Casual, unannounced talks may be North and South Korea's new thing
Impromptu diplomacy sessions between North and South Korea may keep happening, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Monday, holding Saturday's unannounced meeting between himself and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as a model of low-key engagement.
"What's more important than anything from the latest inter-Korean summit was that the leaders easily got in contact, easily made an appointment, and easily met to discuss urgent matters, without complicated procedures and formalities, just like a casual meeting," Moon said.
The Saturday rendezvous was prompted by the uncertainty surrounding the summit between Kim and President Trump originally scheduled to take place in Singapore on June 12. Trump canceled the summit Thursday but almost immediately said it might happen after all. On Sunday, he posted an upbeat message on Twitter mentioning that a "United States team has arrived in North Korea to make arrangements for the Summit between Kim Jong Un and myself."
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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