As President Moon Jae-in leads the overtures of dialogue with North Korea, his key officials have been traveling across borders to bring regional powers on board.
We have our chief Blue House correspondent Moon Connyoung live on the line for us.
Connyoung,
Right. South Korean president's National Security Adviser Chung Eui-yong and National
Intelligence Service chief Suh Hoon are on a whistle-stop tour of the U.S., China, Japan, and Russia to brief leaders their trip to North Korea early last week.
It's part of President Moon's efforts to bring these jittery powers on board the South Korea-initiated overture of talks with North Korea. China and Japan have, and for good reason, been showing fear of being left out of this entire process.
South Korea's intel chief, Suh Hoon flew to Japan yesterday to brief Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on his trip to North Korea, the U.S., and progress on the talks.
Suh met with Mr. Abe just moments ago...where the Japanese prime minister said that while he welcomes dialogue with North Korea on the premise of denuclearization... Japan needs for the North to take "concrete" actions.
Seoul's NIS director highlighted the importance of South Korea, Japan cooperation in taking the PyeongChang Olympic-initiated detente forward.
The meeting is currently underway so we have yet to find out the details from that session... but yesterday when Seoul's intel chief met with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono, he said Japan would work closely with Seoul and Washington and referred to the situation a near "miracle."
President Moon's National Security Adviser, on the other hand, was in China and sat down with a number of high-level Chinese officials including President Xi Jinping.
Well, President Moon's chief security adviser and chief envoy who led the South Korean delegation to the North early last week... sat down with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing for 35 minutes on Monday... during which President Moon's chief envoy praised the role of China and President Xi in nudging North Korea toward denuclearization and getting Pyongyang and Washington to agree to talks.
The Chinese leader told the South Korean official that China is "on the same page" with Seoul
and that he hopes for a smooth inter-Korean summit while giving credit to the South for great progress in getting North Korea and the U.S. to agree to dialogue.
China, which appears to have been left on the sidelines as South Korea orchestrated the rapprochement with the North... is feeling a wave of anxiety on prospects that it may not have a seat at the table if new negotiations involving North Korea are launched.
Mr. Moon is aware of this... AND the fact that the North Korean nuclear issue involves geopolitical and regional security and China naturally should take an active part in it.
And, knowing this... the South Korean president is trying to keep Beijing in the loop as things progress in the next two months.
Russia, of course,
