Quoted: The Guardian on Inter-Korean Summit

Everything you need to know about the inter-Korean summit

“The Inter-Korean summit is like the opening move in chess. How you play it sets up the other possible moves that come after it,” said Mintaro Oba, a former US diplomat who worked on North Korea policy. “So the Inter-Korean summit’s significance lies primarily in what atmosphere it creates and what expectations it reinforces heading into the next move, which is the Trump-Kim summit.”

“For Moon, the summit is valuable because it makes it harder for the United States or North Korea to escalate tensions and gives him a lever to push both countries toward Moon’s ultimate goal: a comprehensive US-North Korea deal,” Oba said. “For Kim, it’s a way of increasing his options, putting pressure on the United States to deal with him on his terms, and convincing the world he is acting in good faith so that the blame for any future setbacks will be on the United States and not North Korea.”


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