US-China Summit Opens Door to North Korea Nuclear Talks — SkimNews
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- The US-China summit in Washington omitted any reference to "North Korean denuclearization" for the first time since the leaders' May meeting, with the author reading the change as a shift toward more practical diplomacy.
- South Korean President Lee Jae Myung proposed at the UN General Assembly a three-phase approach to the North Korean nuclear issue: first halt further advances in nuclear and missile capabilities, then pursue reductions over the medium term, and ultimately achieve a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.
- Lee had earlier proposed easing some sanctions on North Korea in exchange for a halt to further nuclear development, framing the freeze as a realistic baseline that eases the political burden on both Washington and Pyongyang while creating a workable point of contact.
- North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Kim Son Gyong declared at the UN General Assembly that the country's status as a nuclear-armed state had been "permanently fixed both physically and legally," effectively dismissing the prospect of denuclearization.
- A North Korean Foreign Ministry memorandum reiterated that the country's nuclear forces are a means of guaranteeing national security, underscoring Pyongyang's hardening rejection of disarmament talks.
- The author calls on the United States, China, and Russia to develop concrete answers on what a halt would cover, what reciprocal measures would follow, and how compliance would be verified — without which, a freeze remains a declaratory goal rather than a realistic starting point.
Why it matters: The US-North Korea relationship has been stalled since the failed 2019 Hanoi summit, and the dropped denuclearization language at the US-China summit is the first tangible signal of a new negotiating frame. Yet with Kim Son Gyong declaring North Korea's nuclear status "permanently fixed," any restart hinges on whether Washington, Beijing, and Seoul can move beyond declaratory goals and define verifiable reciprocal steps — the open question the author flags as urgent.
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