President Moon Jae-in is to leave Wednesday for Germany on his second official overseas trip, during which he will attend the annual Group of 20 summit and is expected to sit in multilateral and bilateral talks with key partner states including the US, Japan and China. He will return to Seoul early next Monday morning.

Moon’s trip to the European state comes just two days after his return from a summit with US President Donald Trump in Washington. 



“The G-20 summit will be President Moon’s first experience in multinational diplomacy so the most important thing is (for him) to make acquaintance with various counterparts,” said an official of Cheong Wa Dae.

“As for key partner states, he will have the chance to build friendship and trust through individual meetings.”

This year’s G-20 summit, titled “Shaping an Interconnected World,” is to take place on Friday-Saturday to deal with global issues related to global economic growth, international trade and financial market regulation.

Other issues which are closely linked with economic agendas -- climate change, labor policy, digital technology and counter-terrorism -- will also be laid out for discussion.

On the sidelines of the main event, Moon is to spare a large part of his time and effort on China, Japan and the US. All three states have a stake in the Korean Peninsula’s core agendas, such as North Korea’s nuclear and missile provocations, the consequential US anti-missile defense system or the settlement of Japan’s past wartime atrocities.

The first of them is likely to be a bilateral summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping to take place Thursday morning in Berlin, with final details yet under discussion, according to National Security Adviser Chung Eui-yong.

The two countries have for some time been at odds over Seoul and Washington’s decision to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense on the Korean Peninsula so as to respond to plausible military offenses from the North.

The Korea-China summit will then be followed by a trilateral dinner summit of Moon, Trump and their Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe in Hamburg.

“The two leaders affirmed that trilateral security and defense cooperation contribute to enhanced deterrence and defense against the North Korean threat,” said the joint statement adopted by Moon and Trump in Washington last week.

Moon will also meet with Japanese Prime Minister Abe in a bilateral talk on the following day, seeking to discuss in further details the North Korean nuclear issue and the trilateral talks involving China, according to the Blue House on Tuesday.

One of their crucial topics is likely to be their disparity over the disputed 2015 deal on wartime sex slaves, which President Moon and his new Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha have been gesturing at revising.

Moon will then meet with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the same day afternoon, as well as state chiefs of India, France and Australia on the following day, according to Chung

Before heading for Hamburg for the G-20 and the set of summits, Moon will spend the first two days of his trip in Berlin, to respectively meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

He is also slated to deliver a speech at the local Korber Foundation dealing with peninsular peace, inter-Korean relationships and unification issues.

Speculations have been escalating that the president may issue an official statement there, to announce an end to the North Korean policies adopted by his two conservative predecessors and to vow for a peaceful paradigm for the peninsula.

The late former President Kim Dae-jung, one of Moon’s liberal predecessors, had announced his Berlin Declaration in 2000, a stance that later led to the first-ever inter-Korean summit and a joint peace declaration.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)