Korean leaders begin talks
Leaders of the two Koreas began formal talks today at the first summit between the divided countries in seven years.
And North Korea’s Kim Jong Il appeared to warm to his South Korean visitor after an initial chilly reception.
According to South Korean pool reports, South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun told Kim he was concerned about flooding in the North, where this year’s summer rains left 600 people dead or missing and tens of thousands homeless.
North Korea delayed the summit from its original late August date because of the disaster.
Before talks began at a state guesthouse in Pyongyang, Roh presented gifts to the North Korean leader that included a bookcase full of South Korean DVDs, featuring popular soap operas and productions starring Lee Young-ae, believed to be Kim’s favourite starlet.
Kim is a known cinema buff with a vast film library and purportedly has helped produce several movies.
Kim appeared animated and smiled repeatedly as he greeted Roh, a contrast from his dour attitude yesterday when the two first met briefly at an outdoor welcoming ceremony.
The two men posed seated for a photograph along with other delegation members before starting their meeting.
Kim was accompanied at the talks only by his spy chief, while Roh was joined by four top officials.
The morning session ended after just over two hours and the leaders were resuming talks later today, South Korean presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-seon told pool reporters in Pyongyang.
Kim and Roh walked together from the meeting room and shook hands before heading separate ways to lunch, both looking cheerful in video footage.
This week’s summit is only the second time leaders of the North and South have met since the Korean peninsula was divided after the Second World War.
Today was expected to be dominated by the leaders’ talks, for which no specific agenda was publicly known, before Roh was due to view an evening performance of the North Korean propaganda spectacle known as the “mass games”. It was not known if Kim would also attend.
The show features thousands of synchronised gymnasts performing in front of a mural formed along the entire wall of a stadium by children turning coloured pages of books.
Conservatives have criticised Roh for going to the show, which extols the purported virtues of the North’s Communist regime.
The North has excised potentially embarrassing sections for the summit, and South Korean officials have noted other visitors have viewed the event – including then-US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 2000.
During the opening day of the summit yesterday, the North and South Korean leaders had no contact besides a 12-minute welcoming ceremony where they barely exchanged words.
His demeanour appeared a stark contrast with the friendliness he offered Roh’s predecessor, Kim Dae-jung, at the first-ever summit in 2000.
Instead, Kim let his deputy, the country’s nominal head of state Kim Yong Nam, deal with the South Koreans at ceremonial meetings, also hosting a banquet where Roh offered a toast to Kim Jong Il’s health.
Roh has said he wants to use this week’s summit to start a genuine peace process with North Korea instead of the current reconciliation track, which has seen halting progress in reducing military tension on the Cold War’s last frontier.
The two Koreas remain technically at war since a 1953 cease-fire ended the Korean War, despite seven years of warming ties.
Roh has not given any specifics about what he will propose or seek, prompting criticism from conservatives at home that the summit is an ego trip for the South Korean leader to establish a legacy for his unpopular administration, which ends in February.
Both Roh and Kim also hope to keep the surging conservatives from winning South Korea’s December presidential election, where opinion polls show they have a commanding lead.
The main opposition Grand National Party is more sceptical of relations with the North, insisting aid be conditional on nuclear disarmament and reforms in the country’s centralised economy.
