MOSCOW, June 9. /TASS/. The summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un scheduled for June 12 in Singapore will contribute to the Korean Peninsula’s denuclearization provided that Washington is ready for an equal dialogue, Alexander Zhebin, Director of the Center for Korean Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for Far Eastern Studies, told TASS.
"We expect that this summit will be a new stage and progress towards the peninsula’s denuclearization," the expert said. "It will also stabilize this process and positively influence inter-Korean relations."
"South Korea, as the US ally, is mostly oriented at the Americans, and if the summit is successful, Seoul will have more opportunities for developing cooperation with Pyongyang and this is the possibility of implementing trilateral economic projects, in which Russia is interested," he noted.
According to the expert, the Korean Peninsula’s denuclearization has already started "thanks to North Korea’s initiatives." By its real steps, Pyongyang is showing its wish to search for peaceful compromise solutions to overcome differences with the US, he said.
"It is important that the US-North Korean summit should make this process politically stable so that it is not interrupted due to the US unjustifiably high demands," Zhebin said.
Washington has not taken any steps in response to Pyongyang’s conciliatory acts, he noted. "Certainly, North Korea expects that the Americans will show readiness to go their part of the way towards the agreements, and without that it is difficult to expect progress in the further denuclearization of the peninsula."
Meanwhile, Washington understands that this summit is not the end but is only the beginning of the diplomatic process and that denuclearization won’t occur immediately. "To stabilize this process, stable political will of both sides is needed to look for mutually acceptable solutions to a whole number of challenging situations, which will occur during the peninsula’s denuclearization," the expert said.
The US will have to give security guarantees for North Korea, he stressed. "Possibly, these guarantees will demand multilateral participation, there are serious suspicions that North Korea won’t believe the Americans’ unilateral guarantees," Zhebin said.