pyongyang Summit Agenda Undecided
By Jung Sung-ki, Kim Yon-se
Staff Reporters
South Korea expressed high hopes Thursday that the second-ever inter-Korean summit will help improve relations between the two Koreas, as well as resolve the impasse with North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
Presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-seon, however, said an agenda for discussions between President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has not been fixed.
Cheon said making the topics public would not be possible if the North declines to commit to this. Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung, as head of South Korea's task force for the summit, will lay out the agenda during working-level meetings between the two sides beginning next week.
The main opposition Grand National Party, meanwhile, denounced the summit as an ``election stunt" without any substance ahead of December's presidential election.
In a press briefing, Lee said, ``The summit will serve as a very important opportunity for the leaders from both the North and South to play active roles in resolving the nuclear issue and developing inter-Korean relations.''
He stressed that the six-party nuclear talks and the inter-Korean summit ``run parallel'' and complement each other, dismissing concerns from critics that the hurriedly-arranged meeting without an agenda items will not encourage denuclearization.
``While working to resolve the nuclear issue peacefully through diplomatic efforts and improve inter-Korean relations through dialogue, the government has been trying to maintain cross-border relations in a way that speeds up the resolution of the nuclear deadlock,''the minister said.
North Korea recently shutdown its main nuclear reactor in Yongbyon as part of the first phase of a deal made in February, in return for 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil. Participating nations at the six-way talks are seeking to implement the next phase of the denuclearization-for-assistance accord under which the North is to receive 950,000 tons of oil or its equivalent in aid after submitting a complete list of its nuclear programs.
A 14-member preparatory task force for the summit, involving vice ministers from related government ministries, has been created and the team will begin discussing the agenda with their North Korean counterparts next week, he added.
Asked if the sides are pressed for time to prepare for the summit, the minister said, ``The two Koreas have held 23 meetings on economic cooperation and military affairs as part of Cabinet-level talks, so I believe both sides are already well aware of agenda items and issues each side is pursuing.''
North Korea experts anticipate South Korea will likely propose that the two Koreas put a formal end to the Korean War (1950-53), which ended with an armistice, and establish a peace treaty on the Korean Peninsula.
The South is also expected to take up the issue of arms reductions and a wide range of inter-Korean economic cooperation projects, they said.
But the North is likely to stick to its decades-long ``fundamental'' issues such as the abolishment of South Korea's anti-communist National Security Law, the pullout of U.S. forces from South Korea and the redrawing of the western Northern Limit Line (NLL), they said.