IT WAS a historic handshake that Koreans had waited more than a decade to see—and it sparked a completely unscripted dance with the two leaders hopping back and forth over the border that divides their nations.
Everything about the inter-Korean summit had been minutely choreographed and rehearsed but the North’s Kim Jong Un went off-script when he invited his southern counterpart Moon Jae-in to join him over the border.
After a prolonged clasp lasting almost half a minute over the Military Demarcation Line that acts as the border, a beaming Moon invited his guest over to South Korea.
They posed for pictures as Kim became the first Northern leader to set foot in the country since Korean War hostilities ceased in 1953.
Kim then beckoned Moon over to the other side.
Moon seemed initially hesitant but the North’s jovial young leader was not taking “no” for an answer, grabbing his hand and accompanying him across the border before they warmly shook hands again.
Grinning broadly, the pair then crossed back to the South hand-in-hand, to be presented with flowers by children from a village in the buffer area next to the Demilitarized Zone.
The leaders of the two Koreas later held a landmark summit Friday after a highly symbolic handshake over the Military Demarcation Line, with the Kim declaring they were at the “threshold of a new history.”
Kim said he was “filled with emotion” after stepping over the concrete blocks, making him the first North Korean leader to set foot in the South since the Korean War ended in an armistice 65 years ago.
At Kim’s impromptu invitation the two men briefly crossed hand-in-hand into the North before walking to the Peace House building on the southern side of the truce village of Panmunjom for the summit—only the third of its kind since hostilities ceased in 1953.
“I came here determined to send a starting signal at the threshold of a new history,” said Kim, whose nuclear-armed regime is accused of widespread human rights abuses.
With the North’s atomic arsenal high on the agenda, South Korean President Moon Jae-in responded that he hoped they would reach “a bold agreement so that we may give a big gift to the whole Korean people and the people who want peace.”
Permanent peace
The leaders of North and South Korea agreed to pursue a permanent peace and the complete denuclearization of the divided peninsula, as they embraced after a historic summit laden with symbolism.
In a day of bonhomie including a highly symbolic handshake over the Military Demarcation Line that divides the two countries, the pair issued a declaration on “the common goal of realizing, through complete denuclearisation, a nuclear-free Korean peninsula”.
Upon signing the document, the two leaders shared a warm embrace, the culmination of a summit filled with smiles and displays of friendship in front of the world’s media.
They also agreed that they would this year seek a permanent end to the Korean War, 65 years after the hostilities ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty.
Moon would visit Pyongyang in “the fall,” the two leaders said, also agreeing to hold “regular meetings and direct telephone conversations.”
The so-called Panmunjom Declaration capped an extraordinary day unthinkable only months ago, as the nuclear-armed North carried out a series of missile launches and its sixth atomic blast.
Kim said he was “filled with emotion” after stepping over the concrete blocks into the South, making him the first North Korean leader to set foot there since the shooting stopped in the Korean War.
At Kim’s impromptu invitation the two men briefly crossed hand-in-hand into the North before walking to the Peace House building on the southern side of the truce village of Panmunjom for the summit—only the third of its kind since hostilities ceased in 1953.
“I came here determined to send a starting signal at the threshold of a new history,” said Kim.
After the summit, he pledged that the two Koreas will ensure they did not “repeat the unfortunate history in which past inter-Korea agreements… fizzled out after beginning.”
The two previous Korean summits in 2000 and 2007, both of them in Pyongyang, also ended with displays of affection and similar pledges, but the agreements ultimately came to naught.
With the North’s atomic arsenal high on the agenda, South Korean President Moon Jae-in responded that the North’s announced moraorium on nuclear testing and long-range missile launches was “very significant.”
It was the highest-level encounter yet in a whirlwind of nuclear diplomacy, and intended to pave the way for a much-anticipated encounter between Kim and US President Donald Trump.
Olympic ice-breaker
Last year Pyongyang carried out its sixth nuclear blast, by far its most powerful to date, and launched missiles capable of reaching the US mainland.
Its actions sent tensions soaring as Kim and Trump traded personal insults and threats of war.
Moon seized on the South’s Winter Olympics as an opportunity to broker dialogue between them, and has said his meeting with Kim will serve to set up the summit between Pyongyang and Washington.
The White House said it hoped the summit would “achieve progress toward a future of peace and prosperity for the entire Korean Peninsula.”
Trump has demanded the North give up its weapons, and Washington is pressing for it to do so in a complete, verifiable and irreversible way.
Seoul had played down expectations before the summit, saying the North’s technological advances in its nuclear and missile programmes made the summit “all the more difficult.”
Pyongyang is demanding as yet unspecified security guarantees to discuss its arsenal.
When Kim visited the North’s key backer Beijing last month in only his first foreign trip as leader, China’s state media cited him as saying that the issue could be resolved, as long as Seoul and Washington take “progressive and synchronous measures for the realisation of peace.”
In the past, North Korean support for denuclearisation of the “Korean peninsula” has been code for the removal of US troops from the South and the end of its nuclear umbrella over its security ally—prospects unthinkable in Washington.
Moon said he hoped they would have further meetings on both sides of the border, and Kim offered to visit Seoul “any time” he was invited.
After a morning session lasting an hour and 40 minutes, Kim crossed back to the North for lunch, a dozen security guards jogging alongside his limousine.
Before the afternoon session, Moon and Kim held a symbolic tree planting ceremony on the demarcation line.
The soil came from Mount Paektu, on the North’s border with China, and Mount Halla, on the South’s southern island of Jeju.
After signing the agreement the leaders and their wives attended a banquet before Kim was to return to the North.
Kim was flanked by his sister and close adviser Kim Yo Jong and the North’s head of inter-Korean relations, while Moon was accompanied by his spy chief and chief of staff.
It is the highest-level encounter yet in a whirlwind of nuclear diplomacy, and intended to pave the way for a much-anticipated encounter between Kim and US President Donald Trump.
The North’s official KCNA news agency said that Kim will “open-heartedly discuss… all the issues arising in improving inter-Korean relations and achieving peace, prosperity and reunification of the Korean peninsula.”
It all went to show that even for a moment as carefully planned as the first inter-Korean summit in more than a decade, where the North’s nuclear arsenal will be high on the agenda, the best-laid preparations rarely run completely to schedule.
South Korean officials had carried out a full dress rehearsal on the eve of the summit, including stand-ins for the two leaders.
“We examined every single detail including lighting and flower decorations,” a Moon spokesman said.
Even the smell of the summit room received careful attention, with officials “scattering onions and charcoal on the floors and running many electric fans to remove the odour” of new paint.
A North Korean security team made preparations of its own, Seoul said, sterilising the chair Kim was to sit in to sign a guest book and wiping down its seat, armrest and legs with a white cloth.
Cold buckwheat noodles
The welcoming ceremony dripped with symbolism as the two men walked down a red carpet through an honor guard of South Korean soldiers colourfully dressed in traditional uniform lifting up banners as they went through.
They were also greeted by a military band, Moon saluting and Kim standing rather awkwardly not quite to attention.
The pair seemed to share several relaxed moments, Kim at one point breaking into a laugh as Moon pointed something out with a gesture, and the visitor joking about noodles during his summit opening remarks.
There was some awkwardness as Kim took an age to sign the guest book, with Moon standing by seemingly not knowing where to look.
Their lingering handshake contrasted sharply with the 2000 greeting between the current leader’s father Kim Jong-il and Kim Dae-jung, a vigorous two-handed pumping affair lasting around five seconds.
The 2007 version was slightly more muted—three seconds and only one hand—as Kim Jong Il welcomed Roh Moo-hyun in Pyongyang.
The North has since made rapid progress in its weapons programmes, last year detonating its sixth and by far most powerful nuclear blast and launching missiles bringing the US mainland into range.
At times of tension, Pyongyang has threatened to unleash the “treasured sword” of its atomic arsenal and turn Seoul and the US into a “sea of flames.”
But the image that lingered on Friday was that of the two leaders hand-in-hand, walking across the border to the South toward a summit many hope could lead to a more peaceful future.
