Lee vows to work for North Korea-US talks, peace regime on peninsula

President Lee Jae Myung said Friday that his government would do everything in its power to help restart North Korea-US dialogue and advance it toward ending the war on the Korean Peninsula and building a lasting peace regime.

Lee made the remarks in a congratulatory address — read on his behalf by Presidential Political Affairs Adviser Kim Kyung-soo — at a ceremony held at the National Assembly to mark the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 19 Pyongyang Joint Declaration and the inter-Korean military agreement. "There are faint, gradual signs that the winds of peace, which had died down, may be stirring again," he said.

Lee recalled the arc of inter-Korean diplomacy that began eight years ago. "The winds of peace on the Korean Peninsula that took root in Pyeongchang in 2018 carried through Panmunjom and Singapore and on to Pyongyang," he said. "The South and the North slowly lowered the guns they had pointed at each other and pledged never to fight again."

He added that the momentum had not lasted. "Regrettably, those winds did not blow for long. Inter-Korean dialogue was severed, the door to cooperation was shut, and the long nights of tension returned," he said, adding that the prolonged period of hostility and confrontation had forced the country's economy and security to pay a price they should never have had to pay.

Lee noted that the North's nuclear capabilities had advanced significantly compared with eight years ago and that the external environment was far from favorable. "We are painfully learning that a warm breeze can turn into a bitter wind in an instant, and that reversing course is many times harder and slower," he said.

Even so, Lee pledged to press forward. "Even where the winds have subsided, the signposts remain," he said. "The more tangled the thread, the more carefully we must unravel it, strand by strand. We will find what we can do, act on it, and breathe the spirit of peace back into the Korean Peninsula."

Lee doubled down on his commitment to the goals set in Pyongyang in 2018. "The promise made in Pyongyang eight years ago came from a determination to eliminate unnecessary risks of war and resolve the relationship of hostility," he said. "The Korean people's desire for peace has never once faded. We will rekindle that desire."