By Kim Bo-eun
President Moon Jae-in proposed including China, Russia and ASEAN countries in conducting inter-Korean economic projects to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at their summit, a high-level unification ministry official said Wednesday.
The proposal was included on a USB containing blueprints of inter-Korean projects Moon handed over to Kim during their summit last Friday.
"The documents on the USB outlined plans for inter-Korean economic cooperation ― including the needs of the South, economic plans of the North and areas in which the South and North can cooperate with neighboring countries such as China, Russia and ASEAN states," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
Moon proposed economic cooperation between the North and South through developing and building infrastructure as an election pledge.
Prospects of inter-Korean economic cooperation have been raised, due to the ongoing reconciliatory mood between the North and South after what many consider a successful summit held last week, in which the Koreas agreed on complete denuclearization and to put an end to the 1950-1953 Korean War which ended in an armistice.
Meanwhile, the official stated that economic cooperation could not take place right away ― that North Korea would need to show developments in denuclearization first. Pyongyang is currently under multiple sanctions imposed by the international community as well as by individual states due to the nuclear and missile tests it conducted until last year.
The joint industrial complex in the North's city of Gaeseong remains shuttered after it was closed down because of Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests in February 2016.
Before the summit, Kim announced that North Korea would suspend nuclear and missile tests and shut down its Punggye-ri nuclear testing site in a meeting of the central committee of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea.
In the summit, Kim told Moon that North Korea would invite security experts and journalists from South Korea and the U.S. to watch the shutdown of the Punggye-ri site. Kim stressed that the regime is not closing down a dysfunctional testing site ― that two of the underground tunnels are still usable. On Tuesday, Moon requested the U.N.'s presence at the scene, to which Secretary General Antonio Guterres agreed.
"The process of denuclearization cannot go without inspections," the official said.
With regards to criticism that North Korea made numerous nuclear agreements with which it did not follow through, the official said "We have reviewed past cases and are taking part in negotiations under the condition that circumstances of North Korea breaking its word cannot recur."
"The issue of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula will be discussed at the North Korea-U.S. summit, while taking all of these factors into consideration," he said.
The Pyongyang-Washington summit is set to take place either this or next month. The date and venue of the summit is set to be unveiled soon, U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Defense Ministry Song Young-moo met with members of a U.S. congressional study group on Korea in Seoul, Wednesday, to discuss ways to strengthen cooperation between Seoul and Washington in peacefully achieving denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
