Moon, Abe hold telephone talks over Korean Peninsula situation

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Republic of Korea (ROK)'s President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday held phone talks over the Korean Peninsula situations, the Blue House of the ROK said.

Moon and Abe had the dialogue for 40 minutes from 4:00 p.m. local time (0700 GMT), exchanging views over the "changed situations" on the Peninsula, Moon's spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom told a press briefing.

It came ahead of the summit between Moon and Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), which is scheduled for Friday in the border village of Panmunjom.

Moon told Abe that the success of the inter-Korean summit will be of great benefit to the DPRK-US summit and will normalize ties between the DPRK and Japan.

The truce village of Panmunjom within the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) /VCG Photo

The ROK president said the successful inter-Korean summit will be an opportunity to fundamentally resolve issues between Tokyo and Pyongyang.

In response, Abe said that if the inter-Korean and DPRK-US summits end successfully, talks between Japan and the DPRK will be a natural consequence.

Abe said the successes of the inter-Korean and DPRK-US summits would mean the resolution of nuclear and missile issues, as well as the abduction of Japanese people by the DPRK, noting that under such situations, Japan and the DPRK can normalize relations.

Regarding the issue of turning the current armistice agreement into peace on the Peninsula, Moon told Abe that the issue of declaring an official end to the 1950-1953 Korean War cannot be resolved exclusively through talks between the two Koreas.

The Korean Armistice Agreement, which halted the Korean War, was signed on July 27, 1953, by China, the DPRK, and the US-led UN Command.

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency