EU Encourages Moon's Efforts To Establish Stability On Korean Peninsula - Michel

The European Union supports South Korean President Moon Jae-in's efforts to establish stability on the Korean Peninsula and believes that negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang should resume, European Council President Charles Michel said on Tuesday following talks with the South Korean leader

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 30th June, 2020) The European Union supports South Korean President Moon Jae-in's efforts to establish stability on the Korean Peninsula and believes that negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang should resume, European Council President Charles Michel said on Tuesday following talks with the South Korean leader.

Tensions on the peninsula escalated after North Korea cut off communications with its southern neighbor and earlier in June blew up the joint liaison office in the border town of Kaesong. According to Pyongyang, the move was in line with "the mindset of the enraged people" over the campaign by North Korean defectors to send propaganda leaflets across the border. Seoul reportedly urged the Keunsaem activists, a group of North Korean defectors, to suspend leafleting, as it could further anger Pyongyang and undermine the safety of people living near the border.

"We encourage and support President Moon's efforts toward finding a solution that will lead to greater stability and greater security [on the Korean peninsula].

We also encourage the resumption of talks between North Korea and the US. And I would like to add that the EU remains committed to the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs," Michel said.

North Korea engaged in denuclearization talks with the United States in 2018. The country's leader, Kim Jong Un, and US President Donald Trump expressed their commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula during talks in Singapore in June of that year. However, the next negotiations between the two leaders collapsed due to disagreements over the timing of sanctions relief.

In October 2019, the North Korean delegation led by chief negotiator Kim Myong Gil held working-level denuclearization talks with the US delegation headed by Stephen Biegun in Sweden. However, North Korean diplomats left the meeting's venue prematurely, after which Kim said the working negotiations with the United States had failed.