President Moon Jae-in of South Korea suggested that U.S. President Donald Trump win the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to broker a peace between North and South Korea. “President Trump should win the Nobel Peace Prize. What we need is only peace,” Moon told a meeting of senior South Korean officials during a meeting at the Blue House, South Korea’s version of the White House.
The President has spearheaded a maximum “pressure campaign” against North Korea’s reclusive leader Kim Jong Un and his regime. Tensions between Trump and Kim had become heated over the course of the last year with each threatening the other with nuclear war.
All that changed after the New Year when Kim, striking a decidedly different tone, called for a melting of frozen North-South relations in 2018. He followed that up by sending a delegation of North Korean athletes to participate in the Winter Olympics held in Seoul, South Korea, in February.
Diplomacy accelerated after that with an invitation extended to Moon to visit in North Korea at the conclusion of the Games. Moon declined the offer but sent a high-level delegation to Pyongyang instead. That delegation returned with word from the North Korean government that Kim was willing to meet with President Trump and would be willing to suspend his nuclear program in the process.
Weeks later it was learned that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a secret trip to North Korea where he personally met with Kim. The developments were punctuated by a historic meeting last week along the North-South Korean border between Moon and Kim, in which the countries pledged to an official end the 65-year-old Korean War.
Moon’s comment about the Nobel Prize came in response to a call from Lee Hee-ho, the widow of late South Korean President Kim Dai-jung. In the call Lee told Moon that he deserved to win the prize. Moon reportedly responded by saying President Trump should win it.
The President called Moon’s suggestion “very nice” and “very generous” from the White House yesterday and said that details were being worked on for his meeting with Kim. Possible locations for the meeting are Singapore and facility located on the border between the Koreas within the Demilitarized Zone.
“I thought it was very generous of President Moon of South Korea to make that statement and I appreciate it but the main thing is to get it done,” Trump said. “We’re setting up meetings right now and I think it’s probably going to be announced over the next couple of days, location and date.”
Photo by the South Korean Embassy