South Korea’s recent moves to lower tensions with Pyongyang – from removing its propaganda loudspeakers to downplaying the North’s human rights record – may ease frictions on the peninsula, but analysts say they are unlikely to help restart stalled denuclearisation talks between North Korea and the US.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un continues to spurn engagement with US President Donald Trump, while Washington appears to have shifted its focus away from curbing Pyongyang’s expanding nuclear arsenal, limiting Seoul’s leverage.
Last Wednesday, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung expressed hope that Trump could still persuade Kim to resume dialogue, noting that Pyongyang seemed to take Washington more seriously than Seoul when it came to the security of its regime.
Speaking at a news conference to mark the first anniversary of the failed martial law attempt by his predecessor, Yoon Suk-yeol, Lee said Trump had wanted to meet Kim during the recent Apec summit in South Korea, “but that did not work out”.
“But circumstances are always changing,” he said. “We will do our best to create the conditions that allow for communication.”
Lee, who met Trump in Washington in August for their first summit, hailed the US president then as a “peacemaker”, calling him “the only person who can solve the North Korean issue”.
