South Korean President Calls for Easing Sanctions on the North

South Korean President Calls for Easing Sanctions on the North - The New York Times

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​Urging Pivot on North Korea, South’s Leader Calls for Easing Sanctions

President Trump should demand that North Korea freeze, not eliminate, its nuclear weapons program, President Lee Jae Myung said in an interview.

*President Lee Jae Myung spoke with The New York Times for about 70 minutes at the Blue House, the presidential compound in Seoul.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times*

​Urging Pivot on North Korea, South’s Leader Calls for Easing Sanctions

President Trump should demand that North Korea freeze, not eliminate, its nuclear weapons program, President Lee Jae Myung said in an interview.

President Lee Jae Myung spoke with The New York Times for about 70 minutes at the Blue House, the presidential compound in Seoul.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

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By Choe Sang-Hun

Reporting from Seoul

Sept. 21, 2026

Breaking with decades of policy on North Korea, the president of South Korea, Lee Jae Myung, is now urging the United States to ease sanctions on Pyongyang in exchange for an agreement that it freeze its weapons programs.

“I believe there is significant value in a trade-off between sanctions — which are not particularly effective anyway — and a stop to the development of additional nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missile technology,” Mr. Lee said in an interview with The New York Times on Friday.

However unpalatable such a bargain may seem, the world has no realistic alternative, Mr. Lee argued. North Korea is increasingly brandishing its nuclear missiles against the South. It is no longer the isolated pariah that Washington has tried to tame through a mix of pressure and dialogue as the wars in Ukraine and Iran have altered the geopolitical landscape.

Both Russia and China have re-embraced North Korea as a strategic partner, particularly after the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, deployed troops and weapons to support Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. That conflict, alongside American strikes in Iran, has only strengthened North Korea’s resolve to expand its nuclear deterrent.

Image!Three people in dark suits clap while standing on an outdoor balcony. An ornate red and gold patterned wall is in the background.

*North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has been courted by his counterparts in Russia and China. Last year, he attended a military parade at Tiananmen Square in Beijing with Russia’s Vladimir V. Putin and China’s Xi Jinping.Credit...Rao Aimin/Xinhua, via Associated Press*

Still, Mr. Lee believes that President Trump is the only leader capable of drawing Mr. Kim back to the negotiating table. South Korean officials say Mr. Trump represents the North Korean leader’s best opportunity to sign a peace treaty for the Korean War, which never formally ended, and normalize relations with Washington.

Choe Sang-Hun is the lead reporter for The Times in Seoul, covering South and North Korea.

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