KIM TO MEET MOON TODAY
Summit will be held at truce village of Panmunjom
NORTH Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un and the South’s president Moon Jae-in will meet at the Military Demarcation Line that divides the peninsula for their summit today, Seoul said.
Moon will greet his visitor at the concrete blocks that mark the border between the two Koreas in the demilitarised zone, the chief of the South’s presidential secretariat Im Jong-seok said.
When Kim steps over the line he will become the first North Korean leader to set foot in the South since the Korean War ended 65 years ago.
The meeting is the high point of a rapid diplomatic rapprochement on the tension-wracked peninsula, ahead of a much-anticipated meeting between Kim and United States President Donald Trump.
The North’s nuclear arsenal will be high on the agenda.
Moon seized on the South’s Winter Olympics as an opportunity to try to broker dialogue between them.
But Im warned: “Reaching a deal on denuclearisation at a time when North Korea’s nuclear and ICBM programmes have advanced greatly will be fundamentally different in nature from denuclearisation agreements reached in the 1990s and early 2000s.”
Kim will be given a military honour guard and the two leaders will walk to the Peace House, a glass and concrete building on the southern side of the truce village of Panmunjom where the summit will be held.
Kim will sign the guest book before the morning session starts, Im said, describing the occasion as a “summit for peace and prosperity on the Korean peninsula”.
The delegations will have separate lunches with the North’s group crossing back to their side of the border to eat.
Moon and Kim will plant “a pine tree, which stands for peace and prosperity, on the MDL”.
After they sign an agreement a joint statement will be issued.
A banquet and farewell ceremony will follow in the evening before Kim returns to the North.
Pyongyang’s delegation will include Kim’s sister Yo-jong.