Seoul, February 02: South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has, for the first time, said a leaders’ summit with rival North Korea is possible, if planned inter-Korean military dialogue proves effective.
During a live television interview on Tuesday, Lee was asked about the possibility of holding a summit between the leaders of the two Koreas in case next week’s bilateral military talks succeed.
“I don’t deny it. We can have a summit if needed,” the South Korean president said.
“I believe this is a good opportunity for the North, that it is engaging in dialogue with the South at this point,” Reuters quoted him as saying.
North and South Koreas have agreed to hold their first working-level military talks in the border town of Panmunjom on February 8. The meeting is the first since the Asian neighbors exchanged artillery fire in November.
The talks will focus on setting the date, place and agenda for a higher-level meeting between the two countries’ defense ministers.
However, South Korea says the talks will only take place, if the North assumes responsibility for last year’s deadly attack on Yeonpyeong Island and promises that such an incident will never occur again.
Last year, tension on the Korean Peninsula reached its highest level since the 1953 end of the Korean War, when the South Korean warship, the Cheonan sank near the inter-Korea maritime border in March, leaving 46 South Korean sailors dead.
Though Seoul accuses Pyongyang of involvement in the sinking of its warship, the latter says the aluminum alloy fragments recovered by South Korea prove that no North Korean torpedo was involved in the maritime accident.
Later that same year, on November 23, tensions were further heightened when North Korea fired dozens of artillery shells at Yeonpyeong Island.
The attack, in which two South Korean marines and two construction workers lost their lives, also set more than 60 houses ablaze and sent civilians fleeing in terror.
North Korea said the South had provoked its artillery strike against the island.
Seoul and Pyongyang have already agreed in principle to hold military talks.
——-Agencies