A high-level South Korean delegation visited a site in the border county of Cheorwon, Gangwon, Wednesday to check on a landmine removal operation. This was to show the South’s resolve to fulfill the agreements signed by President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang last month.

In Pyongyang, the two leaders agreed to “expand the cessation of military hostilities in regions of confrontation such as the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).” They also agreed to turn the DMZ into a peace zone by the end of this year and disarm the Joint Security Area (JSA) at Panmunjom where soldiers from the two sides have stood face to face for decades. Following through on this agreement, military officials of the two Koreas and the United Nations Command (UNC) held their first trilateral meeting Tuesday in Panmunjom.

All this shows how inter-Korean detente is now driving the politics of the Korean Peninsula. This will have a far-reaching impact on the geopolitics of Asia, provided the US allows its ally, South Korea, to deal with its neighbor in the way that it wants.

Unfortunately, despite a shift in US attitude toward North Korea, the Singapore summit, and absence of incendiary rhetoric, the Washington establishment remains deeply suspicious of any sign of inter-Korean engagement.

There are several reasons for this. For one thing, the US fears the North may try to create a wedge between Washington and Seoul. The South Korean president has worked to maintain a coordinated approach with US President Donald Trump on North Korea. He has stayed firm on sanctions and backed Trump in his pressure campaign against the North in the pre-Singapore days of his presidency. But Moon knows that Washington and Seoul’s objectives are divergent. Moon seeks a peaceful and stable Korean Peninsula, one that is economically integrated if not politically unified. Inter-Korean detente promises a swift end to the longstanding division and confrontation on the peninsula, ushering in a new era of peace and prosperity in the whole Asian region.

The US, on the other hand, wants North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons, in other words, “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization” (CVID). Moon, just like his predecessors, has called for a denuclearized North Korea and stands behind the US on this issue.

But he knows this is not going to happen the way the US wants. In the beginning, North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons was basically a regime survival strategy. But the North has gone so far that nuclear weapons have now become a symbol of strength and prestige. The most the US can expect is the destruction of a missile test site in the presence of international observers, and the conditional offer to permanently dismantle nuclear facilities in Yongbyon.

As a result, South Korea sees an unachievable objective standing in the way of inter-Korean cooperation. So it should enlist US cooperation in its diplomacy with the North.

Washington should know this is the only way to extract meaningful concessions from the North. For this, the US will have to accept North Korea for what it is. In fact, the Singapore summit was an acknowledgement that the North is a nuclear power. It was Kim’s development of nuclear weapons — and the credible means to deliver them to America — that made the summit possible. The next logical step is to open negotiations with the North to push for a freeze on weapons or a scale-back or a permanent test ban. The US can also insist on guarantees that the North will not be a party to spreading nuclear technology.