SEOUL, 9 August 2007 — North and South Korea announced yesterday they will hold their second-ever summit this month in an attempt to bring lasting peace to a peninsula divided for 60 years by minefields and barbed wire.
President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il will meet in Pyongyang from Aug. 28-30, the Seoul presidential office and the North’s official media said. It will be only the second leaders’ meeting in the history of the hard-line communist North and the capitalist South. The first, in 2000, ushered in a new era of reconciliation marked by joint economic projects and family reunions.
South Korea said the summit was proposed by the North, which tested its first nuclear weapon last October but is moving toward shutting down its atomic program under a six-nation agreement.
The US State Department said it hoped the meeting would help fulfill the goals of the six-nation talks.
Japan, which has tense relations with North Korea, also voiced hope the summit will promote peace. China’s Foreign Ministry said it “supports everything that will benefit peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia.”
The North last month shut down its Yongbyon reactor, which produced plutonium for nuclear bombs.
