North Korean premier starts rare visit to Seoul
Thursday, 15 November 2007
SEOUL, Nov 14 (AFP): The prime ministers of North and South Korea held talks Wednesday for the first time in 15 years, pledging to follow through on last month's summit themes of peace and prosperity on the divided peninsula.
The North's Kim Yong-Il and his counterpart Han Duck-Soo are holding a three-day meeting on ways to implement the October 4 declaration by President Roh Moo-Hyun and the North's leader Kim Jong-Il.
The leaders "made epoch-making agreements for peace and prosperity on the Korean peninsula so we should see very good results at the meeting," Han told Kim.
"We must make detailed and proper agreements in this round of talks and carry them out."
Kim, whose brief includes reviving the North's crumbling command economy, agreed. "We should work together so that we can see achievements that the people and the whole world want," he said.
At only the second-ever inter-Korean summit the two leaders agreed both on sweeping joint economic projects and on measures to ease tensions. The two countries have remained technically at war since the 1950-53 conflict.
The projects were expected to be the focus of this week's talks, with the North's 43-strong delegation including several figures experienced in economic cooperation, but no military.
The prime ministers met in the same luxury Seoul hotel where their predecessors signed a 1992 accord calling for an end to decades of Cold War hostility. That went nowhere when the first crisis over the North's nuclear programme erupted soon afterwards.
Last week North Korea for the first time began disabling its plutonium-producing nuclear programme. It is committed under a six-nation pact to full denuclearisation in exchange for aid and major diplomatic benefits.
"Our nation is now ushering in a rapidly changing era of peace and prosperity," said a North Korean arrival statement, referring to both Koreas.
Kim Yong-Il visited four Southeast Asian countries including Vietnam last month in an apparent attempt to see what his hardline communist state can learn from their experiences in boosting growth.
The North's economy shrank an estimated 1.1 per cent last year, due partly to floods and the international standoff over its nuclear programme, according to South Korea's central bank.
It still relies on foreign food aid to feed millions of its people.
South Korea sees joint developments like the flagship Kaesong industrial estate as a way to narrow the huge wealth gap in preparation for any eventual reunification.
One of its priorities this week will be setting up a joint fishing area around the disputed Yellow Sea border -- a prelude to establishing a "peace zone" to avoid a repetition of bloody naval clashes in 1999 and 2002.
The North's Kim Yong-Il and his counterpart Han Duck-Soo are holding a three-day meeting on ways to implement the October 4 declaration by President Roh Moo-Hyun and the North's leader Kim Jong-Il.
The leaders "made epoch-making agreements for peace and prosperity on the Korean peninsula so we should see very good results at the meeting," Han told Kim.
"We must make detailed and proper agreements in this round of talks and carry them out."
Kim, whose brief includes reviving the North's crumbling command economy, agreed. "We should work together so that we can see achievements that the people and the whole world want," he said.
At only the second-ever inter-Korean summit the two leaders agreed both on sweeping joint economic projects and on measures to ease tensions. The two countries have remained technically at war since the 1950-53 conflict.
The projects were expected to be the focus of this week's talks, with the North's 43-strong delegation including several figures experienced in economic cooperation, but no military.
The prime ministers met in the same luxury Seoul hotel where their predecessors signed a 1992 accord calling for an end to decades of Cold War hostility. That went nowhere when the first crisis over the North's nuclear programme erupted soon afterwards.
Last week North Korea for the first time began disabling its plutonium-producing nuclear programme. It is committed under a six-nation pact to full denuclearisation in exchange for aid and major diplomatic benefits.
"Our nation is now ushering in a rapidly changing era of peace and prosperity," said a North Korean arrival statement, referring to both Koreas.
Kim Yong-Il visited four Southeast Asian countries including Vietnam last month in an apparent attempt to see what his hardline communist state can learn from their experiences in boosting growth.
The North's economy shrank an estimated 1.1 per cent last year, due partly to floods and the international standoff over its nuclear programme, according to South Korea's central bank.
It still relies on foreign food aid to feed millions of its people.
South Korea sees joint developments like the flagship Kaesong industrial estate as a way to narrow the huge wealth gap in preparation for any eventual reunification.
One of its priorities this week will be setting up a joint fishing area around the disputed Yellow Sea border -- a prelude to establishing a "peace zone" to avoid a repetition of bloody naval clashes in 1999 and 2002.