[BREAKING] Moon, Kim to meet Sept. 18

South Korean presidential envoy Chung Eui-yong gives a briefing Thursday about his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang on Wednesday. Yonhap

By Ko Dong-hwan

South and North Korea agreed to hold their next inter-Korean summit on Sept. 18-20 in Pyongyang.

President Moon Jae-in's National Security Office chief Chung Eui-yong said Thursday that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has renewed his commitment to making the Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons in his recent meeting with a South Korean delegation that visited Pyongyang.

Chung and Director of the National Intelligence Service Suh Hoon came back after a 12-hour stay in Pyongyang late Wednesday.

They had a meeting with Kim and delivered President Moon's letter to him. Moon and Kim held two meetings already with the seminal April meeting that led to the summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump in Singapore two months later.

Now the U.S.-North Korean effort to make a deal over Pyongyang's denuclearization has hit an impasse with Moon stepping in to try and play honest broker.