When Kim meets Trump, ending the pain of the Korean war must top the agenda

The Singapore summit is on. US President Donald Trump has announced that “the process will begin” on June 12 in Singapore, where he will meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. While most focused on the key word “process” and the size of the letter North Korean envoy Kim Yong-chol delivered to Trump at the White House, most significant to 80 million Koreans on the peninsula was the prospect of declaring the end of the Korean war.

“Can you believe that we’re talking about the ending of the Korean war?” President Trump told reporters. “We’re talking about 70 years.”

Indeed, the Korean war is the longest-standing US conflict. In three years, approximately 4 million people were killed, mostly Korean civilians. As the United States and North Korea negotiate the path towards denuclearisation and a peace treaty, what must not be forgotten is the urgent need to end a war that has divided the Korean people.

On May 26, as South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un were meeting in Panmunjom, I was just a few miles away – at the Odusan Unification Observatory – peering into the telescope across the Imjin River onto North Korean rice fields.