Comments on the next steps of the US and North Korea
(Baonghean.vn) - North Korea will promote denuclearization measures within 2 or 3 weeks after the summit between Washington and Pyongyang in Singapore on June 12.
Former South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok made the above comment when evaluating the results of this historic meeting.
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| The forum was organized by the Sejong Institute to analyze the results of the US-North Korea summit. Photo: AP |
According to Yonhap news agency, Mr. Lee Jong-seok, a North Korea expert and currently a senior researcher at the Sejong Institute, also commented that the US will also take the first steps towards possibly easing economic sanctions against Pyongyang and normalizing relations between the two countries.
He expressed his hope that the two countries would release more details of the agreement that were not mentioned in the joint statement after the summit in Singapore.
The joint statement after the US-North Korea summit called on Washington to provide security guarantees to Pyongyang in exchange for North Korea's commitment to "complete denuclearization" of the Korean Peninsula. According to Lee Jong-seok, detailed measures such as the dismantling of North Korea's missile engine testing facility or the agreement to suspend joint military exercises between the US and South Korea were not mentioned in the document.
Therefore, he said it is necessary to closely follow developments before being able to accurately assess whether the outcome of the US-North Korea summit is a success or failure.
Regarding the content of the Singapore joint statement, the head of the Board of Directors of the Sejong Institute, Mr. Baek Jong-chun, emphasized that this joint statement did not mention the process of "comprehensive, verifiable and irreversible" denuclearization, which is the goal that the US always aims for in the process of Pyongyang denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.
However, according to his assessment, at the recent summit in Singapore, the two leaders of the US and North Korea both made "give and take" concessions and the result was an agreement that satisfied all parties.
On June 12, the two leaders of the United States and the DPRK held a historic summit and signed a Joint Statement, agreeing to establish a new type of bilateral relations; to work toward building a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula; to reaffirm the Panmunjom Declaration of April 27, 2018, the DPRK committed to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and to recover and return the remains of prisoners of war (POW) and missing in action (MIA), including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.
