South Korea urges North Korea to end Cold War
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-16 09:27

South Korea urged North Korea to help end their Cold War as the two sides glossed over an international nuclear dispute Wednesday to celebrate a landmark 2000 summit that warmed ties but failed to bring them much closer to reunification.

Since North Korea's Kim Jong Il met then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung — the only such talks since the Korean War ended in a 1953 cease-fire — Seoul and Pyongyang have boosted trade, staged reunions of 10,000 separated family members, and launched the construction of railways and roads connecting the Koreas.

(L-R) North Korea's vice-chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful reunification of the Fatherland, Kim Ki-nam, South Korea's Unification Minister, Chung Dong-young, vice-chairman of the North's Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly Yang Hyung-seob and head of a South Korean civic group delegation, Baek Nak-cheong, toast together at a dinner in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang June 15, 2005. [Reuters]

But five years on, North Korea menacingly boasts that it has nuclear bombs, the border remains one of the world's most heavily armed, and Kim Jong Il has failed to visit Seoul as promised.

South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young refused to dwell on negatives Wednesday.

"We should resolve peacefully, through dialogue, the pending issues placed before the Korean peoples," Chung said, according to pool reports from Pyongyang. The Koreas "should not hesitate, but lead in quickly eliminating the obstacles to ending the Cold War on the Korean Peninsula."

He avoided directly mentioning the North's nuclear weapons program, the greatest threat to reconciliation efforts, but was expected to raise the issue of stalled international disarmament talks Thursday when he sees the North's head of state, Kim Yong Nam.

The main U.S. envoy on the nuclear dispute, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, said Washington was still waiting to hear more from the North after it expressed a commitment last week to the nuclear talks but refused to specify when it would return to the negotiating table.

"While they were positive about the six-party talks, they did not give us a date," said Hill, who arrived Wednesday in Seoul to discuss the standoff with South Korean officials. "I hope they will give us a date."

He also urged China, the North's main benefactor, to continue to push Pyongyang to return to talks.

Chung, meanwhile, said he hoped Cabinet-level talks between the Koreas scheduled next week in Seoul would help reconciliation efforts. Inter-Korean talks resumed in May after 10 months without contacts.

South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said in Seoul that Chung's delegation in Pyongyang would push the North to return to six-nation nuclear talks that have been stalled for nearly a year. The United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea hope to use the talks to persuade the North to dismantle its nuclear weapons programs — with Washington demanding that it do so unconditionally.

The South Korean "government will make active use of inter-Korean dialogue opportunities ... to urge the North to return to the six-party talks so as to work for harmonious progress in (resolving) the North Korean nuclear program and for inter-Korean relations," Ban said.

Earlier Wednesday, civilians from both sides also pledged cooperation, while the North hinted at its continuing dispute with the United States.

"Growing our people's own strength is the only choice we have to preserve peace," said An Kyong Ho, head of the North Korean civilian delegation. "We will continue to energetically put forward a campaign for unification to crush war provocations by warlike forces at home and abroad."

But the many obstacles to meeting the commitments made at the 2000 summit in Pyongyang show both Koreas' goal of unification remains a remote dream.

The latest crisis over North Korea's nuclear ambitions that began in late 2002 has hampered the cooperation envisioned between the two countries after the 2000 summit. Although some joint economic projects continue, Seoul has said any larger plans will have to wait until the nuclear standoff is resolved.

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