Koreas keep up diplomatic efforts
The South Korean Government is trying to keep up the momentum in diplomatic efforts to resolve the North Korean nuclear question.
It has announced that it will remove propaganda-broadcasting loudspeakers from the border with North Korea this week, and that the North will dismantle its main nuclear test site next month. It also announced that the North’s leader, Kim Jong Un, is prepared to meet Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is to visit North Korea this week.
The South’s presidential Blue House also revealed a symbolic step of goodwill from the North Korean leader: It will move its clock forward half an hour to return to the same time zone as Seoul and Tokyo.
During their historic meeting Friday at a Korean border village, Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae In agreed to end hostile acts against each other along their tense border, establish a liaison office and resume reunions of separated families. They also agreed to achieve a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, but failed to pro- duce specific time frames and disarmament steps.
Seoul’s Defence Ministry said it would pull back dozens of its frontline loudspeakers today before media cameras. Ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyunsoo Seoul expects Pyongyang to do the same.
South Korea had already turned off its loudspeakers ahead of Friday’s summit talks, and North Korea responded by halting its own broadcasts.
The two Koreas had been engaged in Cold War-era psychological warfare since the North’s fourth nuclear test in early 2016. Seoul began blaring antiPyongyang broadcasts and K-Pop songs via border loudspeakers, and Pyongyang quickly matched the South’s action with its own border broadcasts and launches of balloons carrying anti-South leaflets. — AP