PRESS RELEASE
South Korean President Moon To Meet Trump in U.S. in June
May 16, 2017 (EIRNS)—President Trump’s National Security Council senior director for East Asia Matthew Pottinger, after representing America at the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, visited Seoul today, arranging for a meeting between President Trump and South Korea’s newly elected President Moon Jae-in to occur in late June in Washington.
According to Joong Ang Ilbo, the summit was arranged at a meeting between Chung Eui-yong, the head of Moon’s security and foreign affairs task force, and Mr. Pottinger at the Blue House, the Presidential Office in Seoul. President Moon joined the meeting for about seven minutes.
Joong Ang Ilbo reports that, according to a Presidential spokesman, Chung and Pottinger
"confirmed that Moon and Trump share the same vision on how to handle the North. Calling the complete dismantlement of Pyongyang’s nuclear programs an ultimate goal, Moon and Trump both believe that all possible means including sanctions and talks should be used."
Confirming what both Moon and Trump have said in the past weeks, the spokesman said that both men
"shared views that dialogue witha Pyongyang could be possible when conditions are right and that the two countries should seek a bold and practical plan to achieve that goal."
President Moon said he was pleased with the phone discussion he had held with President Trump, and will send a special envoy to the United States this week to follow up that talk and prepare the official visit.
At the Belt and Road Forum, South Korea’s representative to the event, Rep. Park Byeong-seug from Moon’s Democratic Party, met with Chinese State Councilor for Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi, who called for joint efforts to repair South Korea-China relations, which have been severely tense since the decision by former President Park Geun-hye to accept President Obama’s demand that the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system be deployed in South Korea, despite strenuous objections from China, Russia, and from now-President Moon. Moon had demanded that the new government be allowed to make the decision on THAAD, but the Park government rushed the deployment in before the election.
Although Yonhap News Agency did not report any agreement on THAAD, Park was reported to have told Yang that
"Under any condition, war should not take place on the Korean Peninsula, and there should never be any discussion or decision on the future of the Korean Peninsula without South Korea’s presence."
