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S. Korea newspapers welcome summit as ‘first step’ toward peace
SEOUL, June 13, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Most South Korean newspapers reacted with
cautious optimism Wednesday to the historic meeting between Donald Trump and
Kim Jong Un in Singapore, although one conservative daily denounced the
agreement it produced as “absurd”.
The centrist Hankook daily noted that the post-summit joint statement
signed by the US president and North Korean leader on Tuesday had omitted
Washington’s demand for a “complete, verifiable, irreversible”
denuclearisation of the North and lacked a concrete timetable to achieve that
goal.
Instead the statement commits Pyongyang to “work toward complete
denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula”.
“In terms of the key issue… it may appear that the result failed to meet
expectations,” Hankook said in an editorial.
But it added that the concrete steps of dismantling the North’s nuclear
arsenal would be handled during follow-on negotiations, and that negotiations
for a nuclear-free Korean peninsula and permanent peace between Seoul and
Pyongyang had “just begun”.
The pro-business Joongang daily was cautiously optimistic, even though the
timetable for the dismantling of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons remained vague.
“We can’t dismiss the summit as a failure. It is already a historic event
that the leaders of two foes have met. The first step to end decades of
hostilities since the Korean War has been made”, Joongang said.
However, the conservative Chosun daily lambasted the agreement signed by
Trump and Kim.
“The June 12 agreement is so outrageous and absurd that we could hardly
believe our eyes,” it said in an editorial.
The paper attacked Trump for promising to stop annual US-South Korea joint
military drills before the North had started dismantling its nuclear arsenal.
Its view was echoed by the conservative opposition Liberty Korea Party,
whose leader Hong Joon-Pyo castigated the summit as a “great failure”.
But an editorial in the left-leaning Hankyoreh praised the summit as
opening a new chapter for a “great change” in US-North Korea ties.
The stoppage of the US-South Korea drills, which the North says are
rehearsals for aggression against it, will serve as “a catalyst” in improving
ties between the two Cold War foes and denuclearisation of the North, it
said.
BSS/AFP/FI/1056 hrs