A summit between North and South Korea this year is still possible despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, South Korea’s Blue House announced Monday.
Kang Min-seok, a spokesperson for President Moon Jae-in, told Yonhap News that it is too early to rule out that a fourth inter-Korean summit could take place sometime this year.
“Truly, it seems difficult at the moment, but we do not know what the variables will be in South-North relations,”he said in an interview. “So we need to watch [what will happen].”
North Korea has not reported any confirmed cases of COVID-19, despite sharing a border with China, where the outbreak began.
South Korea, with a population of 51.6 million, has reported 10,909 confirmed cases, 259 deaths and 9,632 recoveries.
Inter-Korean dialogue has been halted since March when North Korea launched nine short-range ballistic missiles. On April 14, the North launched a number of cruise missiles, on the eve of parliamentary elections in South Korea.
Since the failure of the Hanoi summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un in February 2019, there has been no meaningful dialogue with the North.
