Two Koreas to hold first summit in seven years
Posted: 08 August 2007 0835 hrs

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SEOUL - North and South Korea said Wednesday they had agreed to hold their first summit in seven years to promote lasting peace on the 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 August 28-30, the Seoul presidential office and the North's official media said.

South Korea said the summit was proposed by the North, a hardline communist state which tested its first nuclear weapon last October but is moving towards shutting down its atomic programme under a six-nation agreement.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency said the meeting would be "of weighty significance in opening a new phase of peace" on the peninsula.

A Seoul presidential office statement said Roh and Kim would discuss a formal peace treaty.

"The two leaders, through this summit, will be able to expand military trust-building measures and pave the way for establishing a peace regime on the Korean peninsula," it said.

"The talks will also provide momentum to settle the North Korean nuclear problem."

The US State Department said it hoped the meeting would help to fulfill the goals of the six-nation talks.

"We have long welcomed and supported North-South dialogue and hope that this meeting will help promote peace and security on the Korean peninsula, fulfilling the goals of the six-party talks," spokesperson Joanne Moore said.

The first and only summit so far was in June 2000, when the then-president Kim Dae-Jung met the North's Kim in Pyongyang and ushered in a new era of reconciliation after half a century of hostility.

The two countries have remained technically at war since 1953, when the Korean conflict ended in an armistice and not a peace treaty.

The North last month shut down its Yongbyon reactor, which produced plutonium for its nuclear bombs, and has pledged to disable its atomic programmes permanently under the international accord.

The North's shutdown of Yongbyon was rewarded with 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil from South Korea.

If it declares and permanently disables all its nuclear facilities, it will receive another 950,000 tons of oil or equivalent aid.

The North will also get major diplomatic and security benefits, such as normalised relations with its old enemies, the United States and Japan.

Kim Man-bok, chief of the National Intelligence Service, told a news conference he secretly visited North Korea twice earlier this month to arrange the summit, with final agreement reached last Sunday.

"Recently, inter-Korean relations and the political situation are improving. The current timing is the most appropriate period" for a summit, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il was quoted as saying.

The intelligence chief said his northern counterpart Kim Yang-Gon relayed the comments from the leader.

Officials will meet soon at the North's border city of Kaesong to make arrangements.

The summit announcement comes some four months before a presidential election in which pro-government parties are trailing the main conservative opposition Grand National Party (GNP).

The GNP dismissed the meeting as an election stunt to boost the chances of Roh's preferred presidential candidate.

It said in a statement the timing and venue were inappropriate and the meeting would only end up showering the North with "ridiculously generous" aid.

"The summit, which is being prepared as an election stunt, will only spark public resentment and backfire," said the party, which has taken a harder line with the North and is reviled by Pyongyang's official media.

Presidential adviser Baek Jong-Chun said the timing had nothing to do with domestic politics. - AFP/ir