The leaders of North and South Korea pledged yesterday to seek a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War and expand projects to reduce tension on the world's last Cold War frontier, a day after Pyongyang committed to an unprecedented step toward dismantling its nuclear weapons program.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun signed the agreement after three days of meetings in Pyongyang in only the second-ever such summit between the countries.
The two Koreas "agreed to closely cooperate to end military hostility and ensure peace and easing of tension on the Korean peninsula," the joint statement said.
Substantive progress on any peace treaty would require the participation of the US and China, which also fought in the conflict. South Korea never signed the 1953 armistice ending the war.
Both leaders also "agreed to cooperate to push for the issue of declaring the end" of the Korean War by staging a meeting of the "three or four heads of related states."
US President George W. Bush said last month he was willing to formally end the Korean War, but said it could only happen after the North's total nuclear disarmament.
The summit ended a day after an agreement between North Korea and the US along with other regional powers at China-hosted arms talks where Pyongyang promised to disable its main nuclear facilities and fully declare its nuclear programs by Dec. 31.
The move would be the biggest step North Korea has taken to scale back its nuclear ambitions after decades of seeking to develop the world's deadliest weapons, and Bush hailed it as a key for "peace and prosperity" in northeast Asia.
However, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said his party had decided yesterday that sanctions against Pyongyang should continue at least another six months because it has yet to meet its commitments.
Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party decided to extend Japan's economic sanctions -- first imposed after North Korea's nuclear test last October and extended in April for six months -- for another six months, saying Pyongyang has yet to take concrete steps to disable its nuclear programs.
Japanese officials have also complained of little progress made in the issue of its citizens allegedly abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Koreas accord yesterday cited the nuclear issue only in a single sentence, saying the North and South would make "joint efforts to ensure the smooth implementation" of previous accords from the six-nation arms talks "for the solution of the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula."
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
RSS