Change of tone as North Korean media hails Kim’s trip to the South
▶ The task before those invested in a nuclearfree peninsula remains a mammoth one
A day after Kim Jong-un became the first North Korean leader to visit South Korean territory since the armistice of 1953, state media heralded his visit to Panmunjom and all that followed as a step towards “national reconciliation and unity”.
Yesterday, the North’s Korean Central News Agency reported for the first time on the agreement between Mr Kim and President Moon Jae-in, the South Korean leader, to seek peace and complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.
The agency predicted that the meeting would become a milestone “that will connect the broken bloodline of the nation and push forward common prosperity and independent unification”.
The article heaped praise on both leaders, a rare move from a government body that has often questioned the legitimacy of the South Korean government.
Together, the leaders were working to “wisely open up a new history of the North-South relations and further develop the good trend for peace, prosperity and reunification of the Korean Peninsula”, it said.
The statement touched on efforts that could result in North Korea abandoning its nuclear missile programme.
“At the talks both sides had a candid and open-hearted exchange of views on the matters of mutual concern, including the issues of improving the North-South relations, ensuring peace on the Korean Peninsula and the de-nuclearisation of the peninsula,” it said.
The stage-managed nature of the visit – which included the leaders attending a theatre performance together – would be likely to be familiar to North Koreans, who watch regular broadcasts of Mr Kim conducting visits to factories, farms and military facilities.
But with no live updates made during the trip, the agency announcement was likely to have been the first news many North Koreans heard about the leader’s trip south
North Korea’s bellicose statements in the past have included threats to turn Seoul “into a sea of fire”; to stage an unimaginable strike on the US; and to bring disaster on Australia.
People of North Korea, familiar with the fiery rhetoric of many years, were treated to a more effusive view of relations
Yesterday’s report struck a far more effusive note,
It made repeated mention of the thunderous and enthusiastic applause that accompanied the sincere greeting Mr Kim received.
A state dinner proceeded in an “amicable atmosphere overflowing with feelings of blood relatives”, the agency reported.
As the summit concluded, Mr Kim received a “warm sendoff” and the two leaders departed promising a fresh start.
The cameras are gone, the decorations have been pulled down and Panmunjom is back to being what it was for 65 years: a barren village at the centre of the heavily fortified Demilitarised Zone, the buffer that separates North Korea from South Korea. The heady euphoria generated by Friday’s historic summit between the leaders of the two nations is rapidly dissolving as hard questions about genuine long-term prospects for peace between Pyongyang and Seoul inevitably emerge.
Warm handshakes between Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in, though momentous, cannot in themselves end the hostilities between two countries or denuclearise the Korean peninsula. Part of the difficulty is that this is a three-way conflict. As Mr Moon has said in the past, peace agreements between Pyongyang and Seoul will have to “have American endorsement” to work. Although both Washington and South Korea want the same result, there is significant divergence in the strategies of US president Donald Trump and Mr Moon. The latter prefers an incremental approach that would reward North Korea for every step it takes towards denuclearisation. The former insists North Korea must fully dismantle its nuclear weapons before granting any sanctions relief. For its part, North Korea has made promises before without following up with any verifiable action to date.
The history between North and South is steeped in such bitterness and mutual distrust that caution is advisable when predicting the likelihood of peace on the basis of Friday’s summit. A glimpse of how quickly things can fall apart was provided by an article published in Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea’s Workers’ Party, denouncing the leaders and members of South Korea’s conservative opposition Liberty Party as “ugly traitors” for not being adequately deferential to Mr Kim. It is a reminder not only that North Korea’s totalitarian regime can be sensitive to anything that appears even remotely critical of its leadership but also that the peace process is subject to South Korea’s leaders, who have already been attacked for a “show camouflaged as peace”. To top it all, there is the question of Mr Kim. How to measure the pledges of a man at the head of the most totalitarian government on earth? We should not get carried away by Friday’s summit. The task before all those invested in a nuclear-free Korean peninsula remains huge.