South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Friday, 18 September 2026, reiterated his government's commitment to replacing the 1953 armistice that suspended the Korean War with a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. The remarks, delivered at a ceremony at the National Assembly in Seoul marking the anniversary of the Pyongyang Joint Declaration, signal a clear diplomatic posture as signs of renewed North Korea–US dialogue emerge.

The Pyongyang Declaration Anniversary

The ceremony commemorated the Pyongyang Joint Declaration signed on 19 September 2018 by then South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un following their Pyongyang summit. That declaration affirmed both Koreas' determination to end military hostility across their shared border and to deepen inter-Korean cooperation. President Lee's speech was read on his behalf by Kim Kyoung-soo, his special aide for political affairs.

Lee acknowledged that despite the 2018 declaration, inter-Korean dialogue and cooperation have effectively ceased, while tensions have sharply risen — driven in large part by North Korea's rapid advancement of its nuclear weapons capabilities over the same period.

A 'Hand Tapping the Door' for North Korea–US Talks

'There is a hand tapping the door for North Korea–US talks again,' Lee said, in an apparent reference to US President Donald Trump's repeated overtures to resume diplomacy with Kim Jong-un. Lee pledged that his administration would do its utmost to help such gestures translate into substantive dialogue. 'Our government will do its utmost to have the gesture lead to the resumption of North Korea–US dialogue and develop into discussions to end war on the Korean Peninsula and establish a peace regime,' the president said.

Unification Minister Calls for a 'Basket' Approach

A day earlier, on Thursday, South Korea's Unification Minister Chung Dong-young argued at a ministry-hosted academic forum on peaceful coexistence that demanding denuclearisation as a precondition for any dialogue would doom talks before they began. 'We cannot start any discussion by repeating the past approach; action first, compensation later, with denuclearisation as a precondition,' he said, adding that such a framework would keep any dialogue from ever getting off the ground.

Chung instead proposed a 'basket' approach — handling multiple interconnected issues simultaneously. The basket includes formally ending the Korean War, institutionalising peaceful coexistence, normalising Pyongyang–Washington relations, halting North Korea's nuclear programme, and reviving inter-Korean economic cooperation. He described these issues as 'interconnected and mutually reinforcing,' arguing they must advance together rather than sequentially.

Why the Armistice Question Matters

The 1950–53 Korean War technically never ended — it was suspended by an armistice agreement, not a formal peace treaty. This legal ambiguity has underpinned decades of instability on the peninsula. The Lee Jae Myung administration contends that lasting peace is structurally impossible as long as this armistice framework persists. Notably, this argument cuts against the US and South Korea's traditional sequencing, which has historically placed denuclearisation at the front of any negotiating queue.

This comes amid a broader diplomatic moment: President Trump has reportedly signalled openness to renewed engagement with Pyongyang, echoing his first-term summits with Kim in Singapore in 2018 and Hanoi in 2019, both of which ultimately produced no binding agreement. Whether the current opening proves more durable will depend heavily on whether Seoul's multilateral 'basket' approach finds traction in Washington.

What Comes Next

The Lee administration has stopped short of announcing a specific diplomatic initiative or timeline, but both the president's remarks and the minister's forum address signal an active effort to shape the framework for any eventual North Korea–US engagement. South Korea's ability to position itself as a facilitator — rather than a spectator — in those talks will be a defining test of Lee's foreign policy in the months ahead.