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Alex Wong, US deputy assistant secretary of state for North Korea, makes opening remarks for a seminar on the Korean Peninsula at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC, on Nov. 5.

Alex Wong, US deputy assistant secretary of state for North Korea, said on Nov. 5 that the war on the Korean Peninsula needs to be ended and that establishing a peace regime was an “integral part” of President Donald Trump’s vision for the region.

In opening remarks for a seminar on “Building a Peace Regime on the Korean Peninsula” held in Washington, DC, that day by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a US think tank, Wong noted that the concept of a Korean Peninsula peace regime “comes with a wide range of issues that we together with the DPRK [North Korea] are going to have to address in our negotiation.” He added that it expresses the idea that the war that has continued on the peninsula for 70 years “should not and cannot remain permanent.”

Wong also said, “We can have a more stable, a more prosperous, and a more peaceful future for all people on the peninsula and in the Indo-Pacific region if we can do the job we need to do in the negotiations.”

“That's why a stable peace regime is a key pillar of the Singapore summit joint declaration that President Trump signed with Chairman Kim [Jong-un],” he added.

Wong described a peace regime as “an integral part of President Trump's vision for a bright future for the DPRK.” His remarks reaffirmed the US executive branch’s commitment to ending the Korean Peninsula’s armistice system and establishing a peace regime even amid a lull in bilateral dialogue following the collapse of working-level negotiations in Sweden. At their summits in Singapore on June 12 of last year, the North Korean and US leaders agreed on four areas, namely establishing a new relationship between the two sides, building a Korean Peninsula peace regime, working toward the peninsula’s complete denuclearization, and repatriating POW remains.

Wong said the peace regime concept “holds the promise of the type of strategic shift on the peninsula that will [. . .] make even more clear than it is today that the DPRK's weapons of mass destruction programs, rather than being a source of security for the DPRK, are a key driver in the DPRK's insecurity.”

By Hwang Joon-bum, Washington correspondent

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