US should treasure Korean Peninsula progress

The Korean Peninsula, shrouded in clouds of war not long ago, is now bustling with heartening interactions between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea, as the remarkable inter-Korean detente continues to take root. Xinhua comments:

The United States is called upon to do more to push the troubled peninsula toward lasting peace. Pyongyang and Seoul are obviously making headway in improving ties as their high-level talks have expanded to include officials not only from the diplomatic and military agencies, but also from economic departments.

In a sign of their deepening ties, working-level officials of the two Koreas made on-site inspections of the railways in the DPRK with the aim of modernizing them and eventually connecting them across the border as agreed upon in the two sides' Panmunjom Declaration, issued at the end of the first inter-Korean summit in April.

Such a warm atmosphere has raised hopes that peace on the peninsula may not be a distant dream.

But such hopes are fragile as Washington has been dragging its feet after the historic summit in Singapore between US President Donald Trump and DPRK leader Kim Jong-un.

The DPRK returned the remains of US war dead for which Trump thanked it, and the US president also thanked Kim for dismantling the Sohae Satellite Launch Station. But so far the US has offered only warm words and no corresponding actions.

The crux of the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue lies in DPRK-US relations. The lack of conciliatory moves by the US is reason for concern as substantive progress can hardly be achieved on the Korean Peninsula unless Pyongyang and Washington are willing to compromise all the way to a final solution.

If Washington continues with its current practice of asking too much and doing too little, the hard-earned positive momentum may vanish before long and all the previous efforts will be squandered.