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When a President crossed the “forbidden line”

SINGAPORE: Crossing “the forbidden line” in a quest for peace and reconciliation, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun on Tuesday walked into North Korea from across the nominally demilitarised zone that has kept the two ethnic neighbours apart for over 50 years.

Shortly afterwards, Mr. Roh was unexpectedly greeted by his potential summit partner and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

Mr. Kim, scheduled to hold talks with Mr. Roh in Pyongyang over the next two days, had earlier deputed North Korea’s titular Head of State Kim Yong-nam to receive the visiting dignitary on his arrival.

Mr. Kim Jong-il greeted Mr. Roh with a hearty handshake, and the two, meeting for only the second inter-Korean summit in over five decades, said they were “glad” to meet each other. No further pleasantries or politically significant words and ideas were exchanged during the ceremonial welcome.

A big gathering of North Koreans, witnessing the “momentous” handshake, raised emotive slogans calling for unification of the two countries.

The first-ever inter-Korean summit took place in Pyongyang just over seven years ago. Known as the summit of two Kims under the “sunshine policy” of the then South Korean leader, Kim Dae-jung, that meeting had broken the cast-iron mould of the Cold War-era hostilities between the two sides.

On top of the agenda of the present summit are the possibility of an inter-Korean peace accord to replace the old armistice agreement, intensified economic cooperation, gradual and eventual reunification of the two countries, and ideas to advance the denunclearisation of their shared peninsula.

These talks have acquired a new sense of urgency in the context of the ongoing efforts, under the China-hosted six-party process, to bring about North Korea’s nuclear disarmament through a sequence of steps already identified as being essential.

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