North's Kim, South's Roh Reach Accords at Summit
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, October 4, 2007
SEOUL, Oct. 4 -- Leaders of the two Koreas ended their summit Thursday with a joint pledge to seek talks with China and the United States aimed at formally ending the 1950-53 Korean War.
They also announced that they would set up a "peace zone" around a much-disputed border in the Yellow Sea that is rich with fish and where skirmishes between the countries have broken out over the past several decades.
The summit also produced a promise that a rail line would open up between North and South. There is now no open road or rail connection between the two countries.
"This is a big triumph for South Korea," said Koh Yu Hwan, professor of political science at Dongguk University in Seoul. The South's president, Roh Moo Hyun, "discussed most of the issues he wanted to discuss, and this declaration will transform the Koreas into a postwar peace footing."
The three-day meeting began Tuesday on a chilly note, with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il looking dour and distant as he greeted Roh in Pyongyang.
The chill seemed to lift the next day, as Kim stunned Roh by asking him to stay around for an extra day. The invitation was politely declined and later withdrawn by Kim, who said he had talked "enough" to Roh.
Roh tried on Tuesday to lower expectations for the summit before crossing into the North.
"Even if we do not achieve many agreements, if we could narrow our differences and strengthen our mutual trust, that in itself will be an important result," he said then.
After four hours of sitting across a table from the North Korean leader during the summit, Roh said he learned that Kim is dubious of the South's motives -- and that the North does not want to be encouraged to open up its failing economy or to reform its top-down Communist government.
"The North still has many doubts toward the South," Roh told reporters Wednesday. "I felt an uneasy wall. The North still seems to harbor distrust and resistance toward the words 'reform' and 'openness.' "
The agreement announced Thursday, however, has language that seemed intended to reduce that distrust.
"North and South Korea will transcend their ideological and system differences and try to transform their relations to mutual respect and trust," the agreement said, adding that they "will not interfere with each other's domestic relations."
During the talks, Roh suggested to Kim that a second industrial zone should be built in the North with South Korea's help, officials said.
It would be similar to the Kaesong industrial complex, a creation of the first North-South summit in 2000. About 17,000 North Koreans work there, although its ability to produce goods for export has been crimped by trade sanctions.
The two leaders also agreed to push for talks to bring the Korean War to a formal close. The two countries share the world's most militarized border, as well as a five-decades-old armistice that has not been formalized as a peace treaty.
Such a treaty, though, would probably also require the endorsement of the United States and China, who were combatants in the war. The United States has said it would not agree to such a treaty until North Korea moved to end its nuclear weapons program.
The talks in Pyongyang were somewhat overshadowed by North Korea's negotiations with other countries, particularly the United States.
An announcement from Beijing on Wednesday said that by the end of the year, North Korea would disclose all its nuclear programs and disable its main nuclear plant, with the United States paying for the work.
Based on six-nation talks, the deal will apparently give Kim something that he has long demanded: lifting of some trade restrictions and more access to world markets and financial credits. The announcement suggests the United States, as Pyongyang disables its nuclear program, will begin removing North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism and ending trade sanctions.
South Korean officials on Thursday linked the announcement over nuclear disablement to what they called the "successful" North-South talks in Pyongyang. They spoke of a "virtuous cycle" of improving prospects for long-term peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula.
Roh, whose term expires early next year and whose popularity has plunged in recent months, had for years sought a summit with the North. His political opponents, as well as many skeptical South Koreans, said Roh wanted a summit to bolster his party's poor prospects in the December presidential election.
Roh appears to have gotten some bounce in his dismal poll number from the meeting. His popularity jumped about 9 percentage points in the past three days, reaching 31 percent, according to a poll released by a Seoul radio station that often does credible public opinion surveys.
Special correspondent Stella Kim contributed to this report.
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