South Korea-North Korea leaders to hold hotline talks ‘before long’

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who held a historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the border truce village of Punmunjeom on April 27, is likely to have talks with the latter over the newly installed hotline between the neighbours "before long", sources in South Korea's Blue House, the official residence of its president, told the media on Friday, May 11, Xinhua reported.

The hotline was set up a week ahead of the Punmunjeom summit where the two leaders came up with a declaration vowing to end the Korean War and also denuclearise the peninsula which has been witnessing heightened tensions over North Korea's nuclear tests over the past many years. It also around the same time of setting up the hotline that Pyongyang announced its intention to quit nuclear tests and shut its nuclear experiment site, arousing new hope about a peaceful Korean Peninsula.

Seoul also said that the first hotline talks between Moon and Kim could take place after the announcement of the venue and date for the historic summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the Xinhua report added. Trump announced on Thursday, May 10, that the summit will take place in Singapore on June 12 although the US also made it clear that it could be scuttled if North Korea did anything unacceptable over the next one month.

Trump revealed the dates following the return of his secretary of state Mike Pompeo from North Korea where he paid his second visit in six weeks to fix the details of the summit and also brought back three US citizens who had been detained by the Kim regime.

Meanwhile, Blue House was set to meet the White House on May 22 as President Moon will visit Washington to see his US counterpart and hold talks over the upcoming Trump-Kim summit.