Seoul vows to use momentum from Trump-Kim meeting to improve inter-Korean ties

North Korea 14:37 July 03, 2019

SEOUL, July 3 (Yonhap) -- South Korea on Wednesday vowed to use the momentum created by the recent meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to move the stalled inter-Korean relations forward.

In a report to parliament, the unification ministry also said it will look for creative measures to improve inter-Korean relations while continuing efforts to implement the agreements reached by their leaders last year.

"We will actively work to make sure that the recent positive trend on the Korean Peninsula created by the latest North Korea-U.S. summit will lead to improvements in inter-Korean relations," the report said.

The ministry was referring to the Trump-Kim meeting at the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on Sunday. The surprise meeting took place just one day after Trump offered to meet Kim during his two-day stay in South Korea via a Twitter message.

The ministry said the North seems to have agreed to the last-minute proposal in a bid to highlight Kim's political status inside and out of the country and to justify resuming the nuclear negotiations, which had been deadlocked since the collapse of the Hanoi summit between the two in February.

During the 50-minute meeting, Trump and Kim agreed to resume the working-level negotiations.

Citing North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho and First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui's presence at the DMZ encounter, the ministry said the North's foreign ministry is expected to take a leading role in the upcoming talks.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo earlier said he expects the negotiations to resume in mid-July.