Chung Eui-yong, the national security adviser to Moon, and his entourage, which includes Suh Hoon, the director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, planned to meet with senior officials in Pyongyang.
SEOUL, South Korea — President Moon Jae-in of South Korea sent a special envoy to North Korea on Wednesday, hoping to help break the deadlock in the talks between the North and the United States over dismantling the North’s nuclear weapons program.
Chung Eui-yong, the national security adviser to Moon, and his entourage, which includes Suh Hoon, the director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, planned to meet with senior officials in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, during their brief trip.
Besides discussing obstacles to progress with the United States, they also hoped to set a date and agenda for Moon’s meeting with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, this month in Pyongyang, which is expected to focus on sustaining the recent thaw in inter-Korean ties. Chung was carrying a letter to Kim from Moon.
Chung and Suh helped facilitate some of the key recent developments in the diplomacy surrounding the North and its nuclear arms. During their last trip to Pyongyang, which took place in March, they dined with Kim and laid the groundwork for his first meeting with Moon, which took place in April at the border village of Panmunjom.
The South Korean officials later visited President Donald Trump at the White House, where they relayed Kim’s proposal for a meeting between the two leaders — which Trump accepted on the spot.
At their ensuing talks in Singapore on June 12, Trump and Kim pledged to establish “new” relations and build “a lasting and stable peace regime” on the Korean Peninsula, while Kim agreed to “work toward complete denuclearization” of the peninsula.
But their diplomats’ negotiations have since stalled over differences on how to implement that vaguely worded agreement. Trump abruptly canceled Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s planned visit to Pyongyang last week, citing a lack of progress in the talks.
The cancellation was a setback for Moon, whose hopes for improving the inter-Korean relationship could be jeopardized by the deadlock between Pyongyang and Washington.
Moon had to delay the opening of a liaison office in the North after Pompeo’s trip was canceled. Last month, U.S. military commanders in Seoul stopped South Korea’s plan to send a train across the inter-Korean border and run it on a North Korean railway, to test the rails’ condition.
Moon has promised to help modernize the North’s railways and roads as part of his engagement strategy, but Washington is wary of South Korea’s giving the North too much before it has made tangible progress toward denuclearization.
Moon hopes Chung’s trip will help to jump-start the stalled diplomacy. Moon discussed his plans with Trump by telephone on Tuesday, and the U.S. president said he would wait for the South Korean envoy to bring good news from Pyongyang, Moon’s office said.
Before leaving for North Korea, Chung said progress in inter-Korean ties must be matched by progress in nuclear disarmament, a point the United States has repeatedly made. But he also stressed that a warming North-South relationship was crucial to that process, as Moon did in a speech last month.
“We consider improvements in inter-Korean relations a key driver for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Chung said. “If necessary, we should help advance denuclearization talks through improving inter-Korean ties.”
South Korea says one step that would help encourage the North to disarm is declaring an end to the Korean War, which was halted with an armistice in 1953. During their April summit meeting, Moon and Kim agreed to push for Washington to join them in declaring the war over by the end of this year, as a prelude to negotiating a formal peace treaty.
But Washington says the North must take more concrete steps toward denuclearization, including submitting a full inventory of its nuclear weapons, facilities and fissile materials, before that can be considered. U.S. officials fear that once such a declaration is made, North Korea will demand that the United States stop joint military exercises with South Korea and withdraw its tens of thousands of troops based there.
On Tuesday, a commentary in North Korea’s main state-run newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, said the United States was standing in the way of friendlier relations with the South, accusing it of a “dim and twisted” attitude.
“The U.S. must realize that the more the inter-Korean relations improve, the better it will be for the U.S.,” it said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.