, and to convene the Inter-Korean Red Cross Meeting to discuss and solve various issues including the reunion of separated families. In this vein, South and North Korea agreed to proceed with reunion programs for the separated families on the occasion of the National Liberation Day of August 15 this year. ⑥ South and North Korea agreed to actively implement the projects previously agreed in the 2007 October 4 Declaration, in order to promote balanced economic growth and co-prosperity of the nation. As a first step, the two sides agreed to adopt practical steps towards the connection and modernization of the railways and roads on the eastern transportation corridor as well as between Seoul and Sinuiju for their utilization. 2. South and North Korea will make joint efforts to alleviate the acute military tension and practically eliminate the danger of war on the Korean Peninsula. Alleviating the military tension and eliminating the danger of war is a highly significant challenge directly linked to the fate of the Korean people and also a vital task in guaranteeing their peaceful and stable lives. ① South and North Korea agreed to completely cease all hostile acts against each other in every domain, including land, air and sea, that are the source of military tension and conflict. In this vein, the two sides agreed to transform the demilitarized zone into a peace zone in a genuine sense by ceasing as of May 1 this year all hostile acts and eliminating their means, including broadcasting through loudspeakers and distribution of leaflets, in the areas along the Military Demarcation Line. ② South and North Korea agreed to devise a practical scheme to turn the areas around the Northern Limit Line in the West Sea into a maritime peace zone in order to prevent accidental military clashes and guarantee safe fishing activities. ③ South and North Korea agreed to take various military measures to ensure active mutual cooperation, exchanges, visits and contacts. The two sides agreed to hold frequent meetings between military authorities, including the Defense Ministers Meeting, in order to immediately discuss and solve military issues that arise between them. In this regard, the two sides agreed to first convene military talks at the rank of general in May. 3. South and North Korea will actively cooperate to establish a permanent and solid peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. Bringing an end to the current unnatural state of armistice and establishing a robust peace regime on the Korean Peninsula is a historical mission that must not be delayed any further. ① South and North Korea reaffirmed the Non-Aggression Agreement that precludes the use of force in any form against each other, and agreed to strictly adhere to this Agreement. ② South and North Korea agreed to carry out disarmament in a phased manner, as military tension is alleviated and substantial progress is made in military confidence-building. ③ During this year that marks the 65th anniversary of the Armistice, South and North Korea agreed to actively pursue trilateral meetings involving the two Koreas and the United States, or quadrilateral meetings involving the two Koreas, the United States and China with a view to declaring an end to the War, turning the armistice into a peace treaty, and establishing a permanent and solid peace regime. ④ South and North Korea confirmed the common goal of realizing, through complete denuclearization, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. South and North Korea shared the view that the measures being initiated by North Korea are very meaningful and crucial for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and agreed to carry out their respective roles and responsibilities in this regard. South and North Korea agreed to actively seek the support and cooperation of the international community for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The two leaders agreed, through regular meetings and direct telephone conversations, to hold frequent and candid discussions on issues vital to the nation, to strengthen mutual trust and to jointly endeavor to strengthen the positive momentum towards continuous advancement of inter-Korean relations as well as peace, prosperity and unification of the Korean Peninsula. In this context, President Moon Jae-in agreed to visit Pyongyang this fall. April 27, 2018 Done in PanmunjomMoon Jae-in President Republic of KoreaKim Jong Un Chairman State Affairs Commission Democratic People’s Republic of Korea #KoreaPeace #NorthKorea #PanmunjeomDeclaration #SouthKorea

Kim Yo Jong, left, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, shakes hands with South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games Feb 9, 2018.(Photo by Patrick Semansky – Pool /Getty Images) By Christine Ahn | March 13, 2018 Originally published in Fortune.com. The dramatic news that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un extended an invitation to President Donald Trump for a summit, and that Trump agreed, is nothing short of a miracle. After a year of hurling threats and insults at each other, as well as provocative military actions that nearly brought the two countries to war, the two leaders will sit down to begin a process of halting North Korea’s nuclear program. The world has certainly cheered the recent diplomatic progress made between the two Koreas. But much of the response to the groundbreaking news about the Trump-Kim talks has affirmed that Trump’s policy of maximum pressure succeeded in getting North Korea to take seriously Washington’s demands to denuclearize—or face getting a bloody nose. This is a dangerous rewriting of what it took to bring North Korea to dialogue and what it will take going forward to convince Kim to give up his nuclear weapons. Let’s face it. Whether called “maximum pressure” or “strategic patience,” the past several U.S. administrations’ policies—aggressive military posturing with threats of decapitation strikes and stringent sanctions strangling North Korea’s economy—have failed to bring the Kim regime to dialogue. Instead, this has only compelled North Korea to develop its nuclear and missile program with ever-greater fervor. This narrative erases the extraordinarily nimble diplomatic footwork by South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Moon is genuinely committed to a long-term resolution of the Korean conflict, not looking for a short-term diplomatic victory. And that is what gives me great cause for both concern and hope. To the U.S., steps toward denuclearization have been the starting and ending point for negotiations with North Korea. But for the North Koreans, it has always been about trying to secure a guarantee to merely exist. Imagine a country that was eviscerated by indiscriminate U.S. bombing campaigns during the Korean War, when more bombs were dropped on North Korea than on all of the Asia-Pacific Theater during World War II. Eighty percent of North Korean cities were totally destroyed, which is why North Korea has developed a paranoid, bomb-shelter mindset. We can blame the North Korean regime for perpetuating it, but we also cannot deny what happened. Add to that baseline trauma the rapid changes that have occurred on North Korea’s borders, from the collapse of the Soviet Union to a capitalist China that has become South Korea’s largest trading partner, and one can understand why ensuring the sovereignty of his nation would be Kim’s highest priority. North Korea has had to also navigate the wild swings in its relationship with South Korea, from sunshine to darkness. Its siege mentality only heightens during the spring and fall, when the U.S. and South Korea jointly conduct the world’s largest military exercises, involving over 200,000 soldiers, B-2 bombers, and an operational plan rehearsing decapitation strikes on North Korea. As the U.S. and North Korea drew closer to war, the world pleaded for a true statesman to avert a global nuclear disaster that could impact hundreds of millions. Thankfully, the power of democratic social movements in South Korea ushered Moon into the presidency to fulfill the mandate of his people: to improve inter-Korean relations, which he has so skillfully done with his steadfast commitment to resolving tensions with peaceful gestures and diplomacy. At Moon’s invitation, hundreds of North Korean officials, athletes, and performers coordinated with hundreds of their counterpart South Koreans for a seamless opening ceremony at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang. Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un’s sister, became the first member of the Kim dynasty to land on South Korean soil since her grandfather in the Korean War, and she shook hands with Moon at the ceremony. Without an understanding of the diplomacy that brought North Korea to dialogue or the deeper history of the U.S. role on the Korean peninsula, I fear that the Trump administration will not fully appreciate what it will take to convince North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. With longtime North Korea envoy Joseph Yun’s recent departure from the State Department, along with the continued lack of a U.S. ambassador to South Korea, the current prospects seem dim. Yet if there were ever a U.S. president capable of striking an impossible deal, it is Trump. But first, he must educate himself about North Korea’s long-held demand for a peace treaty, or at least nonaggression pact, to replace the 1953 armistice agreement, which would normalize relations and allow North Korea’s economy to grow and develop. Trump could then not only negotiate the end of the North Korean nuclear threat, but accomplish what U.S. presidents have failed to do for seven decades: establish peace on the Korean peninsula. Christine Ahn is the founder and international coordinator of Women Cross DMZ, a global movement of women mobilizing for peace on the Korean peninsula. #KoreanWar #peacetreaty #ChristineAhn #MoonJaein #Armistice #NorthKorea

The North Korea and South Korea Olympic teams enter together under the Korean Unification Flag during the Opening Ceremony of the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games  on February 9, 2018 in Pyeongchang-gun, South Korea. (Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images) Janine Jackson, FAIR | March 3, 2018 Originally published in FAIR and Truthout. Transcription of interview with Prof. Christine Hong of the Korea Policy Institute. Janine Jackson: Many were stirred by the sight of North and South Korean athletes parading together at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Pyeongchang. And that’s a big problem, says Vice President Mike Pence, who declared, to some media applause, that he would “seize every opportunity” to stop North Korea from using the games as an opportunity for propaganda. There’s something funny about decrying nationalist propaganda at the Olympics, but corporate media coverage of Korea is funny in a lot of ways. When the Washington Post writes gibberish about Pence’s plan to “fight propaganda with some no-nonsense spin of his own,” that’s of a piece with coverage in which North Korea and Kim Jong-un are cartoon demons: the definition of an official enemy. It all makes sense for those who require such an enemy. But what about those of us who don’t sell weapons, or appreciate threats of nuclear war? Joining us now to talk about all of this is Christine Hong, associate professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an executive board member of the Korea Policy Institute. She joins us now by phone from Santa Cruz. Welcome to CounterSpin, Christine Hong. Christine Hong: Thank you for having me, Janine. It’s bizarre to hear Mike Pence say that North Korea has to “end the day of provocation and menacing,” that they can’t be allowed to distract from their human rights record or weapons-building. I do wonder how you react to statements like that. And then it’s important to focus on what the US does on the Korean Peninsula, isn’t it, as much as what Pence or other officials might say? Absolutely. I mean, you mentioned a number of things that I think are important to highlight in this particular moment. Which is the fact that when Pence refused his South Korean hosts the courtesy of standing when the two Koreas marched under a unified banner, he was as much of a historical revisionist as that NBC reporter, Josh Cooper Ramo, who was fired for making comments about the ways in which South Korea has taken its cues from Japan, which was a colonial occupier of Korea. And what I mean by this is that that particular flag, which showed the entire Korean Peninsula with absolutely no division, it represented the Korean Peninsula without US interference. If we go back to the middle part of the 20th century, it was the United States under Truman, and it was Truman, three days after the US atomic bombing of Nagasaki, who deputized two junior military officials, who had absolutely no understanding of Korean history, who hadn’t bothered to consult with any Korean, and who then divided Korea into two occupation zones at the 38th parallel, which precipitated an absolutely catastrophic and brutal war of national reunification that followed. And so it was the United States, in the first instance, that actually set the structural conditions for the Korean War, which has never ended. And so Pence, in stating at the Olympics, there is no separation between the United States and its historic client states, and strategic allies within the region, of Japan and South Korea, in terms of a unified posture against North Korea, what he was stating was absolutely backwards. It’s not North Korea that is playing a wedge, and dividing supposedly natural partners, United States and South Korea. It’s absolutely the United States which is driving a wedge between the two Koreas, and it’s historically done so. The Korean War is kind of a lacuna in the US public and media imagination, and I learned from the piece that you wrote in The Progressive, “The Long, Dirty History of US Warmongering Against North Korea,” just how lasting and living the impact of that war is, and also that it was important as the beginning of the kind of big military money machinery, post–World War II, that we’re seeing now. Absolutely. I think that you raised a really interesting point, and we can fast-forward it to the present day. The Korean War is ironically memorialized in the United States as the “Forgotten War,” but this was a war that was absolutely crucial in the post-1945 period. Let’s remember that the US economy during World War II was geared toward total war. And the Korean War basically resuscitated an economy that was geared toward the production of permanent warfare. It was essential to establishing the National Security State. It was absolutely essential to establishing what Chalmers Johnson has called an “empire of bases” around the world. And it put the United States on permanent war footing. If we flash forward to the current moment, we have Donald Trump, who states that he has an “America First” policy. And what he’s doing right now, if you’ve looked at the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, it’s completely geared toward revamping the US nuclear weapons systems. And the United States possesses something like 7,000 nuclear warheads — North Korea has an estimated ten — and yet it claims that North Korea is some sort of existential threat to the United States. And the fact of the matter is that the revamping of the nuclear armaments industry, when the United States is, according to the NPT, supposed to actually start to dismantle its nuclear program, the fact of the matter is that’s going to cost an estimated $1.7 trillion — and that’s a low estimate. And so Donald Trump’s “America First” policy is truly a “military first” policy, and that $1.7 trillion is $1.7 trillion that is taken away from any form of social program spending in this country. By contrast, even though Kim Jong-un’s father actually had a military-first policy, it was his songun policy, which was aimed at defending against the United States ,as the world’s greatest military power. And as you mentioned, Pence stating that North Korea is a threat has it absolutely wrong. The United States has leveled, since the middle part of the 20th century to the current moment, the most extreme sanctions packages against North Korea, which are aimed at collective punishment of the North Korean people. They’re not aimed as a surgical strike against any kind of weapon industry within North Korea, and they’re not aimed at the leadership. These sanctions include things like hospital equipment, any form of fuel, and they’re aimed at harming the ordinary people. And the other things that the United States does: It conducts the largest war exercises in the world with its South Korean ally. These have been suspended because of the current Olympics and Paralympics that will follow. But these actually simulate the invasion and occupation of North Korea. They simulate the decapitation of the North Korean leadership. And they also simulate and rehearse a nuclear first strike against North Korea. So North Korea has been in the crosshairs of the US war machine for decades. So Kim Jong-un’s father had a military-first policy, which was aimed at defending — it’s self-defense — defending North Korean society against the United States. What’s interesting about Kim Jong-un is that his policy, the byungjin policy, is aimed at two simultaneous tracks, one is developing the nuclear weapons program of North Korea. But the other one is aimed at the economy, and it’s aimed at improving the livelihood of the North Korean people. Can we say the same thing about Donald Trump? I often note how swallowing the double standard of US exceptionalism is kind of the price of admission to serious foreign policy debate in the US media, and we’ve also noted how blithely US politicians can refer to genocide on the Korean Peninsula without media raising an eyebrow. John McCain told CNN’s Jake Tapper last September, “If Kim Jong-un acts in an aggressive fashion” — he didn’t even say what that meant — “the price will be extinction.” And Tapper just kept it moving. In your Progressive piece, you say that this demonology script that we get from the media, that that essentially means, and I want to use your words, “We consent to North Korea’s extinction in advance.” I think that takes some sinking in, and media are playing a big role there. Yeah, I would say, just to add to that, that Donald Trump, in making his first remarks before the United Nations, actually uttered that he was willing to “totally destroy North Korea.” Human rights scholars understood that as a statement of intention, which is absolutely essential for understanding the crime of genocide. North Korea is not new to “fire and fury like the world has never seen,” and actually experienced that at the hands of the United States, in an asymmetrical war of intervention in the middle part of the 20th century, that persists to this day. But that war actually resulted in an estimated 4 million Koreans dead, 70 percent of whom were civilians, and this is a war in which the United States had absolute mastery of the skies, and contemplated using nuclear weapons against North Korea and China. So what you’re actually raising right now is a really crucial point. A lot of times, especially the corporate media in the West focuses on North Korean human rights violations. And they do so in a very jingoistic way, paving the way for a war of humanitarian intervention, which, as we know, if we look at examples of Libya and Iraq, actually only result in massive humanitarian catastrophe. The human rights narrative is skewed against North Korea, when in point of fact, the crime of crimes at Nuremberg was aggressive war. It was a war against the peace. And that is precisely what the Trump administration is gearing up to do against North Korea, and the people of both Koreas are not fooled. Trump states that this could be somehow a kind of contained strike, that this “bloody nose” strike will only impact North Korea. Well, if he’d just look at a map, if he just took a couple of minutes and stopped tweeting and looked at a map, he could actually see that Pyongyang is only two hours away by car from Seoul. And so any kind of supposedly limited action which involves tactical nuclear weapons, that are about six times the magnitude of Hiroshima, in entertaining that as a possibility for the North, what the United States is actually doing is consenting also to the devastation of the South Korean people, and South Korea is ostensibly a US ally. And so South Koreans are under no illusions; they understand that Donald Trump’s anti-North Korean policy is actually an anti-Korean policy. Finally, your piece cites Gen. James Van Fleet, the commanding officer of UN Forces in Korea, decades ago, who said, “There had to be a Korea, either here or someplace in the world.” The fact that what is today North Korea could tomorrow be Eastasia, it brings me to the idea that what some people — and you’ve been talking about this — are fighting for is for war itself, and to me, that says we can fight for peace itself; even apart from any individual conflict, but certainly in this particular conflict. I wonder if you would talk about the possibilities for peace? With the United States, in theory, within North Korean crosshairs, for the first time we’ve seen, I think, a kind of mobilization and a sort of groundswell of peace activism, anti-war activism, in the United States, that’s geared toward stopping Trump from going to war with North Korea. We’ve seen a number of even congressional figures introduce legislation that would limit Trump’s capacity to, in a unilateral way, launch nuclear war. It’s not that Trump is more jingoistic than Obama, for example, but his rhetoric is. And I think that what’s interesting about this moment is in the illiberalism of Trump — the sheer illiberalism, the overt illiberalism, of his actions — finally we see a movement galvanizing on the ground for the United States not to go to war. It’s not just that Koreans desire peace; I think that finally, people in the United States, who — there are very few people, with the exception of  figures like Paul Robeson, who in the middle part of the 20th century, actually argued that the United States had absolutely no right to go to war in Korea. And I think that finally, now, belatedly, we’re seeing people on the ground actually galvanizing for the possibility of peace in Korea, and it’s all to the good. We’ve been speaking with Christine Hong of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the Korea Policy Institute. They’re online at kpolicy.org/. Christine Hong, thank you very much for joining us on CounterSpin. Thank you, Janine. Janine Jackson is FAIR’s program director and and producer/host of FAIR’s syndicated radio show “CounterSpin.” She contributes frequently to FAIR’s newsletter Extra!, and co-edited The FAIR Reader: An Extra! Review of Press and Politics in the ’90s (Westview Press). She has appeared on ABC’s “Nightline” and “CNN Headline News,” among other outlets, and has testified to the Senate Communications Subcommittee on budget reauthorization for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Her articles have appeared in various publications, including In These Times and the UAW’s Solidarity, and in books including Civil Rights Since 1787 (New York University Press) and Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism (New World Library). Jackson is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and has an MA in sociology from the New School for Social Research. #Trump #KoreanWar #SouthKorea #peacetreaty #Nuclearweapons #WinterOlympics #Pyeongchang #NorthKorea

A people’s perspective on the Singapore Summit – June 9 Candlelight rally by a coalition of of South Korean organizations including the Korea Public Service and Transport Workers’ Union. – KPTU will continue to work for a peaceful and equal Korea – On June 12 Kim Jong Un, Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of the Korea and Donald Trump, President of the United States of America held the first ever summit between leaders of the two countries at the Capella Hotel in Singapore. Following the meeting, the two leaders signed a joint statement containing commitments to (1) establishment of a new U.S.-DPRK relationship for peace and prosperity, (2) joint efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula, (3) North Korean reaffirmation of the Panmunjom Agreement and efforts to achieve complete denuclearisation, and (4) joint work to recover POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified. The very fact that the top leaders of North Korea and the U.S., two countries whose relationship has been laced with hostility and mutual threats for the last seventy years, sat together in one place and shared dialogue is historic and signals a new era in which peace on the Korean Peninsula is possible. We therefore welcome the North Korea-U.S. Summit and joint statement. Nonetheless, we cannot help but feel some disappointment and anxiety about the fact that the joint statement does not contained an agreement on concrete measures towards the establishment of a peace regime and the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. This is because this failure signals that many unresolved issues remain between the two countries. Up until the Summit the U.S. continued to assert the need for ‘Complete, Verifiable and Irreversible Destruction’ (CVID) of North Korean nuclear weapons, while North Korea demanded concrete security assurances and a staged action-for-action approach. Despite three months of negotiations prior to the Summit it appears the two governments were not able to reach a concrete agreement about how to bring their positions into alignment. We must be careful not to adopt the overly optimistic attitude of the Blue House, which is already talking about the ‘end of the Cold War era’ and a ‘great victory’ for the U.S. and the two Koreas. Nor should we give credence to the extreme pessimism of the militaristic conservatives, who are disparaging the Summit for failing to achieve CVID as if in attempt to send us back to the era of open hostility. Through the Summit today we learned that leaving the fate of the Korean Peninsula up to President Trump’s calculations ahead of the mid-term elections, or the goodwill of the governments of the countries in the region is not enough to build a real peace regime. We must understand the U.S.-North Korea agreement as a starting point and continue to work for advancement towards real peace. As we made clear during the Candlelight Rally for Peace on June 9, a real plan for denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula has to include withdrawal of the U.S.’ policies of nuclear pre-emptive strike and extended deterrence against North Korea. Conclusion of a peace treaty by all relevant sides and a non-aggression pact between the U.S. and North Korea are needed as steps towards creating a Korean peace regime. In addition, a reduction of conventional weapons by all sides and withdrawal of the U.S. troops station in South Korea are needed to remove the material conditions of war and overcome the roots causes of the nuclear conflict. All of these tasks remain before us. During the press conference that followed the signing of the joint statement, President Trump reference measures North Korea is already taking towards denuclearisation, declared intention to end joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises and referred to the possibility of a declaration to the end of the Korean War. We take this opportunity to stress once again to the Trump and Moon Jae-in administrations that any continued joint military exercises go against the spirit of peace talks and must not go on. In addition, the U.S. and South Korea should respond in kind to North Korea’s early steps towards denuclearisation with the removal of the THAAD missile defence system being illegally operated in the Soseongri village. We must also state our concerns about the ‘prosperity’ mentioned in the joint statement. As was clear in Trump’s comments about the development of North Korea during his press conference, this ‘prosperity’ is predicated on private investment and the capitalist opening of the North Korean economy. We are concerned that this process, which does not involve workers’ participation, has the potential to lead to the expansion of labour rights violations and increase in economic and other forms of inequality. The labour movement must now seriously discuss a plan for peace and unification that furthers the living conditions and rights of all Korean workers and common people. According to the joint statement, high level talks will be held very soon to discuss the concrete implementation of the commitments made. Given that many unresolved issues remain, it is likely that future negotiations will run up against many difficulties. We will continue to respond proactively to this process based on our desire and vision for a peaceful and equal Korean Peninsula. 2018. 6. 12 Korean Public Service and Transport Workers’ Union #Trump #KoreaPeace #KimJongUn #Labor #NorthKorea

By Tim Shorrock | June 15, 2018 Originally published in the Nation. It was an electrifying sight that captured the imagination of millions of people living on the crisis-weary Korean Peninsula but sent many Americans spinning into paroxysms of anger and cynicism, depending on their politics and knowledge of the rocky history of US relations with North and South Korea. On Tuesday, President Trump and Kim Jong-un met and shook hands on Singapore’s resort island of Sentosa, curbing decades of deep and bitter hostility between the two countries and possibly opening a new chapter for the United States in East Asia. Afterward, Trump even boasted that he had created a “special bond” with the North Korean dictator. The unprecedented meeting was the climax of months of intensive negotiations that began in earnest in March, when Kim, through the mediation of South Korean President Moon Jae-in, unexpectedly invited Trump to meet and settle their vast differences. As their initial encounter began, Trump declared that times had changed—irrevocably. “I think we will have a terrific relationship,” Trump predicted as he and Kim took a break after their initial handshake. With considerable understatement, Kim responded. “It was not easy to get here,” he said. “There were obstacles, but we overcame them to be here.” His words might have sounded trite, but they underscored the long and complicated road the North Korean dictator and the US president have come. Less than a year ago, Kim was busy building a mighty nuclear and missile deterrent and threatening to use it if North Korea’s sovereignty was compromised, while Trump was coldly informing the world that he was ready to unleash “fire and fury” to “totally destroy North Korea” if its threats continued. But by June 12, all that was forgotten. After 45 minutes of alone time with their interpreters, Trump and Kim gathered their closest advisers and aides for a two-hour discussion about denuclearization and other critical issues. Then, after a friendly luncheon at the swank Capella Hotel, the two men reconvened to sign a document in which the US and the DPRK (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North’s formal name) mapped out a four-part plan to make the peace and establish a new relationship. The “joint statement” included a pledge to build “a lasting and robust peace regime on the Korean Peninsula” and reaffirmed the DPRK’s commitment, made in Kim’s April 27 “Panmunjom Declaration” with President Moon, to “work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” In a last-minute addition, the statement also committed each side to restart a project abandoned years ago to jointly recover the remains of US soldiers killed and missing in action during the Korean War of 1950 to 1953. Speaking to reporters later in the day, Trump said the agreement was the first step in a protracted set of negotiations that will begin immediately and be led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “as we develop a certain trust” with the DPRK. “We’re going to have a lot of people there, and we’re going to be working with them on a lot of other things,” he said. “But this is complete denuclearization of North Korea, and it will be verified.” As the proceedings unfolded in Singapore, South Koreans throughout the country stopped what they were doing to watch. “This is the starting point for the two countries, which have been enemies for the past 70 years, to begin reconciliation,” Park Jung-eun, the secretary general of the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, an influential progressive coalition, told Yonhap News. “This will be a historic day leading to the end of the Korean War.” President Moon, in a statement released just after the summit ended, praised both leaders for making a commitment to peace. “The June 12 Sentosa Agreement will be recorded as a historic event that has helped break down the last remaining Cold War legacy on earth,” he said. But, in a note of caution, he added that “this is just a beginning and there may be many difficulties ahead, but we will never go back to the past again and never give up on this bold journey.” Citizen groups in both South Korea and the United States were pleased with the outcome. “The very fact that the top leaders of North Korea and the U.S…sat together in one place and shared dialogue is historic and signals a new era in which peace on the Korean Peninsula is possible,” the Korean Public Service and Transport Workers’ Union (KPTU), one of South Korea’s largest trade unions, said in a statement released on Wednesday. “The summit, and the high-level exchanges that preceded it, provide strong indication that Kim has made a fundamental shift in North Korea’s approach to the world,” Daniel Jasper of the American Friends Service Committee told The Nation. AFSC has years of experience in North Korea and in May was granted an exception to the US travel ban in order to send a humanitarian mission to the country. “One major takeaway from our delegation was that it’s clear there was an internal North Korean decision made to engage with the international community beginning around the Olympics,” Jasper added. “Having recently spoken to ordinary North Koreans, I can see that effective cooperation is inspiring optimism and confidence on both sides of the Korean Peninsula.” But, to the surprise of many observers, including backers of US-DPRK engagement, the statement did not include a clear timeline for North Korea’s disarmament, nor did it provide details of how the US government would monitor and verify the North’s compliance with its commitment to get rid of its nuclear bombs, weapons facilities, and missile-production sites. “We cannot help but feel some disappointment and anxiety about the fact that the joint statement does not contain an agreement on concrete measures towards the establishment of a peace regime and the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula,” the Korean transport union said in its statement. Suzanne DiMaggio, a negotiating expert at New America, noted on Twitter that the Trump-Kim document “is a bare bones statement of principles. I hope it will serve as a starting point for serious sustained negotiations.” Joseph Yun, who served until March as the Trump administration’s special representative for North Korea, said the agreement was vague. “To me, it was quite disappointing that we really did not put on paper any way that would test the seriousness of Kim Jong Un,” he told The Washington Post. Leon Sigal, a former State Department official and editorial writer for The New York Times who wrote a history of the 1994 Korean nuclear crisis, disagreed that the agreement let the DPRK off the hook. “I find that kind of ludicrous, considering that both leaders signed it, which hasn’t happened before,” he told The Nation. On the other hand, “we don’t know what details have been worked out,” he added. “Much more will be needed.” And he wondered: “Was there an as-yet-unannounced reciprocal step?” The apparent lack of specificity was a change from the pledge made by Pompeo the day before the summit. In a press conference at the White House press room at the Marriott, he said that the “ultimate objective” of the US government was the “complete and verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” or CVID for short. Pompeo also emphasized that the Trump administration would insist on stronger verification systems than in earlier agreements with the DPRK. “The ‘V’ [in CVID] matters,” he said. “We’re going to ensure that we set up a system sufficiently robust that we’re able to verify these outcomes.” He also said that Trump was ready to provide “unique” security assurances to the DPRK that the United States had never offered before. Exactly what he meant by that was made clear by Trump in his press conference, which he staged shortly after Kim and his entourage departed from the island. In a stunning announcement that reportedly caught his own aides by surprise, Trump said he would cancel the joint US–South Korean military exercises, which have long been seen by the North as a direct threat to its existence and provided some of the justification for its nuclear program. “We will be stopping the war games, which will save us a tremendous amount of money, unless and until we see the future negotiation is not going along like it should,” he said. “Plus,” he added, “I think it’s very provocative.” His declaration apparently surprised the Moon government and its military, which hastily put out a statement saying “there still is a need to find out the exact meaning and intention of President Trump’s remarks.” On Wednesday, Moon’s Blue House said it would agree with the suspension “as long as serious discussions are being held” between the US and the DPRK “for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and establishment of peace.” In any case, the termination of the exercises seemed to go a long way toward convincing the North that Trump has abandoned what Pyongyang calls America’s “hostile policy.” The DPRK itself acknowledged that in an article in its state media that was unprecedented in the detail it offered on the summit. Noting Trump’s intention to halt the joint military drills, “which the DPRK side regards as provocation,” the statement added that “if the US side takes genuine measures for building trust in order to improve the DPRK-US relationship, the DPRK, too, can continue to take additional good-will measures of next stage commensurate with them.” But Trump’s ending of the drills, his newfound friendship with Kim, and the perception that the agreement with the North lacked specifics infuriated US politicians and pundits. Even as the first images flashed across the world of Trump and Kim shaking hands against the unusual background of US and DPRK flags flapping together, social media and op-ed sections of media sites were filled with denunciations of Trump. Democratic leaders in the House and Senate led the attack. “In his haste to reach an agreement, President Trump elevated North Korea to the level of the United States while preserving the regime’s status quo,” charged House minority leader Nancy Pelosi. Senate minority leader Charles Schumer, who last week warned that the Democrats might oppose any agreement that didn’t include the now-famous CVID commitment, said on the Senate floor that Trump had “legitimized a brutal dictator.” Conservative columnists had a field day. “The spectacle of the murderous dictator Kim Jong Un on equal footing with the president of the United States—each country’s flag represented, a supposedly ‘normal’ diplomatic exchange between two nuclear powers—was enough to turn democracy lovers’ stomachs,” Jennifer Rubin wrote in the Post. Similar analyses were posted all day on Twitter. Yet even Victor Cha, the veteran hard-liner and former Bush administration official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, thought it was a decent agreement. “Despite its many flaws, the Singapore summit represents the start of a diplomatic process that takes us away from the brink of war,” Cha wrote in The New York Times on Tuesday. “North Korea will not be testing any more missiles or nuclear bombs while the diplomacy continues, and the talks led by Mr. Pompeo will hopefully make progress toward stopping the world’s worst runaway nuclear program.” The contrast between Asian and US perceptions of the summit and the view from the United States was apparent from the moment I arrived in Singapore. I watched the initial hours of the Trump-Kim encounter from the International Media Center in downtown Singapore, where over 2,500 reporters from around the world had gathered to cover the summit. As the meeting began, everyone in the huge room seemed mesmerized at the unusual site of the tall American president grasping the shoulder of the younger, and much shorter, Kim. The mood was electric, and the reporters from Japan, Vietnam, Germany, Russia, France, and many other countries seemed genuinely excited about the prospects of peace in Korea. The feeling of camaraderie in covering a historic event was palpable; frequently during my two days there, reporters from one country could be seen interviewing crews from another. At the nearby White House press center at the Marriott, the atmosphere was far more subdued. There, the established press corps from CNN, NBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other major outlets seemed interested only in how the summit might affect Trump and his political fortunes, and had little interest in the enormous impact of a peace settlement on South Korea. At one point on Monday afternoon, as the room waited for Pompeo to arrive, I observed a senior Times reporter in deep conversation with his fellow reporters from ABC News and the Post. As they laughed about the next day’s expected encounter between Trump and Kim, the Timesman joked that he was “covering the Neville Chamberlain summit”—a reference to the British diplomat’s disastrous encounter with Adolf Hitler just before World War II that’s considered a symbol of appeasement the world over. To South Korea, however, the peace talks with North Korea are a matter of life and death. The lack of interest by the US press corps in how the talks would affect South Koreans was underscored during the press conference with Trump. About half the questions from the White House crew focused on the wisdom of a US president meeting with a dictator—as if this had never occurred before—or how the North Korea talks might affect other aspects of US foreign relations. About halfway through the hour-long event, a Korean reporter started shouting “South Korea! South Korea!” to divert the discussion back to the impact on his country. Eventually, Trump recognized a woman from Arirang News, who brought the issue home by asking if Trump would be speaking soon to President Moon (yes) and if he was optimistic about the prospects of a peace treaty (yes again). Watching the spectacle from Seoul on CNN, Seth Mountain, an American teacher and musician, told me that he and his Korean friends found the press behavior insulting. “Nearly every question presupposes a US right to dominate Korea and decide its fate,” he told me in a Facebook message. Media critic Adam Johnson, a sometime contributor to The Nation, had a similar reaction after watching Rachel Maddow on MSNBC rip into Trump’s cancellation of the US–South Korean war games. “Complete, categorical erasure of South Koreans and South Korean left,” he tweeted. “The easiest, cheapest NatSec-flattering banality. Totally partisan myopia.” That about summarizes the US coverage of what may turn out to be the most important diplomatic achievement of the Trump years. Despite some concerns about the lack of specificity in the agreement, Christine Ahn, the founder and international coordinator of Women Cross DMZ, was optimistic about the principles laid out in the US–North Korean document. “The compass has been set, now it is time to ensure that these principles are followed through with concrete action, and this is where it is crucial for civil society, especially women’s groups, [to] step in,” she said. Clearly, both the Trump administration and the peace movement have their work cut out for them. But as Trump’s plane from Singapore was landing in Washington on Wednesday morning, the president was already declaring victory. “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea,” he tweeted from Air Force One. “Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!” For this president, apparently there is no looking back. Tim Shorrock is a Washington, DC–based journalist and the author of Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing, and a KPI Associate. #Trump #KoreaPeace #DPRK #TimShorrock #USDPRKSummit #NorthKorea