South KoreaÂ’s president arrived in hermit North KoreaÂ’s capital on Tuesday to cheering crowds and a dour leader Kim Jong-II for only the second summit between two states still technically at war. South KoreaÂ’s Roh Moo-hyun has billed his first trip to the communist North as a chance to end animosity born with the partition of the Korean peninsula at the end of World War II. But RohÂ’s critics say the visit is aimed more at domestic politics and expect him to tip-toe around the sensitive issues of nuclear weapons and human rights abuses.
North Koreans dressed in their finest, on cue, waved pink and red plastic flowers and cheered when Kim arrived at a main city square, repeating the greeting minutes later as Roh stepped out of an open car supplied by North Korea.
An unsmiling and portly Kim, wearing his trademark jumpsuit and platform shoes that made him appear taller than Roh, then shook hands with the South Korean leader and his wife. This weekÂ’s meeting comes against a backdrop of regional negotiations to persuade the North to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions in return for massive aid and an end to its status as an international pariah.
With just five months left in office, Roh has said he will use the summit to press for peace and an eventual arms cut on the peninsula that is watched over by some two million troops, most of them near the border.
While the first summit was seen as a landmark event that led to an easing of tensions, the latest meeting has been greeted with a far more muted response, due to a vague agenda and doubts Roh will be able to achieve much.
It has not helped that the meeting was again in Pyongyang, despite an agreement in 2000 that Kim Jong-II would head south for the next one. “I intend to concentrate on making substantive progress that will bring about a peace settlement together with economic development,” Roh said in a televised address before departing.