Truro News

Kim Jong Un strides across Korean border

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The leaders of North and South Korea vowed Friday to seek a nuclear-free peninsula and work toward a formal end to the Korean War this year, though their historic summit concluded with few specifics on how they will reach those ambitious goals.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in set aside a year that saw them seemingly on the verge of war. They grasped hands and strode together across the cracked concrete marking the Koreas’ border.

The sight, inconceiva­ble just months ago, may not erase their failure to provide any new measures on a nuclear standoff that has captivated and terrified millions, but it allowed the leaders to step forward toward the possibilit­y of a co-operative future even as they acknowledg­ed a fraught past and the widespread skepticism that, after decades of failed diplomacy, things will be any different this time.

On the nuclear issue, the leaders merely repeated a previous vow to rid the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons, kicking one of the world’s most pressing issues down the road to a muchantici­pated summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump in coming weeks.

Still, the summit produced the spectacle of two men from nations with a deep and bitter history of acrimony grinning from ear to ear after Kim walked over the border to greet Moon, becoming the first leader of his nation to set foot on southern soil since the Korean War. Both leaders then briefly stepped together into the North and back to the South.

The summit marks a surreal, whiplash swing in relations for the countries, from nuclear threats and missile tests to intimation­s of peace and co-operation. Perhaps the change is best

illustrate­d by geography: Kim and Moon’s historic handshake and a later 30-minute conversati­on at a footbridge on the border occurred within walking distance of the spot where a North Korean soldier fled south in a hail of gunfire last year, and where North Korean soldiers killed two U.S. soldiers with axes in 1976.

Standing next to Moon after the talks ended, Kim faced a wall of cameras beaming his image live to the world and declared that the Koreas are “linked by blood as a family and compatriot­s who cannot live separately.” The leaders also vowed to achieve “a nuclearfre­e Korean Peninsula through complete denucleari­zation,” something they’ve said before.

The latest declaratio­n between the Koreas, Kim said, should not repeat the “unfortunat­e history of past inter-korean agreements that only reached the starting line” before becoming derailed.

What happened Friday should be seen in the context of the last year — when the United States, its ally South Korea and North Korea threatened and raged as the North unleashed a torrent of weapons tests — but also in light of the long, destructiv­e history of the rival Koreas, who fought one of the 20th century’s bloodiest conflicts and even today occupy a divided peninsula that’s still technicall­y in a state of war.

Trump tweeted Friday, “KOREAN WAR TO END!” and said the U.S. “should be very proud of what is now taking place in Korea!” Both Koreas agreed to jointly push for talks this year with the U.S. and also potentiall­y China to officially end the Korean War, which stopped with an armistice that never ended the war.

Many will be judging the summit based on the weak nuclear language. North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests last year likely put it on the threshold of becoming a legitimate nuclear power. The North, which has spent decades doggedly building its bombs despite crippling sanctions and near-constant internatio­nal opprobrium, claims it has already risen to that level.

South Korean conservati­ve politician­s criticized the joint statement as letting North Korea off the hook by failing to secure a clear commitment on nuclear disarmamen­t.

But the Koreas made inroads on a raft of other points of friction between them. Moon agreed to visit Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, sometime in the autumn, and both leaders said they’d meet on a regular basis and exchange calls via a recently establishe­d hotline.

They agreed to settle their disagreeme­nt over their western maritime border by designatin­g it as a peace area and securing fishing activities for both countries. They said they’d open a permanent communicat­ion office in the North Korean border town of Kaesong and resume temporary reunions of relatives separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.

“I feel like I’m firing a flare at the starting line in the moment of (the two Koreas) writing a new history in North-south relations, peace and prosperity,” Kim told Moon as they sat at a table, which had been built so that exactly 2018 millimeter­s separated them, to begin their closed-door talks. Moon responded that there were high expectatio­ns that they produce an agreement that will be a “big gift to the entire Korean nation and every peace- loving person in the world.”

Kim acknowledg­ed the widespread skepticism over their summit.

“We have reached big agreements before but were unable to fulfil them. ... There are skeptical views on whether the meeting today will yield meaningful results,” Kim said. “If we maintain a firm will and proceed forward hand in hand, it will be impossible at least for things to get worse than they are now.”

Kim, during their talks, joked that he would make sure not to interrupt Moon’s sleep any more, a reference to the North’s drumbeat of early-morning missile tests last year, according to Moon’s spokesman, Yoon Young-chan. Kim also referred to South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island that North Korea attacked with artillery in 2010, killing four, saying its residents who have been living in fear of North Korean artillery have high hopes the summit will help heal past scars. Kim said he’d visit Seoul’s presidenti­al Blue House if invited.

The historic greeting of the two leaders was planned to the last detail, though the multiple border crossings may have been impromptu.

As thousands of journalist­s, who were kept in a huge conference centre well away from the summit — except for a small group of tightly controlled pool reporters at the border — waited and watched, Moon stood near the Koreas’ dividing line, moving forward the moment he glimpsed Kim, dressed in dark, Mao-style suit, appearing in front of a building on the northern side. They smiled broadly and shook hands with the border line between them. Moon then invited Kim to cross into the South, and, after Kim did so, Moon said, “You have crossed into the South, but when do I get to go across?” Kim replied, “Why don’t we go across now?” and then grasped Moon’s hand and led him into the North and then back into the South.

 ?? AP PHOTO ?? North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, shakes hands with South Korean President Moon Jae-in over the military demarcatio­n line at the border village of Panmunjom in the Demilitari­zed Zone between the two countries yesterday.
AP PHOTO North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, shakes hands with South Korean President Moon Jae-in over the military demarcatio­n line at the border village of Panmunjom in the Demilitari­zed Zone between the two countries yesterday.

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