Lawmaker Kim Byung-joo says North may have Pyongyang-Washington summit in mind; minister confirms UN Command included in proposal
Defense Minister Kang Shin-chul said Monday that the Ministry of National Defense's proposal Friday for inter-Korean military talks was a strategic decision made in anticipation of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's visit to China.
Speaking at the National Assembly's National Defense Committee audit, Kang said he had tracked Kim's movements after observing that Kim Yo-jong and other senior military figures had rushed to the front lines. "We anticipated the timing of the China visit," he said, in response to a question from Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Kim Byung-joo about the background of the proposal.
On Kim Jong-un's visit to the Chinese border city of Dandong on Saturday, Kang said the primary intent was to address North Korea-China relations in the context of Pyongyang's ties with Moscow. "We believe he visited China with various intentions, including the possibility of North Korea-US dialogue and management of the Korean Peninsula situation," he added.
Lawmaker Kim said he suspected Kim Jong-un had a potential North Korea-US summit in mind, given that US President Donald Trump is set to visit China next month ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
Kim said North Korea had coordinated with China before the Singapore and Hanoi summits. He also pointed to the tone of recent statements by Kim Yo-jong, saying they contained almost no sharp criticism of the United States or the UN Command. "We should actively make use of this trend," he said.
Kim also said the UN Command had previously proposed its own military talks with the North, but that no such move was visible this time. Kang said the UN Command had been included in the current proposal and that Seoul was coordinating closely with it.
Earlier, Kim Yo-jong had visited fortification construction sites along the MDL in the early hours of Wednesday alongside Pak Jong-chon, an adviser to the North's defense ministry. In a statement the same day, she threatened that loudspeakers directed at South Korea would be activated along the entire border within October.
Kim Jong-un crossed the new Yalu River Bridge — which opened Oct. 15 — to reach Dandong on Saturday. He toured the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea Memorial Museum with Wang Huning, chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and the fourth-ranked figure in China's leadership hierarchy, before returning home the same day.
On Friday, the Defense Ministry formally proposed military talks to the North in a statement issued under the name of Kim Hong-chul, director of the ministry's defense policy bureau. The proposal called for confirming the precise location of the ground-level MDL, restoring military communication lines and discussing measures to prevent accidental clashes in border areas. The ministry said a three-way meeting including the UN Command was also possible if needed. Kim cited the wounding of South Korean soldiers in a DMZ mine explosion last month as part of the rationale for the proposal.
Three soldiers were injured when a mine exploded while they were clearing a patrol route in the western DMZ on Sept. 21; two suffered serious injuries. On Oct. 5, the Joint Chiefs of Staff announced the findings of a joint investigation with the UN Command, concluding that the blast was caused by an anti-personnel mine planted by North Korean forces about 10 meters south of the MDL.
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