Jeong Yeon-du, head of the Office of Strategy and Intelligence at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the government's chief representative on North Korea's nuclear issue, said after visiting the United States that Washington reaffirmed its open stance on talks with North Korea without preconditions.
At a roundtable with the Korean press corps held at the South Korean Embassy in Washington, D.C., on the 26th (local time), Deputy Minister Jeong said, "During this visit to the United States, we held extensive consultations with key State Department figures, including Undersecretary for Political Affairs Alyssa Hooker, Vice Minister for Arms Control and International Security Thomas DiNanno, and Deputy Minister for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Michael DeSomvrais."
Deputy Minister Jeong, who visited the United States on the 24th for the first time since being appointed in November last year, also met with U.S. think tank experts on the Korean Peninsula and members of Congress.
Deputy Minister Jeong added, "Specifically, we exchanged views on recent developments on the Korean Peninsula, including the results of North Korea's 9th Party Congress, and, based on the joint readout of the South Korea-U.S. summit, we also discussed a wide range of pending issues related to the peninsula."
Deputy Minister Jeong also said, "Since North Korea's messaging was within our expected range, we explained (to the U.S. side) that we will continue, as a pacemaker, to support the early realization of North Korea-U.S. dialogue and will persist, with a long-term perspective, in efforts to ease inter-Korean tensions and build trust."
However, regarding the U.S. stance that it is "open to talks with North Korea without preconditions," a senior government official said on whether North Korea-U.S. contacts are underway, "There is no new news such as working-level contacts (between North Korea and the United States)."
On the State Department's mood, the official elaborated, "Rather than there being something specific, I clearly got the impression that under the basic stance of being open to talks with North Korea, they intend to coordinate closely with South Korea no matter what situation arises," adding, "The United States is maintaining the position of being 'open to dialogue,' but it does not yet seem prepared to the point of deciding 'what to do' for that."
Deputy Minister Jeong said that as a result of meeting U.S. officials on this trip, "South Korea and the United States agreed to communicate as needed at all levels going forward and to maintain close coordination."
In meetings with think tanks and congressional figures, Deputy Minister Jeong said, "While explaining our North Korea policy, including our step-by-step denuclearization plan, we also listened to the broader U.S. community's views on North Korea and perceptions related to North Korea policy."
Meanwhile, regarding the standoff between U.S. and Chinese military aircraft that occurred during a U.S. Forces Korea air drill over the West Sea and the discord between Seoul and Washington over whether the U.S. Forces Korea commander should apologize, a government official said, "U.S. government officials did not raise issues or express concerns about this," adding, "However, there were those who said that when issues arise between the South Korea-U.S. alliance, they have been well resolved in the spirit of the alliance. It was a discussion about overall alliance matters."
The official also said they did not get the sense from U.S. officials that "there is a perception that North Korea should be effectively recognized as a nuclear-armed state and treated and responded to differently," adding, "I did not get the impression that they intend to deal with North Korea by changing even the principle of denuclearization."
A government official, when asked whether Kim Jong-un, chairman of the State Affairs Commission of North Korea, saying that he would "permanently exclude" South Korea from the "category of the same people" falls within the "expected range" mentioned by Deputy Minister Jeong, said, "We did not think that far."
The official also said, regarding the mixed use of the concepts of "North Korea's denuclearization" and "the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," "We understand and use them as the same concept."
Since Korea has consistently maintained a "denuclearized" status following the withdrawal of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula in the early 1990s, strictly speaking, "North Korea's denuclearization" can be said to be closer to the essence of the issue, and the joint fact sheet from the South Korea-U.S. summit released in November last year also specified the phrase "the complete denuclearization of North Korea."
However, during past nuclear negotiations, North Korea wanted to use the phrase "the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," even bringing up the issue of rotational deployments or deployments of U.S. strategic assets capable of carrying nuclear weapons around the peninsula, and the South Korea-U.S. side sometimes accepted that phrase in agreements to maintain momentum in the talks.
A government official also said about the agreement stemming from the Singapore joint statement by President Trump and Kim Jong-un in 2018, "I felt that there are people in the Trump second-term administration who still see the Singapore agreement as important and attribute significance to it."
According to the joint statement, the outcome of the first North Korea-U.S. summit held in Singapore, President Trump and Chairperson Kim agreed on "establishing new North Korea-U.S. relations," "efforts to build a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula," and "efforts for the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."