If Kim doesn’t show up in Seoul this month, it will be a huge letdown for Moon, who has repeatedly told his people that Kim promised to try.
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea is holding its breath for what its president, Moon Jae-in, has repeatedly said could happen by the end of December: Kim Jong Un’s visit to Seoul, which would be a first for a North Korean leader.
When the two Korean leaders met in September in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, Kim agreed to visit the South Korean capital “at an early date.” But he has yet to accept Moon’s invitation to visit by the end of December.
If Kim doesn’t show up in Seoul this month, it will be a huge letdown for Moon, who has repeatedly told his people that Kim promised to try. The South Korean government has prepared for the visit for weeks. A large artwork showing Kim and Moon smiling and shaking hands was even installed last week outside the Blue House, Moon’s official residence.
But with only three weeks to go, the window appears to be closing for a December visit, and officials have begun sounding less optimistic. And any delay could complicate efforts for a second summit meeting between Kim and President Donald Trump, though some analysts say that Kim may see no incentive to meet Moon before sorting out his differences with Trump.
“Our government has been making preparations for an inter-Korean summit in Seoul, keeping all possibilities in mind,” Kim Eui-kyeom, a presidential spokesman, said Sunday. “As of now, nothing has been determined. There are many things to consider if a Seoul visit is to take place, so we do not intend to be in a hurry or to ask them to hurry.”
Moon has been the most ardent champion of engagement with North Korea, even as his country’s ally, the United States, was more focused on enforcing sanctions to force Kim to give up his nuclear weapons. Moon has met Kim three times since April, helping broker Kim’s summit meeting with Trump earlier this year, and has urged them to meet again to help break a logjam in nuclear disarmament talks between their governments.
But neither Pyongyang nor Washington seems to be in a hurry, putting Moon in an awkward spot.
Trump has said he is likely to meet Kim again in January or February but also that he doesn’t want to play a “time game” with the North Koreans. Before Trump meets Kim, U.S. officials want guarantees that in a second summit meeting, Kim will make a more concrete commitment to a “final, fully verifiable denuclearization,” first by declaring all his country’s nuclear assets.
But North Korean officials have argued that handing over a list of nuclear assets and their locations before the U.S. takes trust-building measures like easing sanctions is “like giving away target coordinates” for pre-emptive strikes from the United States, according to South Korean officials.
A meeting in New York between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and North Korea’s leading nuclear weapons negotiator was called off early last month. Stephen E. Biegun, a former Ford Motor executive, has yet to meet his North Korean counterpart four months after being appointed as Washington’s point man on North Korea.
Moon hopes that if Kim visits Seoul this month, he can use the meeting to help narrow the differences between Pyongyang and Washington and add momentum for a second Kim-Trump summit meeting. Negotiations have stalled since Trump met with Kim in June in Singapore, where Kim made a vague promise to “work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
A Kim visit would be a badly needed boost for Moon’s domestic standing as well.
Moon’s approval ratings have depended heavily on progress in his efforts to build and expand inter-Korean ties. They soared as high as 80 percent in the wake of his first summit meeting with Kim in April, but have recently slumped to 50 percent with deepening frustrations over the lack of progress in ending the North Korean nuclear problem, as well as youth unemployment and other economic issues.
A Kim visit would mark a new milestone in inter-Korean relations.
North and South Korea have held five summit meetings since 2000, three of them between Kim and Moon this year. But all five meetings took place in either Pyongyang or Panmunjom, a truce village straddling the inter-Korean border. Kim became the first North Korean leader to set foot on South Korean soil when he walked across the border in April to meet with Moon on the South Korean side of Panmunjom. But he has never visited Seoul. Neither did his father and grandfather, who had ruled North Korea before him.
Some South Korean news outlets have surmised that the two Koreas may have already agreed upon the details of Kim’s visit to Seoul later this month, but are withholding them until the last minute because of North Koreans’ concern for the security of their leader.
Moon’s critics say he is spoiling North Korea by appearing too eager for Kim’s visit.
“Our government’s submissive attitude can make North Korea arrogant and trigger a backlash from our people,” Sohn Hak-kyu, leader of the opposition Bareun Mirae Party, told reporters Monday.
And Kim probably wouldn’t get the same welcome in Seoul that Moon received in Pyongyang, where tens of thousands lined the streets to greet him.
In recent weeks, political activists have held competing rallies in central Seoul, either touting a visit by Kim to Seoul or opposing it. Some officials hope that Kim will be able to address the South Korean Parliament, but conservative politicians have opposed the idea unless North Korea apologizes for starting the 1950-53 Korean War.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.