Historic meeting between North & South Korea leaders kicks off (VIDEO)

Historic meeting between North & South Korea leaders kicks off (VIDEO)
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Published time: 27 Apr, 2018 00:28
Edited time: 27 Apr, 2018 07:57
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Historic meeting between North & South Korea leaders kicks off (VIDEO)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un shakes hands with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, April 27, 2018 Host Broadcaster via Reuters
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The much-awaited summit between Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in has begun in the "truce village" of Panmunjom. It is the first time the leaders of the two nations sat down for talks in over a decade.
The first inter-Korean summit since 2007, when Kim's late father Kim Il-sung met then-South Korean leader Roh Moo-hyun, is drawing all the eyes, coming ahead of the highly anticipated meeting between Kim and US President Donald Trump.

North Korea's nuclear program, whose rapid advancement triggered belligerent threats from the US President, ramping up tensions in the peninsula to the boiling point in late 2017, is expected to dominate the Friday meeting, which is taking place less than a week after Pyongyang announced a freeze of all nuclear and missile exercises and a closure of a major test site.

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tudents hold posters with pictures of South Korea's President Moon Jae-in and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un during a pro-unification rally ahead of the upcoming summit between North and South Korea in Seoul, South Korea April 26, 2018 Jorge SilvaFrenemies at the table: Kim & Moon to foster goodwill at historic meeting – but Trump’s shadow looms
The meeting is also of a high symbolic value. By crossing the South Korean border on foot to be greeted by Moon on the other side, Kim makes history, becoming the first North Korean leader to set foot on South Korean soil since the war between the two ended in 1953.

Kim and Moon shook hands at the demarcation line, smiling as they posed for photos. At one moment, the two leaders briefly stepped into the North Korean territory before coming back to the southern part of the border, where they were welcome by Korea’s National Guard.

Before a meeting behind closed doors began, Kim left a note in the guest book of the “peace house.” “A new history starts now. An age of piece from the starting point of history,” it reads.

The summit caps several months of swiftly mounting tension followed by a cautious thaw. September 2017 saw North Korea's sixth and the most powerful nuclear test so far, as well as the test launch of a new type of long-range ballistic missile which it claimed can reach the US.


In response, South Korea and the US held a number of military drills on North Korea's shores. Trump threatened Pyongyang with "fire and fury" in August and later derided Kim as "a rocket man on a suicide mission." The war of words, as well as the shows of force, have since subsided, and Trump has swung to hailing "big progress" in North's denuclearization and calling Kim "very honorable and very open."

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ReutersFrom ‘little rocket man’ to ‘very honorable’: Trump says he wants to meet Kim 'as soon as possible’
Friday's inter-Korean talks come in two rounds. After the first session, which kicked off at 10:30 local time [1:30 GMT], the two leaders are set to take lunch separately and then plant a pine tree on the border to serve as a "symbol of peace and prosperity." Making the move even more symbolic is the fact that the tree is planted with a mix of soil from the both countries' mountains and water from their rivers. The sapling itself dates back to 1953, the year when the armistice agreement was struck between the South and North.

Following the ceremony, Kim and Moon will resume talks, at the end of which they will sign a pact and make an announcement, according to the South's presidential chief of staff, Im Jong-seok, who revealed the details of the summit to the media.

As symbolically significant as the talks between the two Korean leaders are, Kim's next high-level meeting is seen as both much more important and much less predictable. Kim is set to hold talks with Donald Trump in either May or June. Trump repeatedly said that he was "looking forward" to meeting the North Korean leader, but warned that he might walk away from the talks if they do not live up to his expectations.

New era, no more war: Two Koreas agree on complete denuclearization
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Published time: 27 Apr, 2018 09:05
Edited time: 27 Apr, 2018 11:11
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South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un Reuters
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A new era of peace is beginning, according to a declaration signed by the leaders of North and South Korea after their first meeting in over a decade. Both nations are aiming to completely denuclearize the Korean peninsula.
"South and North Korea affirmed their shared objective of achieving a nuclear-free Korean peninsula through complete denuclearization," reads the declaration signed by the leaders of the two countries, as cited by Yonhap.

“There will be no more war on the Korean peninsula, and a new age of peace has opened," the document adds.

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South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attend the inter-Korean summit at the truce village of Panmunjom, South Korea April 27, 2018. Host Broadcaster via ReutersAfter 10 years of silence, N. Korea’s Kim wants to talk to South more
The two sides also agreed to hold multi-party talks, involving the US and China, in their push for a full-scale truce. Pyongyang and Seoul are also to have high-level military talks in May.

In an ambitious statement after the signing ceremony, Kim said he hopes that the two Koreas will reunite. The states separated after the WWII and have remained hostile since the Korean War ended with an armistice, rather than a peace treaty, in 1953.

“Terminating the current state of the truce and establishing a firm peace regime is a historic task that [the two Koreas] can no longer delay," the leaders pointed out.

The latest attempt to ease tensions in the region comes after years of UN sanctions against the North for its repeated nuclear tests and missiles launches. Previous attempts to sit with Pyongyang at the negotiations table were made in the format of  ‘Six Party Talks,’ but those many rounds gave only a temporary break in exchange for fuel aid. In 2009, the North withdrew from the negotiations and resumed nuclear tests.

The thaw in intra-Korean relations began ahead of the 2018 Olympic Games in South Korea. In January, the two countries met for much anticipated talks, the first in two years, and shortly after the nations formed a joint women’s ice-hockey team and marched under a unified banner at the Olympics opening ceremony.

The rare show of unity came after months of mounting tensions in the region, including through third parties such as the US. Washington has threatened Pyongyang with “fire and fury,” sent its military armada to the region, and frequently held war games there – much to the anger of North Korea.



Germany Agrees with Palestinians: Jerusalem NOT Israel’s Capital
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Although, according to Germany, every state has the right to choose its own capital, it doesn’t extend the same courtesy to Israel.

By: United with Israel Staff

Germany is refusing to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Indeed, while its foreign ministry acknowledged that every country has the right to name its own capital, it said that this is not the case for Israel, insisting that the status of Jerusalem can be settled only through negotiations with the Palestinians.

“As a matter of principle, every state has the right to determine a city in its territory to be its capital,” Niels Annen, a minister of state in Germany’s Foreign Ministry, said in response to a query by a lawmaker from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party last week, The Times of Israel reported.

“Since the eastern part of Jerusalem that Israel occupied in 1967 contrary to international law is not part of Israel’s sovereign territory, the international community, including Germany, has not recognized this declaration,” he added.

He based his position on the 1980 United Nations Security Council’s (UNSC) Resolution 478, which proclaimed that Israel’s declaration on united Jerusalem being its capital “constitutes a violation of international law,” as well as on clauses for the 1995 Oslo Peace Accords.

“The federal government shares the view that the status of Jerusalem, just like other final status issues, can only be settled through negotiations to be durable and acceptable,” Annen affirmed.

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel similarly stated, in an interview with Israel’s Channel 10, that Berlin will not move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

‘Repeating the Arguments of Israel’s Enemies’
Petr Bystron, who submitted the query, responded that “the German government’s answer was almost identical with that of the Palestinian Authority, which has been protesting US President Donald Trump’s decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem.”

Since Trump’s announcement in December that the US recognizes Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and will move its embassy there, a number of countries have followed suit.

Bystron said he was “amazed that, even 70 years after the founding of the State of Israel, the German government has no idea what its capital is.” He was especially surprised, he said, that Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who had just visited Jerusalem and emphasized Germany’s “special responsibility for, and solidarity with, the democratic, Jewish state of Israel,” was unwilling to support Israel’s position.

“Considering the special responsibility the German government keeps emphasizing it has toward Israel, it is strange they keep repeating the arguments of Israel’s enemies,” Bystron said.

After 10 years of silence, N. Korea’s Kim wants to talk to South more
Published time: 27 Apr, 2018 04:00
Edited time: 27 Apr, 2018 07:58
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After 10 years of silence, N. Korea’s Kim wants to talk to South more
South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attend the inter-Korean summit at the truce village of Panmunjom, South Korea April 27, 2018. Host Broadcaster via Reuters / Reuters
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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un told his Southern counterpart that he is eager to come to Seoul whenever invited, promising not to interrupt the South’s sleep anymore in an apparent reference to missile tests.
Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in have concluded the first round of talks out of the two planned for their historic summit on Friday.

Kim, who last week announced an indefinite suspension of all nuclear and missile tests, a major point of irritation between the two Koreas over the last decade, appeared to reassure Moon on the point. As cited by the South Korean official, Kim said he “won’t interrupt your early morning sleep anymore.”

Kim also said he wouldn’t mind visiting the Blue House, the seat of the South Korean government, for more talks, a South representative said during the follow-up press conference.

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un shakes hands with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, April 27, 2018 Host Broadcaster via ReutersHistoric meeting between North & South Korea leaders kicks off (VIDEO)
Moon said that he would like to travel to North Korea, to which Kim responded that his country’s poorly developed traffic system would make such a trip uncomfortable. Moon jumped at the opportunity to promote the possibility of upgrading the North's railroads, should diplomatic progress succeed.

At the beginning of the meeting, Kim said he hoped the summit would be a new beginning and bring feasible results, unlike the previous meetings between their countries’ leaders that failed to end a decades-old stalemate.

"I wish for it to be a chance for us to walk forward hand-in-hand while looking toward the future with a determination, instead of outcomes like those in the past that could not be implemented," Kim told Moon, as cited by Yonhap News Agency.

Moon chimed in, saying that he wishes they would strike an agreement and “create a great present for our people and everyone else in the world who wishes for peace."

Kim repeatedly said he pins high hopes on the summit, which he sees as a chance for reconciliation, “so that the scars between the South and the North could be healed.”

In an apparent reference to a future reunification, which was the stated goal of both Koreas, Kim said, “the border line isn’t that high” and “it will eventually be erased if a lot of people pass over it.”

Meanwhile, the North Korean leader is also gearing up for talks with US President Donald Trump, which would have seemed unthinkable just months ago. The two leaders previously traded insults, and Kim launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) which he warned could reach the entire US mainland.