North Korean officials visited South Korea's National Assembly for the first time yesterday in a symbolic gesture of reconciliation with their democratic rivals.
The parliamentary visit came on the final of three days of joint celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of the Korean Peninsula's liberation from Japanese colonial rule.
"Real and substantial cooperative relations between the South and the North start now," National Assembly Speaker Kim One-ki said. "The South and the North should combine their strong points and complement each other's shortcomings."
Kim proposed talks between South and North Korean lawmakers that would provide a "most appropriate channel to deliver and raise understanding of the North's views" for South Koreans, according to pool reports. He promised to implement laws that would help Seoul and Pyongyang proceed with their joint projects.
Also yesterday, the North Korean delegation visited former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, who was hospitalized last week with bacterial pneumonia. Kim, in a hospital gown, shook hands with North Korean head delegate Kim Ki-nam, vice chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, who delivered get-well wishes from North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
Kim Dae-jung met his North Korean counterpart in June 2000 at an unprecedented summit between leaders of the divided countries, which remain technically at war.
"If the [summit] marked the beginning of the South-North cooperation, this time, it provides a chance to pledge a leap forward," Kim said.
The two Koreas were to wrap up their three-day celebrations yesterday evening with a farewell dinner and soccer match between their national women's teams. Their men's soccer teams played an exhibition match on Sunday at the start of the joint events, where the South beat the North 3-0.
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun will host a luncheon today for the North Korean delegates before their departure today, Roh's spokesman Kim Man-soo said. He declined to say whether the North Koreans will deliver a message from Kim Jong-il as has been reported.
Some 200 North Koreans are in Seoul for the joint celebrations. Earlier, delegates called for greater unity and reconciliation between the two Koreas.
On Liberation Day on Monday, 40 families separated by the border held virtual reunions over the first-ever video link between the countries. Some 10,000 families have met since 2000 in face-to-face reunions, and another is planned for later this month.
South Korea has continued with its engagement with the North despite an ongoing international standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.
The latest round of talks aimed at ending the North's nuclear ambitions is in recess after the six negotiating countries failed to agree earlier this month.
The talks -- among the two Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia -- are to resume during the week of Aug. 29 in Beijing. South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon will travel to Washington on Saturday to discuss the upcoming talks with US officials, his ministry said yesterday.
Ban is to meet with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the chief US envoy to the nuclear talks.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
RSS