NORTH KOREA/NUCLEAR/SANCTIONS/SOUTH KOREA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Moon Jae-in of South Korea will meet with President Trump in Washington on April 11, his office announced on Friday [3-29-19], as Mr. Moon struggles to salvage his role as a mediator between Mr. Trump and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un. Mr. Moon has devoted his government’s diplomatic efforts to facilitating a deal between Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim on dismantling North Korea’s nuclear arms program and building lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula. But those efforts hit a wall when Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump ended their summit meeting in Vietnam last month without a deal, confirming how far apart they were on the terms of denuclearization. Mr. Moon has since vowed to continue to work as a mediator, with his office saying that Mr. Trump had asked for that. But Washington wants Mr. Moon to focus on persuading Mr. Kim to denuclearize before expecting the United States to lift sanctions. The North, conversely, wants Mr. Moon to help ease sanctions first.”
–Choe Sang-Hun, “South Korean Leader to Meet With Trump, Hoping to Salvage His Role as Mediator,” The New York Times online, March 29, 2019