South Korea hopes for dialogue from shortening joint exercises

South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said Aug. 19 at the National Assembly that U.S. President Donald Trump’s order to scale back joint military exercises reflected deliberation over peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.

Chung made the remarks during a plenary meeting of the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee, Hankyoreh reported. After the morning’s final pending-issues questioning, he obtained separate speaking time from committee chair Song Seok-jun.

“The common goal of the South Korea-U.S. alliance is peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula,” Chung said. He said the Unification Ministry “sympathizes” with Trump’s decision, and called Trump’s remark that reducing the exercises was “making the situation much safer” the “core point.”

Chung said he hoped the reduction would “develop into meaningful North Korea-U.S. dialogue” and extend to improved inter-Korean relations. Earlier at the committee, he said North Korea had “repeatedly” identified South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises as the core of hostile policy, and said Trump’s order created the possibility of renewed North Korea-U.S. dialogue.

The article cited North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as saying at the 9th Workers’ Party Congress in February that if the United States respected North Korea’s constitutional status and withdrew hostile policy, “there is no reason we cannot get along well with the U.S.” The Wall Street Journal reported Aug. 18 local time that Trump is pursuing a direct meeting with Kim as early as this fall, with discussion of a possible meeting during the APEC summit in Shenzhen, China, in November.