Leaders of ROK, Japan hold telephone talks over Korean Peninsula situations: Seoul

SEOUL - The Republic of Korea (ROK) President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday held phone talks over the Korean Peninsula situations, the Blue House of the ROK said.

Moon and Abe had the dialogue for 40 minutes from 4:00 pm local time (0700 GMT), exchanging views over the "changed situations" on the peninsula, Moon's spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom told a press briefing.

It came ahead of the summit between Moon and Kim Jong-un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), scheduled for Friday in the border village of Panmunjom.

Moon told Abe that the success of the inter-Korean summit will be of great benefit to the DPRK-US summit and normalized ties between the DPRK and Japan.

The ROK president said the successful inter-Korean summit will be an opportunity to fundamentally resolve issues between Tokyo and Pyongyang.

In response, Abe said that if the inter-Korean and DPRK-US summits end successfully, talks between Japan and the DPRK will be naturally held.

Abe said the successes of the inter-Korean and DPRK-US summits would mean the resolution of nuclear and missile issues as well as the abduction of Japanese people by the DPRK, noting that under such situations, Japan and the DPRK can normalize relations.

Regarding the issue to turn the current armistice agreement into a peace regime on the peninsula, Moon told Abe that the issue on declaring an end to the 1950-1953 Korean War cannot be resolved only through talks between the two Koreas.

The Korean Armistice Agreement, which halted the Korean War, was signed on July 27, 1953 by China, the DPRK, and the US-led UN Command.