CSIS Expert Says Kim Jong-un Could Be Setting “A Trap” for President Moon With Upcoming Summit

CSIS expert Tara O states something that I have said before that if Kim Jong-un is serious about peace on the peninsula why doesn’t he start pulling back his artillery and troops from the DMZ?:

President Moon Jae-in should seek ways to reduce the military threat posed by North Korea before signing a peace treaty, said Tara O, an adjunct fellow at the Pacific Forum CSIS, Tuesday.

She urged Moon to raise this issue at his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to be held at the border village of Panmunjeom, Friday.

“Unless there are concrete measures to reduce the threat, the signing of a peace treaty is premature and only makes South Korea more vulnerable,” O said in an interview.

“Besides, North Korea does not even want to sign a peace treaty with South Korea; it wants to sign it with the U.S.”

O’s advice came after President Moon said last week he was optimistic about signing a peace treaty with North Korea to formally end the Korean War.

She suggested Moon make detailed requests to Kim, such as moving the North’s artillery away from the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), destroying its chemical and biological weapons, reducing its military forces and changing its official goal of unifying the entire Korean Peninsula under its rule.

She called any peace treaty without a reduction of military threats “a trap.”

“It’s not about peace. It’s about doing away with the justification for the U.S. troop presence in South Korea, because their mission is to deter, and if that doesn’t work, then defend the South and defeat the North,” she said.

O, an expert on North Korea, is a retired U.S. Air Force officer who worked on numerous assignments in Asia, Europe, and the U.S., including the Pentagon and U.S.-South Korea Combined Forces Command (CFC).  [Korea Times]

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