SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un offered to give up his nuclear arsenal if America guaranteed his regime would survive, former South Korean president Moon Jae-in said in a recently released memoir.
Moon, who led South Korea for five years from 2017, was instrumental in brokering two high-profile summit meetings between Kim and then-United States president Donald Trump, aimed at securing Pyongyang’s denuclearization in return for sanctions relief.
But after the second summit collapsed in 2019, diplomatic outreach was abandoned, with relations between the two Koreas now at one of their worst points in years, as Kim doubles down on weapons production and draws closer to ally Moscow.
In the memoir released Friday, titled “From the Periphery to the Center,” former president Moon outlined in great detail his interactions with the North Korean leader.
“Kim said he would forsake nuclear weapons if there was a guarantee of regime survival,” Moon said in the book, adding that he felt the young North Korean leader was “very honest.”
According to Moon, Kim’s reasoning was: “I have a daughter and I do not wish her generation to live with nuclear weapons... Why would we continue to live in difficulty, under sanctions, with nuclear weapons if our security can be guaranteed?“
But the North Korean leader was “well aware of mistrust from the international community and the (belief from the) US that the North had been lying” about its commitments to denuclearization, Moon said.
Kim specifically asked him how the North could manage to “make Washington believe in our sincerity” to disarm.
In five years since the Hanoi summit, Pyongyang has declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear weapons power, accelerated weapons development, branded Seoul its “principal enemy” and threatened war over “even 0.001 mm” of territorial infringement.
It has also moved closer to Moscow, purportedly supplying it with arms in exchange for space technologies, something which would violate rafts of United Nations sanctions on both countries.
Despite how things have played out, Moon said in his memoir that he still believed Kim was sincere in his plans to denuclearize, but that it was strongly contingent on “corresponding measures” from the US.
Kim and Trump failed to strike a deal because Washington demanded complete denuclearization before it would consider providing sanctions relief, Moon wrote.
“In retrospect, I regret that (South Korea) did not mediate more effectively by listening to the North’s demands and relaying them to Washington if deemed reasonable,” he said.
“Though there are negative views about Trump, he was a very good fit for me as a counterpart in alliance diplomacy,” he said.
“While there are assessments that he is rude and harsh, I liked him for his honesty. A person who has a smiling face but acts differently and thus can’t be read is more difficult to deal with,” he added.
Trump was both apologetic and regretful that the Hanoi summit ended without a deal, Moon wrote.
Trump was “willing to accept (the North Koreans’ terms) but then-Security Adviser John Bolton fervently opposed it,” Moon wrote.
When Trump asked then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for a second opinion, he agreed with Bolton, leaving Trump no option but to walk away, Moon wrote.
It is impossible to take Kim’s words at face value now, Hong Min a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, said.
What was clear “is that Kim tried to change the status quo by expressing his intention to denuclearize,” he said.
The only way to know if Kim was serious, would have been to strike a deal in Hanoi and “gauge how far the North would go toward denuclearization,” he added.
Moon was succeeded by conservative Yoon Suk Yeol, who has taken a significantly more hawkish stance on North Korea.
Yoon has not commented on the memoir but his minister for unification Kim Yung-ho said on Monday that taking Kim’s words at face value could have lead to a security-related “miscalculation.”
“While ignoring North Korea’s (nuclear) capability, if we only focus on the North’s intentions, this could result in a miscalculation of the security situation,” he said, according to the Yonhap news agency.
North Korea’s Kim was ‘sincere’ in Trump talks: Seoul’s former president Moon
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North Korea’s Kim was ‘sincere’ in Trump talks: Seoul’s former president Moon
- Former South Korean president Moon Jae-in was instrumental in brokering two high-profile summit meetings between Kim Jong Un and then-US president Donald Trump
Epstein files reveal links to cash, women, power in Africa
- Documents attest to Epstein’sclose ties with Karim Wade, son of former Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade
- They also reveal his ties to Nina Keita, niece of Ivorian president Alassane Ouattara
PARIS: Jeffrey Epstein built close ties with powerful figures in Senegal and Ivory Coast, files released by the US government last month show, detailing the late sex offender’s influence network across Africa.
Emails, scheduled meetings, investment projects, and loans reviewed by AFP attest to the disgraced New York financier’s close relationship with Karim Wade, son of former Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade.
They also reveal his ties to Nina Keita, niece of Ivorian president Alassane Ouattara.
Wade and Epstein met in 2010 through Emirati businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, who recently resigned as CEO of port giant DP World after mounting pressure over his close friendship with Epstein.
The pair quickly struck up a rapport.
“Thanks for coming. I think there are many things to consider... I feel confident that we will have fun,” Epstein wrote to Wade on November 15, 2010 after their first meeting in Paris.
“Have a safe trip back to your paradise Island,” Wade replied.
While Wade’s exchanges show no link to Epstein-related sex trafficking crimes, they do reveal conversations on potential business ventures in various sectors, such as finance and energy.
Nicknamed the “Minister of Heaven and Earth” for the multiple portfolios he held including international cooperation, energy, and air transport, Wade was a powerful figure in Senegal until April 2012, when his father’s bid for a third term sparked deadly riots.
Epstein saw him as “one of the most important players in africa” and invited him to meet close contacts such as Ehud Barak, then Israel’s defense minister.
He also put him in touch with Chinese businessman Desmond Shum to discuss “offshore banking.”
The US Department of Justice documents show Shum and Wade met in Beijing on May 9, 2011.
That same month, Wade planned an African tour through Senegal, Mali, and Gabon for Epstein.
‘You will not suffer’
Epstein and Wade’s relationship became even more apparent after the latter’s fortunes reversed when his father left office in 2012.
That autumn, Epstein proposed that his “friend” — under the Dakar authorities’ scrutiny over his assets — use his house in Florida.
“You and your family are welcome to use my house in palm beach, staff is there, pool etc. you will not suffer,” Epstein wrote.
“Txs a lot Brother for the advise,” Wade replied a few weeks later to another email, in which Epstein urged him to “stay mentally strong.”
Numerous files suggest Epstein became financially involved on Karim Wade’s behalf after his arrest in 2013 and his 2015 sentencing to six years in prison for corruption.
Karim Wade’s lawyer, Mohamed Seydou Diagne, sent two invoices in May 2014 and July 2015 of $500,000 to one of Epstein’s companies.
Contacted by AFP on Monday, Diagne said he “did not consider it useful to comment.”
Other archives suggest that Epstein covered at least $50,000 in fees for the US lobbying firm Nelson Mullins, hired by Wade’s entourage to secure his release.
Epstein regularly exchanged emails with Robert Crowe, a partner at the firm who kept him informed of their efforts in the US and Senegal.
In a June 16, 2016 email thread where Epstein and Crowe discussed whether then Senegalese president Macky Sall would pardon Wade, Crowe writes: “He has told my friends high up at State that he was going to do it. They have been putting pressure on him!“
Karim Wade was released from prison eight days later, on June 24, and went into exile in Qatar, which he credited for efforts toward his release.
Jeffrey Epstein was told by Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem and Nina Keita.
‘A very interesting person!’
The DOJ documents show Nina Keita was close to both Epstein and Karim Wade and that she acted as a regular intermediary while Wade was in prison.
Keita also helped put Epstein in contact with her uncle, president of Ivory Coast since May 2011, and his team.
“He thought you were a very interesting person! ... they were all very happy to have you here,” she wrote on January 20, 2012, after the financier’s visit to Abidjan.
She had booked him the “ministerial suite” of the luxury Hotel Ivoire for that trip.
Ahead of the visit, Epstein had said he hoped to see “very pretty girls there, as well as interesting places.”
“You will!” Keita replied.
Emails show Keita, a former model, at least once sent photos and the phone number of a young woman to Epstein.
He then met this woman at the Ritz hotel in Paris on August 31, 2011.
“ask sadia to send pictures of her sister. i prefer under 25,” Epstein wrote to Keita after the meeting.
Now the deputy general director of Ivorian petroleum stocks company GESTOCI, Keita also appears in a February 2019 will in which Epstein requested that debts owed to him by a number of people be canceled upon his death.
AFP received no response to its requests for comment from both Keita and the Ivorian presidency, or from Karim Wade, who was contacted through his entourage.
The mere mention of a person’s name in the Epstein files does not in itself imply wrongdoing.
