The two Koreas yesterday set a date for a rare inter-Korean summit, following a high-level meeting that was held days after the nuclear-armed North’s leader Kim Jong-un made his international debut with a surprise trip to China.
“According to the will of both leaders, the South and North agreed to hold the ‘2018 South-North summit’ on April 27 at the South’s Peace House in Panmunjom,” said a joint press statement, read out in turn by both delegations’ leaders.
The meeting between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in will be only the third of its kind, and is to be followed by landmark talks with US President Donald Trump which could come as early as May.
The venue will make Kim the first North Korean leader to set foot in the South since the end of the Korean War — although according to Pyongyang’s official accounts, during the conflict his grandfather and predecessor Kim Il-sung went several times to Seoul, which twice fell to his forces.
Another round of working-level talks on Wednesday next week are to discuss issues including protocol and security.
Yesterday’s meeting was held in the Unification Pavilion on Panmunjom’s northern side, where the leader of Pyongyang’s delegation, Ri Son-gwon said: “Over the past 80 days or so, many events that were unprecedented in inter-Korean relations took place.”
Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon, one of three South Korean participants in yesterday’s talks, told reporters beforehand that setting up discussions on the North’s nuclear disarmament would be a critical point.
After the meeting, Cho told South Korean reporters there was a “sufficient exchange of opinions” on the agenda for the summit, but did not provide a clear answer on whether discussions of the nuclear issue will be included.
“Both sides will continue working-level discussions [on the agenda] while focusing on the issues surrounding the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, the stabilization of peace and the development of relations between the South and North,” he said.
When asked whether such issues would shape the discussions between Kim and Moon, Cho said “Yes.”
The countries also agreed to hold a separate meeting to discuss communication issues, such as setting up a telephone hotline between Moon and Kim, and maintain working-level discussions, according to the joint press statement.
Next month’s meeting comes after previous inter-Korean summits in 2000 and 2007, since when the North has made extensive progress in its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
It has been subjected to multiple rounds of sanctions by the UN Security Council, the US, South Korea and others as a result, and tensions in the region have soared, with Kim and Trump engaging in a fiery war of words last year.
However, a rapid rapprochement on the peninsula was started with the beginning of the Winter Olympics in South Korea last month and events have moved quickly since then, with a flurry of official visits between the two Koreas.
An advance team of South Korean performers headed north yesterday ahead of K-pop concerts in Pyongyang.
Also yesterday, China’s top diplomat State Councilor Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪), was due to travel to Seoul to brief Moon on Kim’s secretive visit to Beijing this week to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) for the first time.
Additional reporting by AP
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