S. Korean and US Presidents to Have Summit Just after US-N. Korea Summit

A South Korea-U.S. summit is expected to take place in the United States in the middle of next month. And Presidents Moon Jae-in and Donald Trump are planning to talk over the phone immediately after the upcoming inter-Korean summit.

According to the Blue House, National Security Office Director Chung Eui-yong met his US counterpart, National Security Advisor John Bolton, on April 24 to discuss the preparation of the inter-Korean summit, cooperation for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and schedule of the South Korea-U.S. summit.

Seoul and Washington are likely to share the result of the inter-Korean summit at the South Korea-U.S. summit and give a concrete shape to their denuclearization roadmap based on the result. An end-of-war declaration and a peace treaty are expected to be discussed as well.

The holding of the South Korea-U.S. summit before the upcoming summit between Washington and Pyongyang reflects South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s will to take a leading role in narrowing the gap between North Korea and the United States.

The South Korean president’s peace treaty roadmap includes summit talks between the two Koreas, between Washington and Pyongyang, and among the three countries. Specifically, his idea is to derive an end-of-war declaration from the inter-Korean summit, achieve an agreement on denuclearization from the summit between the U.S. and North Korea, and then sign a peace treaty with them.

The Blue House, in the meantime, said that the possibility of National Intelligence Service Director Seo Hoon visiting North Korea to discuss the result of the Chung-Bolton meeting is relatively low in view of time constraints.