On the 22nd, Unification Minister Lee In-young rejected the request of the U.S. State Department's special representative for North Korea, Seong Kim, for "joint promotion of separated family reunions and visits to Mt. Geumgang" as a violation of the summit agreement, saying it was "a Korean idea."
Minister Lee told U.S. Representative Seong Kim, “The ROK and the United States are closely cooperating with each other and jointly promote cooperation in areas of livelihood such as COVID-19 prevention and food, reunions of separated families, visits to Mt. "I think it's a task that can be done," Kim said. "When the Korean government presents various ideas, we also want to cooperate closely." "As President Biden mentioned at the summit, the meaning of Korea The U.S. is sending strong support for various engagement policies, including inter-Korean dialogue and cooperation,” the Hankyoreh reported on the same day.
The US representative's response appears to be in violation of the two-way separation policy of 'Korean civil cooperation' and 'US denuclearization negotiations' agreed at the Korea-US summit in response to Minister Lee's proposal.
In the opening statement of the joint statement of the Korea-US summit, “President Moon Jae-in welcomed the completion of the review of the US policy toward North Korea, which takes a sophisticated and pragmatic approach, that it is open to and seeks diplomacy with North Korea for practical progress that improves the security of the United States and South Korea. did. (omitted) President Biden also expressed support for inter-Korean dialogue, engagement and cooperation. We agreed to work together to improve the human rights situation in North Korea and committed to continuing to promote the provision of humanitarian assistance to the people of North Korea who are most in need. We also shared the will of both sides to support the promotion of reunions of separated families between the two Koreas. We also agreed to harmonize our approach to North Korea so that it fully coincides.>, and mutually agreed on the separation of the two main pillars: the US' support to promote separated families and the ROK's support for the completion of the US policy toward North Korea.
Regarding the US participation in private cooperation, Minister Lee said, “I think that this process of cooperation may be a practical approach to make North Korea responsive to the dialogue table, and it has the positive potential to create a good environment for denuclearization negotiations. We suggest that South Korea and the United States consider it through an active and creative approach.” The US representative said, “I expect North Korea to respond fairly positively to our proposal for dialogue,” as an obstacle to dialogue between the United States and North Korea. said.
After the South Korea-US-Japan summit with North Korea representatives the day before, President Sung Kim agreed to terminate the Korea-US Working Group with South Korea and separated inter-Korean cooperation and US North Korea policy in a joint statement between the leaders of the Republic of Korea and the United States.
In November 2018, South Korea and the United States decided to approve a visit to North Korea by businessmen at the Kaesong Industrial Complex through a collective consultation between the Blue House, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Unification of the Republic of Korea, and the White House, the Ministry of State, and the Ministry of Finance at the Korea-U.S. Working Group to access sanctions exceptions against North Korea.