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Change Your Life! |
Finally Both Koreans meet |
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June 13, 2000
SEOUL, JUNE 12 (AP) - One year ago, a clash between warships symbolized the volatility between South Korea and North Korea since their peninsula was divided more than a half-century ago.
Ahead of an unprecedented summit in Pyongyang on Tuesday between leaders of the two countries, the televised sight of gun boats ramming each other has yielded to more hopeful, even playful, images in the South.
Today, doctored photographs in local newspapers depict South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il smiling and shaking hands. The two have never met. In 1968, relations were so bad that a North Korean commando team infiltrated Seoul and attacked the presidential Blue House.
A T-shirt on sale in Seoul shows a cartoon image of Kim Dae-jung on a bicycle, with Kim Jong Il riding on the back. The South Korean government plans to issue millions of stamps commemorating the summit. On Monday, a restaurant offered free North Korea-style cold noodles to patrons.
The celebratory mood is such that The Korea Times, an English-language daily, compared the summit to the 1969 landing of a man on the moon. "One small step for reconciliation, one giant leap for reunification," the newspaper declared.
There were no official pronouncements on the summit from the North Tuesday.
The South wants the North to agree to reunions of separated families, a summit sequel in Seoul and other conciliatory gestures in exchange for resources to rebuild the communist nation's dilapidated economy. North Korea, which suffered a deadly famine in the late 1990s, relies on food aid from its traditional foes: South Korea, Japan and the United States.
Reunification is likely to be a lengthy process. The first summit between leaders of East Germany and West Germany was held in 1970, two decades before the dismantling of the Berlin Wall.
There is a host of touchy issues to resolve, among them North Korea's missile and nuclear programs, and the U.S. military presence in South Korea.
South Korea's Kim will "broaden understanding by saying everything he wants to say," Park Joon-Young, the chief presidential spokesman, said Monday. "He will agree first on the easiest and most practical issues."
Kim Sang-mok, a 48-year-old man who has relatives in North Korea, said: "Even if they can't agree on reunification, at least they could agree that families could visit each other."
There was uncertainty as well as euphoria, with some South Koreans questioning the sincerity of North Korea's calls for reconciliation. They included 31-year-old Woo Joon-pil, one of hundreds of workers striking for better working conditions outside the Seoul hotel that houses a summit press center.
"I think economic benefits are the only reason that made North Korea agree to a summit," Woo said. "North Korea has held many meetings regarding nuclear weapons and other issues and we have seen how they got what they wanted through these meetings."
Seoul officials were quick to downplay North Korea's weekend request to delay the summit by one day until Tuesday, saying minor technical problems held up the schedule.
North Korean preparations for the summit have been secretive, and Pyongyang is said to be extremely nervous about any negative media coverage. The secrecy surrounding a trip by Kim Jong Il to Beijing last month was a sign of the regime's aversion to publicity.
Still, North Korean goods in the South are getting more attention than usual. At the hotel housing the press center, North Korean paintings for sale include a dlrs 5,200 rendition of the Mona Lisa made of the tiny shells of marsh snails.
The mood was dire a year ago, when warships of the Koreas exchanged fire on June 15. One North Korean gun boat was sunk and several others were badly damaged. About 30 North Korean sailors were believed to have died.
It was the first naval skirmish between the two Koreas since the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended without a peace treaty. Despite the clash, South Korea maintained a policy of engaging North Korea with cultural, economic and other contacts.
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