Inter-Korean Summit

Inter-Korean Summit

Inter-Korean Summits are meetings between the leaders of North Korea and South Korea. There have been two major meetings in the last decade, the first in 2000 and the second in 2007. The importance of these summits lies in the lack of formal communication between North and South Korea, which makes discussing political and economic issues difficult. The summits' agendas have included topics such as the ending of the 1953 war (currently there is an armistice in force), the massive deployment of troops at the DMZ (approximately two million in total), the development of nuclear weapons by North Korea and human rights issues.

The first Summit was held June 13–15, 2000, in Pyongyang. Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader, met with Kim Dae-jung, the South Korean President at the time, who received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts as this summit occurred seemingly as a result of his Sunshine Policy, which South Korea maintained until President Lee Myun Bak adopted a more hardline position against North Korea. However, it was later discovered that South Korea had secretly paid the North Korean Government $500 million to attend. This news caused a major political scandal when it came out.

The second Summit was held October 2–4, 2007, also in Pyongyang, between Kim Jong-il and Roh Moo-hyun, the former President of the Republic of Korea. This Summit has occurred in the light of the recent partially successful detonation of a nuclear device by North Korea, the development of which violated a range of guarantees, given in exchange for aid, that North Korea would cease nuclear weapon development. This Summit has probably occurred due to concerted political and economic pressure from a number of major states (The US, South Korea, Japan) and in particular from China, which is the nearest state North Korea has as an ally, and which provides North Korea with the oil and food supplies that keep the country from totally collapsing.