South Korea's president Moon Jae-in has suggested holding a three-way summit between the US and both Koreas aimed at ending the nuclear threat on the peninsula.
"Holding a North Korea-US summit following a South-North Korea summit itself is a historical event. And depending on their outcomes, they may lead to a three-way summit of South, North and US," Mr Moon said at a meeting in the presidential Blue House in Seoul to prepare for a forthcoming inter-Korean meeting.
“We must completely resolve the issues of denuclearising the Korean Peninsula and establishing peace through these upcoming talks and others that will follow,” he said, cited by the Yonhap news agency.
Mr Moon is scheduled to hold a bilateral summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in late April, while Donald Trump has said he will meet Mr Kim before the end of May.
North and South Korea are expected to meet in the border village of Panmunjom, and this could also be a venue for a three-way meeting.
Ending the nuclear threat on the peninsula would require more than agreement between the two Koreas; it would also require a US guarantee “and that would require normalisation of the North-US relationship or even economic cooperation between the two”, he said.
North Korea's missile programme and atomic tests earned it punishing sanctions from the UN Security Council and further entrenched the enmity with South Korea. Both Koreas are divided by a heavily fortified border and never signed a peace treaty at the end of the Korean War (1950-53).
Military drills
North Korea says it needs a nuclear deterrent as the US plans regime change to oust Mr Kim, whose family have run the Stalinist state for three generations. It says regular joint military drills with South Korea and the US are proof that the US has hostile intentions, and a slanging match between Mr Trump and Mr Kim has exacerbated tensions.
However, in the run-up to the Winter Olympics in South Korea last month there was a flurry of diplomatic activity, culminating in meetings between top officials and an easing of tensions.
“Though it is an unexplored path we have never walked, we have clear plans and a clear vision of goals we seek to achieve through an agreement between the leaders of the South, North and the US,” Mr Moon said.
Mr Moon’s meeting with Mr Kim will be the third time the third inter-Korean summit, following previous summits in 2000 and 2007.
A complicating factor is that South Korea and the US will resume joint military drills next month, which will overlap with the inter-Korean summit.
Also, South Korea is also reportedly in discussion with China and Japan for a three-way summit in Tokyo in early May, the first since 2015.
