ⓒ YONHAP News

South Korean President Moon Jae-in delivered a special address on Monday in commemoration of the fourth anniversary of his inauguration. During his speech, Moon defined his final year in office as the last opportunity to settle irreversible peace, reiterating his commitment to moving the so-called Korean Peninsula Peace Process forward. Here’s political commentator Choi Young-il with more. 

The Moon Jae-in government has been more enthusiastic about promoting inter-Korean relations than any other South Korean administration and actually produced some results. During the years of former U.S. President Donald Trump, the U.S. and North Korea engaged in top-down diplomacy and the leaders of the two countries exchanged letters. 

Unfortunately, North Korea-U.S. relations have been deadlocked since their Hanoi summit ended without an agreement in 2019. Relations between South and North Korea have also been locked in a stalemate, especially since the outbreak of COVID-19 last year. Without the pandemic, the two sides would have conducted economic exchanges, though in a limited way. As Moon expressed his intention to lay the groundwork for irreversible peace during his recent speech, a new breakthrough could possibly be made in inter-Korean relations. 

When President Moon took office on May 10, 2017, the Korean Peninsula was under North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats. On May 14, North Korea fired the Hwasong-12, a new intermediate-range ballistic missile. On July 4, it launched an intercontinental ballistic missile or ICBM. And on July 6, Moon announced his policy for peace on the divided peninsula, known as the “Korean Peninsula Peace Process,” through the “New Berlin Declaration” during his visit to Germany for the G20 summit. 

In Berlin in July 2017, Moon said that South Korea does not want the collapse of North Korea, nor will it push for any form of unification by absorption. He made it clear that his goal is to establish permanent peace. He proposed the construction of a trans-Korean railway that would be connected all the way to Europe. He also called for non-political, private exchanges with North Korea, including a reunion of separated families. He asked North Korea to join the PyongChang Winter Olympic Games to be held the following year and proposed that the two Koreas halt all hostile activities along the border and resume summit-level dialogue. 

Even after Moon announced his peace initiative, North Korea continued with missile provocations. It even went ahead with its sixth nuclear test on September 3, 2017. 

During his Liberation Day speech in August 2017, Moon said that his government would do all it can to prevent a war on the peninsula. This shows that the situation was quite precarious at the time. In September, then-U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to “totally destroy North Korea” at the U.N. General Assembly. North Korea also made aggressive remarks, saying that it would take all self-defensive countermeasures. North Korea-U.S. relations froze quickly. In November, North Korea tested its Hwasong-15 ICBM and declared that it had completed its state nuclear force. 

With military tensions reaching the highest level, President Moon believed that it was time for a shift toward negotiations. He said South Korea asked the U.S. to consider postponing their combined military exercises, in an apparent move to send a message of peace to North Korea. On January 1, 2018, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said in his New Year’s speech that his country could participate in the PyongChang Winter Games to be held in South Korea the following month. 

In February 2018, North Korea sent athletes and delegation members to the PyeongChang Olympics. Afterwards, the Korean Peninsula Peace Process proceeded smoothly, with the first summit between Moon and Kim taking place in the truce village of Panmunjom on April 27, 2018. 

One of the most memorable scenes of the summit was the long, private conversation between Moon and Kim, without the presence of any official, at a pedestrian bridge inside Panmunjom. The two leaders announced the Panmunjom Declaration, in which they agreed to realize a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, stop all hostile acts and establish a joint liaison office in Gaeseong. That day, Panmunjom attracted so much attention worldwide that some even said the border village could be a tourist attraction. 

On May 24, 2018, North Korea dismantled the Punggyeri nuclear test site. Two days later, another Moon-Kim summit took place at Panmunjom. On June 12, North Korea and the U.S. held a historic summit in Singapore and announced a joint statement. In a sudden and dramatic reversal, their relations began to improve. 

The U.S. and North Korea were on the brink of war in 2017. But President Moon continued to communicate with both countries, while proceeding with his Korean Peninsula Peace Process initiative. The three-way communication proved to be very crucial, with Moon playing a mediating role. At the time, his expression, “South Korea should be in the driver’s seat,” drew great attention. Ahead of the first Trump-Kim summit in Singapore in June 2018, North Korea and the U.S. engaged in a fierce war of nerves over the summit agenda. Some even raised the possibility that the summit would not materialize. But after the second Moon-Kim summit on May 26, the Trump-Kim summit finally took place on June 12. It’s fair to say that some of the credit should go to Moon and the South Korean government. 

And in September 2018, Moon and Kim held their third summit in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. 

Moon delivered a speech to 100-thousand North Korean citizens at the May Day Stadium in Pyongyang to become the first South Korean leader to do so. During his speech, Moon said that the leaders of the two Koreas declared in front of 80 million Korean people and the entire world that there will be no more war on the Korean Peninsula and a new era of peace has begun. Seoul and Pyongyang also signed a military agreement that called for a halt to all hostile acts. Afterwards, the two sides demolished guard posts in the Demilitarized Zone, as part of efforts to ease military tension. Inter-Korean relations remained friendly throughout 2018. 

In February 2019, however, the second summit between Trump and Kim in Hanoi broke down, with bilateral relations freezing again. In June last year, North Korea blew up the joint liaison office in Gaeseong, taking issue with the release of anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border by groups of North Korean defectors and activists. Since then, inter-Korean ties have also been strained. 

During his recent speech, President Moon welcomed the Biden government’s policy review on North Korea, calling it a flexible, gradual and practical approach based on the foundations laid by the Singapore Declaration with a goal of the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Moon said that South Korea would more closely coordinate its policy toward North Korea to find ways to restore inter-Korean talks as well as dialogue between North Korea and the U.S. and take a step once again toward peaceful cooperation. 

North Korea-U.S. dialogue may start from square one—from working-level contact—before moving on to the stage of summit-level decisions. In the process of resolving North Korea-related issues and meeting Washington’s demand, Moon’s mediating role might be necessary again. During his recent address, Moon said that he would make an all-out effort toward that goal during the remainder of his term. Here’s hoping that the two Koreas and the U.S. will be able to address relevant issues together and a new Korean Peninsula Peace Process will unfold in the second half of the year.

Inter-Korean relations as well as North Korea-U.S. ties are at an impasse, just as they were four years ago. Attention turns to whether the South Korean president will act as a mediator again to reactivate the Korean Peninsula Peace Process.