Moon faces new pressure to revive Trump-Kim talks

Bloomberg

As talks between US President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un flourished last year, South Korean leader Moon Jae-in enjoyed international praise for bringing them together. Now that they’ve split, he’s facing pressure to get them back to the table.
Trump’s decision to walk away from his Hanoi summit with Kim continues to reverberate a month later in Seoul, where Moon has come under fire from the conservative opposition for accepting the North Korean leader’s disarmament pledges. The Kim regime has hit him from the other side, withdrawing staff from a new joint liaison office last week and criticising South Korea as
“cowardly” for backing his US allies’ stance against easing sanctions.
“The ball is now in Moon’s court to meet Kim Jong-un, get exactly which sanctions North Korea wants lifted in response to exactly what type of denuclearisation measures the US wants to see,” said Cheong Seong-chang, vice president of research planning at the Sejong Institute.
“Moon has been cornered into having to persuade Kim Jong-un to sign up for ‘a big deal.”’
Moon has repeatedly had to play the role of mediator since he took office in May 2017 amid escalating threats of war between Trump and Kim.
The long-time advocate of reconciliation with North Korea has staked much of his presidency on his ability to put the two men on the path to peace, including a surprise trip north of the border to meet with Kim and help rescue their first summit last year in Singapore.
The failure of the Hanoi meeting on February 28, however, raised new doubts about what such summits will accomplish, with Trump administration officials suggesting they’re willing to wait out North Korea as it languishes under sanctions.
With few options short of resuming weapons tests that might provoke Trump, Kim has instead signalled a willingness to threaten Moon’s diplomatic progress.