South may propose joint fishing zone: Moon

Moon Jae-in, the president’s chief of staff, said yesterday that South Korea will propose a joint fishing zone if North Korea demands that the Northern Limit Line (NLL), a de facto maritime border in the Yellow Sea, be included in the agenda of the inter-Korean summit meeting scheduled Oct. 2 to 4 in Pyongyang.
Moon disclosed the plan at a question-and-answer session with lawmakers at the National Assembly’s Unification, Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee. Moon chairs the committee preparing for the upcoming inter-Korean summit meeting.
Moon said, “There will be issues we want to discuss and there will be issues North Korea is expected to discuss even if we do not want to. North Korea is likely to raise the NLL issue even if we do not want to.”
Asked why Defense Minister Kim Jang-soo was included in the South’s summit entourage while Foreign Minster Song Min-soon was not, Moon said, “As it is likely they will discuss NLL and DMZ issues and trust-building measures in the military, we judged that we need Defense Minister Kim.”
But an official of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, “If the NLL issue is to be on the agenda at the inter-Korean summit meeting, people who understand the NLL as a territorial definition will be very confused.”

By Kim Min-seok JoongAng Ilbo [enational@joongang.co.kr]