South Korean President Moon Jae-in vowed on Monday to use his last months in office to push for a diplomatic breakthrough with North Korea, even though Pyongyang has publicly silenced his attempts to declare peace between the two countries.

“The government will seek to normalize relations between South Korea and North Korea and an irreversible path to peace until the end,” Moon Jae-in said in his last New Year’s address before the end of his five-year term in May. “I hope that the next government will continue the dialogue.”

In his speech on New Year’s Eve, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un did not mention Moon Jae-in’s statement calling for an official end to the Korean War of 1950-1953, nor did he mention the deadlock in the denuclearization negotiations with the United States.

In a series of negotiations in 2018 and 2019, Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un held multiple summits, one of which was held in Pyongyang. The subsequent negotiations were caught in the international demand for North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons arsenal and Pyongyang’s call for Washington and Seoul to relax sanctions. Deadlock and abandon other “hostile policies.” Moon Jae-in is pushing for an “end of war declaration” as a way to start those deadlocked negotiations, and his government hinted at secret discussions.

However, North Korea has not publicly responded to the latest push. The United States has expressed support for this idea, but may have differences with South Korea on the timing.

“There is indeed a long way to go,” Moon Jae-in admitted, but argued that if relations between South Korea and North Korea improve, the international community will follow suit.

Moon Jae-in said that his contacts with North Korea benefited from a large-scale military buildup, which helped make South Korea safer.

“With strong security guarantees, peace is possible,” he said.

The Covid-19 pandemic has cast a shadow over the impasse in North Korea because Pyongyang has placed the country under an unprecedented lockdown, and Moon Jae-in faces domestic pressure to contain the first large-scale coronavirus outside of China in early 2020. break out.