On Recent Developments on the Korean Peninsula

ABSTRACT Despite high expectations, the summit between the US President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in Hanoi, Vietnam, on February 27–28, 2019 did not produce any agreement. What did we expect from the summit? What were the reasons for nonagreement? How should we evaluate the results of the summit? What were the implications for future negotiations and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula? What should we do to keep momentum toward ending the conflict between the US and the DPRK and the Korean War? Those are the questions we need to address after the Hanoi summit. The Panel on Peace and Security of Northeast Asia (PSNA), established in 2016 by the Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, Nagasaki University (RECNA), asked prominent experts in various countries to contribute a short working paper to address the key questions. This article is a compilation of three such papers. Ramesh Thakur (Australia) regards the Hanoi summit as “neither breakthrough nor breakdown”. Mark Byung-Moon Suh and Elisabeth Imi Suh (Germany and Republic of Korea) argue that we need to sustain the inter-Korean momentum despite the lack of agreement at the summit. Shen Dingli (PRC) stresses the importance of keeping the diplomacy for the common good. All the papers are the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of PSNA or RECNA