Moon hard-pressed to bridge US-DPRK expectations gap

So the sitting leaders of the two Koreas will meet again in September in Pyongyang.

The third inter-Korean summit in a little more than five months is a sign of the continuing rapprochement across the 38th Parallel, and it is expected to make substantial headway toward officially ending the Korean War, which concluded with an armistice in 1953, leaving the two Koreas technically at war.

But that is no insurance the seeds Democratic People's Republic of Korea leader Kim Jong-un and Republic of Korea President Moon Jae-in have sown together will grow into big trees, as Ri Son-gwon, the DPRK's chief delegate, wishes. Let alone a formal peace treaty, since even substantial further engagement between Pyongyang and Seoul may prove unrealistic without wholehearted endorsement by the United States, a key party in that war.