Truesee's Daily Wonder

A banner showing President Trump, right, South Korean President Moon Jae-in, center, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is displayed in Seoul on April 27 to support the summit between two Koreas. (Ahn Young-Joon/AP)

TOKYO —  If anyone were to win the Nobel Peace Prize for the current effort to solve the North Korean nuclear problem, it should be President Trump. That’s what South Korea’s president said Monday when it was suggested that he himself should be in line for the award.

President Moon Jae-in has gone out of his way to flatter Trump and credit him for creating the environment that has brought about the remarkable diplomatic rapprochement now unfolding.

But even by Moon’s standards, the latest remarks were really something.

They came after Lee Hee-ho, the widow of late South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, sent Moon a message congratulating him for Friday’s summit with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un. 

The day-long summit was filled with warm encounters and ended with a joint declaration from the two sides pledging to bring about a formal end to the Korean War and work toward the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula.

[Trump hails ‘historic’ Korea meeting but leaves questions about next step   ]

Moon deserves the Nobel Prize for Peace for his efforts, Lee wrote in her note.

She would know a thing or two about this. Her husband organized the first inter-Korean summit, in 2000, and won the Nobel Peace Prize for it. Kim Dae-jung’s achievement was rather marred, however, when it emerged that he had arranged for the North Korean leader at the time, Kim Jong Il, to receive $500 million for participating.

Lee traveled to Pyongyang in 2011 for Kim Jong Il’s funeral and met his son Kim Jong Un — briefly — at that time.

Moon told his aides about her note during a meeting Monday. Then he added: “President Trump should win the Nobel Peace Prize. The only thing we need is peace.” 

The remark was reported by local media and confirmed by South Korea’s presidential Blue House.

Moon’s approval ratings — already defying the South Korean tendency to fall off a cliff the moment a president is elected — have risen further after the summit.

A Realmeter poll conducted over the weekend found that 70 percent of those surveyed approved of the way the president was managing state affairs. Meanwhile, a poll from lesser-known Hangil Research put Moon’s support at an astounding 86 percent. More than 88 percent of the respondents to that survey approved of the joint statement that resulted from Friday’s summit

As Moon tries to get Trump to buy into diplomatic efforts to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue — and dismiss suggestions that military action might be the answer — he has sought to pass all the credit to Trump.

In January, after Kim Jong Un said he was willing to talk to South Korea, Trump tweeted that this was because he, the American president, had been “firm, strong and willing to commit our total ‘might’ against the North.”