SEOUL \u2014 South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung has urged his United States counterpart Donald Trump to help him make peace with North Korea, “just as he has resolved the conflict in the Middle East,” the former\u2019s office said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The US and Iran are set to sign a memorandum of understanding on Friday to end their war, and there has been speculation that the Trump administration may then turn its attention to North Korea.<\/p>\n
Trump fueled that interest shortly after announcing the Iran deal, posting on social media an uncaptioned photograph of himself with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at their 2018 summit in Singapore.<\/p>\n
Trump asked Lee about developments in inter-Korean relations during an exchange at the Group of Seven summit in France, Seoul’s presidential office said in a statement.<\/p>\n
During the conversation, “President Lee requested that he [Trump] take the lead in achieving a peaceful resolution to the North Korean issue, just as he has resolved the conflict in the Middle East”, it added.<\/p>\n
Get the latest news
\n
\n delivered to your inbox<\/p>\n
Sign up for The Manila Times newsletters<\/p>\n
By signing up with an email address, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to the Terms of Service<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n “President Trump expressed his commitment to working toward a resolution of the North Korean issue,” the statement said.<\/p>\n Lee has taken a dovish approach toward North Korea, in contrast to his more hardline predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol.<\/p>\n But Pyongyang has rejected his overtures, formally labeling Seoul its “most hostile” enemy and repeatedly declaring itself an “irreversible” nuclear state.<\/p>\n North Korea experts say the chances of a meeting between Kim and Trump is low.<\/p>\n “From North Korea’s perspective, there is virtually no reason to meet the United States,” Yang Moo-jin, former president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).<\/p>\n Kim has sought to enhance his standing with his other neighbors, for example sending troops and munitions to aid Russia’s war against Ukraine.<\/p>\n He also recently hosted China’s President Xi Jinping in Pyongyang, soon after Xi had held back-to-back summits in Beijing with Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n Neither Pyongyang’s nor Beijing’s official statements mentioned the issue of getting North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, an outcome that experts said indicated China’s tacit acceptance of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEOUL \u2014 South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung has urged his United States counterpart Donald Trump to help…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[113,4954,134,32687,74,32685,32683,982,32682,141,31,2265,34,32684,5500,2447,31723,2322,129,137,112,33,130,444,32686,1797,1334,24806,32],"class_list":["post-57887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-north-korea","tag-afp","tag-agence-france-presse","tag-china","tag-china-acceptance","tag-donald-trump","tag-dovish-approach","tag-group-of-seven-summit","tag-inter-korean-relations","tag-iran-memorandum","tag-kim-jong-un","tag-korea","tag-middle-east-conflict","tag-north-korea","tag-north-korean-issue","tag-nuclear-state","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-peaceful-resolution","tag-president-lee-jae-myung","tag-pyongyang","tag-russia","tag-seoul","tag-south-korea","tag-ukraine","tag-united-states","tag-university-of-north-korean-studies","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-xi-jinping","tag-yang-moo-jin","tag-yoon-suk-yeol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}