Clocks in two Koreas in sync from Saturday China’s top diplomat to visit DPRK
THE Democratic People’s Republic of Korea will reset Pyongyang time 30 minutes earlier than at present to align with South Korea, starting from Saturday.
The change was reported by the Korean Central News Agency yesterday.
The Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly of the DPRK adopted a decree “On Resetting Pyongyang Time” to “unify the times of the north and the south,” the KCNA said.
The decree urged the Cabinet and relevant organs to take steps to implement it, the report added.
During his summit meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in at Panmunjom on Friday, DPRK top leader Kim Jong Un proposed unifying the times of the north and the south before doing anything else, saying: “It was a painful wrench to see two clocks indicating Pyongyang and Seoul times hanging on a wall of the summit venue.”
The move is “the first practical step for national reconciliation and unity,” the KCNA quoted Kim as saying. Previously, the two Koreas used an identical standard time. But in August 2015, when inter-Korean relations deteriorated, the DPRK pushed back its standard time by 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s defense ministry said yesterday that it will remove propaganda loudspeakers along the border with the DPRK in a bid to enforce the agreement reached after the inter-Korean summit last week.
As part of the follow-up measures to the Panmunjom Declaration, South Korea’s military will pull back loudspeaker facilities in areas near the military demarcation line, which were used for anti-DPRK broadcasting, beginning today, according to the Ministry of National Defense.
The ministry said it was part of acts to implement the Panmunjom Declaration, which said the two Koreas would stop all hostile acts, including the loudspeaker broadcasting against each other and the distribution of leaflets, and pull back tools for the hostile acts near the military demarcation line from today.
The declaration was made on Friday by Moon and Kim after the third inter-Korean summit at the border village of Panmunjom.
The two leaders agreed to realize a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula through complete denuclearization and turn the current armistice agreement into a peace treaty by the end of this year. The peninsula remains technically at war as the 1950-1953 Korean War ended with armistice.
Moon and Kim agreed to change the 4-kilometer-wide demilitarized zone, currently filled with razor-blade fences, mines, watchtowers, tank traps and hundreds of thousands of combat-ready troops, into an actual peace zone.
Psychological warfare through anti-DPRK broadcasts was launched in 1963, and it had been resumed and stopped in accordance with security situations on the Korean Peninsula.
The broadcasts were resumed in 2016 under then President Park Geun-hye in response to Pyongyang’s fourth nuclear test in January of that year. CHINESE Foreign Minister Wang Yi will pay a visit to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea tomorrow and Thursday, becoming the highest-ranking Chinese official to travel to the country since 2009.
The announcement comes after Friday’s landmark interKorean summit. Wang is visiting at the invitation of the DPRK’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho.
The visit comes after hopes grew last week for a breakthrough to bring peace to the divided Korean Peninsula, following a historic summit between DPRK leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in at which the pair vowed “complete denuclearization.”
On Sunday, Moon’s office said Kim told Moon that he would close the DPRK’s nuclear test site in May in full view of the outside world.
Kim is expected to meet US President Donald Trump in the coming weeks at a time and place that have yet to be announced.
China has long called for dialogue between the parties and welcomed the summit as a vehicle for reducing tensions.