Kim Jong-un Meets South Korean Leader in Bid to Salvage U.S. Talks

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President Moon Jae-in of South Korea met with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, on Saturday inside the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two nations.CreditSouth Korea Presidential Blue House, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Choe Sang-Hun

May 26, 2018

SEOUL, South Korea — The leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, met unexpectedly with President Moon Jae-in of South Korea on Saturday to discuss salvaging a canceled summit meeting between Mr. Kim and President Trump, a new twist in the whirlwind of diplomacy over the fate of the North’s nuclear arsenal.

The two leaders met for two hours on the North Korean side of Panmunjom, a “truce village” inside the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas, said Yoon Young-chan, Mr. Moon’s spokesman.

“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,” Mr. Yoon said in a short message sent to reporters. A news conference to answer questions about what was discussed at the summit was scheduled for Sunday morning in Seoul.

Mr. Moon and Mr. Kim held their first summit meeting on the South Korean side of Panmunjom on April 27. The second meeting, held in secret and announced only after it took place, came amid doubts about the future of Mr. Kim’s planned summit meeting with President Trump.

Mr. Trump announced Thursday that he was canceling the planned meeting with Mr. Kim, which had been slated for June 12 in Singapore. But he said on Friday that he was reconsidering and that it may still take place as scheduled.

It was unclear who proposed the second meeting between Mr. Kim and Mr. Moon.

Mr. Moon’s role as a facilitator for the Kim-Trump summit meeting was thrown into doubt when Mr. Trump abruptly announced on Thursday that he was abandoning his plan to meet Mr. Kim, citing “tremendous anger and open hostility” from North Korea.

Mr. Moon’s government has worked for months to help set up the first meeting between the leaders of North Korea and the United States, where he hoped Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump would resolve a decades-old dispute over the North’s nuclear weapons program.

Mr. Trump’s announcement set off a head-spinning series of maneuvers from governments.

North Korea responded to Mr. Trump’s decision with a surprisingly conciliatory gesture, asking Mr. Trump to reconsider and saying that the North was ready to resume dialogue.

On Friday, Mr. Trump said his administration was back in touch with North Korea and the two sides may reschedule his the meeting with Kim Jong-un, perhaps even on the original June 12 date.

“We’ll see what happens,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “We’d like to do it. We’ll see what happens.”

For weeks, Mr. Trump had issued a steady stream of enthusiastic comments and tweets on his planned summit with Mr. Kim, although he also warned it might not happen.

Signs of trouble emerged last week, when North Korea issued two angry statements. North Korea first pulled out of planned high-level talks with South Korea, protesting a joint military exercise between the South and the United States, which it called a rehearsal for invasion.

It also warned that if Washington continued to insist on a “unilateral” abandonment of its nuclear arsenal, it would “no longer be interested” in a summit with Mr. Trump. The North focused its anger on Mr. Trump’s hard-line national security adviser, John R. Bolton, who has demanded that North Korea dismantle its nuclear arsenal before expecting reciprocal measures from Washington, like the easing of sanctions or security assurances.

When United States officials arrived in Singapore last week for working-level talks with the North Korean counterparts to prepare for the summit, the North Koreans stood them up, according to White House officials.

Then in an interview this week, Vice President Mike Pence repeated Mr. Bolton’s demand, warning that North Korea might “end like the Libyan model” if Mr. Kim does not denuclearize.

In 2003, Libya’s former leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, handed over a nascent nuclear weapons program in the hopes of better ties with Washington — only to be killed years later by rebels supported by Washington and its European allies.

On Thursday, North Korea called Mr. Pence a “political dummy” and warned of a “nuclear-to-nuclear showdown” with the United States, again threatening to cancel the summit with Mr. Trump. Hours later, Mr. Trump acted first, canceling it.