North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in are to meet at the Military Demarcation Line that divides the peninsula before their summit today, in an occasion laden with symbolism, Seoul said yesterday.
Moon is to greet his visitor at the concrete blocks that mark the border between the two Koreas in the Demilitarized Zone, South Korean presidential secretariat head 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.
Photo: AP
The meeting will be only the third of its kind, following summits in Pyongyang in 2000 and 2007, and the high point so far of a rapid diplomatic rapprochement on the tension-wracked Koren Peninsula ahead of a much-anticipated meeting between Kim and US President Donald Trump.
North Korea’s nuclear arsenal will be high on the agenda.
Pyongyang has made rapid progress in its weapons development under Kim, who inherited power from his father in 2011.
Moon seized on South Korea’s Winter Olympics as an opportunity to try to broker dialogue between them, but Im played down expectations, saying that North Korea’s technological advances meant a deal would need to be “fundamentally different in nature from denuclearization agreements reached in the 1990s and early 2000s.”
In the past, North Korean support for the “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” has been code for the removal of US troops from South Korea and the end of its nuclear umbrella over its security ally.
Trump has demanded that North Korea give up its weapons, and Washington is pressing for it to do so in a complete, verifiable and irreversible way.
In recent days, Seoul has promoted the idea of a path toward a peace treaty to formally end the 1950 to 1953 Korean War.
Reunions of families left divided by the conflict could also be discussed and Moon has told Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that he would raise the emotive subject of Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korean agents.
South Korea and the US are to wrap up their annual Foal Eagle joint military drills ahead of the summit, the South Korean Ministry of National Defense said yesterday, as well as suspending the Key Resolve exercise for the day.
North Korea has long protested the joint military drills, calling them a rehearsal for invasion, while Seoul and Washington insist they are purely defensive in nature.
Kim is to be given a military honor guard today before the two leaders are to walk to the Peace House, a glass and concrete building on the southern side of the truce village of Panmunjom where the summit is to be held.
Kim is to 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 North Korean group is to cross back to its side for lunch and before the afternoon session Moon and Kim are to plant “a pine tree, which stands for peace and prosperity, on the [Military Demarcation Line], which has symbolized confrontation and division over the past 65 years,” Im said.
A banquet and farewell ceremony are to follow.
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