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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Kim Jong Il, in message to S. Korea president, hopes for better ties |
| 2009-08-24 |
| [Kyodo: Korea] North Korean leader Kim Jong Il signaled Sunday in an oral message delivered to South Korean President Lee Myung Bak that the North hopes to improve the badly frayed ties between the two rival powers in the Korean Peninsula. Lee received the message in a meeting at his presidential office with senior North Korean envoys who arrived in Seoul on Friday to mourn the death of former President Kim Dae Jung, South Korean presidential spokesman Lee Dong Kwan said. The meeting was President Lee's first with North Korean officials since he came to power in February last year. Kim's message was ''about improvement of cooperation between the South and the North,'' spokesman Lee said, refusing to go into details about the contents of the message. In response, President Lee outlined South Korea's ''consistent and firm principles'' on the North and told the North Korean envoys -- led by Kim Ki Nam, secretary of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, and Kim Yang Gon, the North Korean point man for inter-Korean affairs -- to convey the message to the North Korean leader, the presidential spokesman said. An official at the South Korean presidential office said the contents of Kim Jong Il's oral message were ''sensitive'' and the message will not be made public, Yonhap News Agency reported. Lee's meeting with the North Korean envoys, initially set for 10 a.m., was moved forward by about an hour, and ended at around 9:30 a.m., officials at the presidential office said. ''Everything went very well,'' Kim Ki Nam told reporters in front of a Seoul hotel, shortly before the North Korean delegation headed back to the North. South Korea's political parties hailed the meeting between Lee and the North Korean envoys, voicing hope it would help mend the strained inter-Korean relations. ''The dialogue channel between the South and the North has just opened at the highest level,'' a spokesman from the ruling Grand National Party said in a statement, carried by Yonhap News Agency. A spokesman from the main opposition Democratic Party also welcomed the opening of direct dialogue between the two Koreas. Originally scheduled to leave on Saturday, the North Koreans extended their stay for one day and asked for a meeting with the South Korean president, South Korean government officials said. On Friday, the North Koreans visited South Korea's National Assembly where the body of Kim Dae Jung was lying in state and placed a wreath before Kim's coffin. The late president, who pursued a ''sunshine policy'' of reconciliation with North Korea, held a landmark summit with Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang in June 2000. Lee has pursued a hard line toward the North since he came to office, reversing a decade of policies of engagement pursued by Kim Dae Jung and his successor Roh Moo Hyun, who committed suicide in May. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 OTOH CHINESE MIL FORUM > THE CHINESE WAY OF WAR. CHINA may overtake JAPAN to become a REGIONAL SUPERPOWER, + ASIA'S + WORLD'S #2 ECONOMY IN CIRCA FIVE YEARS [Year 2015? r.o.]; and evens overtake the USA to becom the WORLD'S SOLE #1 by 2025 [2025-2040]??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-08-24 19:47 |
| #1 WMF > CLINTON DIPLOMACY: NORTH KOREA OFFERS AN OLIVE BRANCH TO THE USA. CAN CHINA ACCEPT NORTH KOREA'S NEW UNILATERAL/INDEPENDENT STRATEGIC INITIATIVE WID THE US??? An end to the pre-existing "State of War" on the KOREAN PENINSULA includ PRO-US/WESTERN MILPOLECON RAPPROCHEMENT + ECON TRADE, ETC. BY NORTH KOREA??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-08-24 19:41 |