King Jong-un sits through talks for hours, agrees on summit meeting with Moon

Korea talks
SEOUL, March 5, 2018 (Xinhua) -- Chung Eui-yong (C), top national security adviser for South Korean President Moon Jae-in and head of the National Security Office of the Blue House, and other delegates pose for a group photo before their departure at the airport in Seoul, South Korea, March 5, 2018. A plane carrying South Korean President Moon Jae-in's special envoys left for Pyongyang to hold talks with senior officials of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), multiple local media reported Monday.(Xinhua/Newsis/IANS) Xinhua/Newsis/IANS

The North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean high-level envoys have reached a "satisfactory" but unspecified agreement during their meeting in Pyongyang, and decided to hold an inter-Korean summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and the North's leader, the North Korean state news agency KCNA reported on Tuesday.

Seoul's representatives delivered a letter from South Korean President Moon Jae-in to Kim Jong-un, who, upon "hearing the intention of President Moon Jae-in for a summit (...), exchanged views and made a satisfactory agreement," according to the North Korean state media.

Kim and the South Korean envoys also exchanged views on what steps to take to "ease the military tensions on the Korean Peninsula and promote dialogue, cooperation and exchange."

The North Korean leader, according to Efe, held a "sincere conversation" with Seoul's delegation, showed them his "firm will to vigorously advance the north-south relations and write a new history of national reunification" and gave instructions to "rapidly take practical steps" for this bilateral improvement.

In early February, Kim Yo-jong, the sister of the North Korean leader, made an historic visit to South Korea on the occasion of the Winter Olympic Games, held in the South Korean county of PyeongChang, and conveyed to Moon an invitation to travel to Pyongyang and participate in a high-level inter-Korean summit, the first of its kind in more than a decade.

The South Korean president welcomed the invitation but considered that certain conditions should be met to make his visit to Pyongyang a reality, including a new round of talks between the United States and North Korea.

If the meeting between Kim and Moon were to be held, it would be the first inter-Korean summit in more than a decade, after the ones held in Pyongyang in 2000 and 2007 between the late leader and father of Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il, and the former South Korean presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Tae-woo, respectively.

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