US President Donald Trump shaking hands with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in 2019. - Reuters
SEOUL: South Korea has suspended all field trips to the truce village of Panmunjom in Gyeonggi province from late October through early November – a move that has stirred speculation of a possible meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit.
The Unification Ministry confirmed on Oct 20 that its special tour programme to the Joint Security Area (JSA) will be paused for the period surrounding the summit, which will be held from Oct 31 to Nov 1 in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang province.
“There will be no Unification Ministry-operated special field trips to Panmunjom from late October to early November,” ministry spokesman Koo Byoung-sam said at a press briefing, adding that inquiries should be directed to the United Nations Command (UNC), which oversees the southern half of the JSA.
The government suspension reportedly follows a similar decision by the UNC to halt its own Panmunjom visitor programme during the same period.
The UNC, which manages the delicate border zone where the two Koreas technically remain at war, has not disclosed the reason for the pause.
These visits have been restricted to “policy customers” – a term referring to government officials, diplomats and experts with educational or professional purposes – ever since the programme was scaled back in mid-2023.
The limitation followed a high-profile incident in which a US Army private, facing disciplinary action, bolted across the demarcation line into North Korea during a civilian tour. The unauthorised crossing prompted the UNC to tighten security and sharply limit access to the JSA, effectively ending public tours that had long symbolised a rare point of openness along the world’s most fortified border.
Adding to the intrigue, diplomatic sources said Washington is expected to replace acting US Ambassador to South Korea Joseph Yun just days before Trump’s visit.
Yun, who has served as acting envoy in Seoul for about nine months, is expected to step down around Oct 26, with Kevin Kim, a Korean-American deputy assistant secretary in the US State Department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, likely to succeed him.
Because the acting ambassador role does not require Senate confirmation, Kim could assume the post immediately. The timing of this sudden change in top US diplomatic personnel in Seoul – right before Mr Trump’s arrival for a major summit – is viewed by observers as highly unusual.
The tour suspension and potential replacement of the acting US Ambassador to South Korea have fuelled speculation that preparations could be under way for a potential Trump-Kim meeting – possibly a reprise of their dramatic encounter at the same site in June 2019, when Trump became the first sitting US president to step into North Korea.
Trump famously met Kim at Panmunjom just 32 hours after publicly proposing the meeting on social media while attending the Group of 20 summit in Japan.
CNN reported at the weekend that Trump administration officials have privately discussed the possibility of arranging a meeting between the two leaders during Trump’s trip, though no official contact has yet been made between Washington and Pyongyang.
Still, many observers caution that the suspension may be more about deterrence than diplomacy.
Restricting civilian and foreign access to the inter-Korea border during the Apec summit could reduce the risk of North Korean provocations or security incidents as world leaders gather in South Korea. - The Korea Herald/ANN
