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South Korea president urges Biden to negotiate with North Korea, 'build on' what Trump left

Trump met twice with Kim – in 2018 in Singapore and in 2019 in Vietnam.

Published: April 21, 2021 12:00pm

Updated: April 22, 2021 8:12am

South Korean President Moon Jae-in is urging President Biden to continue the negotiations with North Korea that former President Trump started and broker peace between the rouge nation and other countries.

"I hope that Biden will go down as a historic president that has achieved substantive and irreversible progress for the complete denuclearization and peace settlement on the Korean Peninsula," Moon said in an interview with the New York Times, released Wednesday.

Moon said that Trump fail to finalize on any accord but that Biden can build on the progress he made with South Korea leader Kim Jung Un.

"We will see this effort come to fruition under Biden’s leadership," Moon said.

Moon was elected in 2017 and is in his final year in office. He hopes he can achieve a lasting peace on the peninsula that has technically been at war since 1950. Though full-scale conflict ended in 1953 with a ceasefire, the two countries have not declared peace.

Also at issue is North Korea's pursuit of a nuclear weapon. Kim rattled the world before Trump took office in 2017 with a series of ballistic missile launches, considered tests to see whether the projectiles were capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

Trump met twice with Kim – in 2018 in Singapore and in 2019 in Vietnam. Though he failed to reach any signed deal, Kim during Trump's four years in office curtailed the test launches during that period. 

Biden said last month that he is open to diplomacy with North Korea but did not want to sit down with Kim, according to Reuters.

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