The writing has been on the wall for weeks. Today, the White House confirmed that the long-awaited summit between the USA and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea will not take place, claiming “anger and tremendous hostility” made this an “inappropriate time” to have such a meeting.
This cancellation, so close after US’ unilateral withdrawal from the Iran Deal, shows once more that the world can’t blindly trust Donald Trump to ensure world peace.
But the future of the Korean Peninsula does not belong to Trump. South Korea’s strategic diplomatic overtures have achieved far more than posturing and threatening tweets. Today’s demolition of the nuclear test site at Punggye-Ri shows that North Korea is taking steps forward towards disarmament. There is still a path to denuclearisation through multilateral diplomacy: North and South Korea could still join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and denuclearize the Korean Peninsula for good.