Public dubious about North: Poll

A majority of South Koreans welcome North Korea’s peace overtures, but many of them remain skeptical about whether the communist regime has any willingness to give up its nuclear program, a survey showed on Monday.

The Realmeter survey of 500 adults showed that 73.1 percent welcome the recent surprise developments, such as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s agreement to hold an inter-Korean summit in late April and his proposal to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump.

But some 63 percent of those welcoming the change in the North’s attitude, or 45.7 percent of the total respondents, said they don’t trust the North’s stated willingness to denuclearize. The survey was conducted on Friday, when Trump accepted Kim’s meeting proposal, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

About 27.4 percent of the total respondents said they trust the North’s denuclearization commitment and welcome its peace overtures, while 18.4 percent said they neither trust the North nor welcome the recent developments.

“These results show that many people welcome the recent forward-looking change in North Korea’s attitude, but they still have a high level of distrust [about the regime],” Realmeter said.

Yonhap