Meeting with Pyongyang 'necessary', says South Korea

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ANKARA (AA) - South Korea pleaded on Friday to hold an inter-Korean summit with North Korea later this month, according to a local news report.

“We are sending the message to North Korea that it [summit] is not physically impossible, and that it is necessary and desirable," Yonhap news agency quoted South Korea's Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul as saying.

The minister was telling the country's lawmakers in a closed-door meeting on Friday about their desire to hold a meeting with the North and mentioned the summit between the leaders of two neighboring nations could be held ahead of U.S. President Trump's visit to Seoul later this month.

However, he went on to say that there has been no contact between the two sides yet about this plan.

The latest push by Seoul for a summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un comes soon after Chinese President Xi Jinping returned from a meeting with Kim in Pyongyang where the duo discussed the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.