South Korea halts tours in parts of DMZ ahead of Trump visit

Seoul – South Korea has halted tours of the Joint Security Area in the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas, officials said on Oct 23, ahead of a visit by US President Donald Trump to the peninsula.

Mr Trump is expected in South Korea on Oct 29 for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum, and the US media has reported that officials from his administration have privately discussed setting up a meeting between him and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Mr Trump has said he hopes to meet Mr Kim again – possibly in 2025 – while Mr Kim said in September that he had “fond memories” of Mr Trump and was open to talks if Washington dropped its “delusional” demand that he give up his nuclear weapons.

The two leaders last met in 2019 for a surprise summit at Panmunjom in the Joint Security Area, the only place where soldiers from the two Koreas face each other on a regular basis.

“From late October to early November, there will be no Unification Ministry-operated special field trips to Panmunjom,” Seoul’s Unification Ministry, which handles fraught relations with the North, said in a statement sent to AFP.

The ministry had been operating a scaled-down tour of the Joint Security Area, which houses inter-Korea meeting buildings and a section of the border, for “policy customers”.

Field trips were suspended in 2023 following a US soldier’s unauthorised crossing into the North at the village.

The United Nations Command, which oversees security and tours for the area, declined to comment on “hypothetical scenarios”.

Seoul has said a meeting between Washington and Pyongyang “cannot be ruled out”.

Mr Kim met Mr Trump three times for high-profile summits during the US leader’s first term.

But talks collapsed over just how much of its nuclear arsenal the North was willing to give up and what Pyongyang would get in return. AFP