South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun left here Tuesday morning for a three-day visit to Pyongyang, where he will meet with leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Jong Il.
The meeting, slated for Oct. 2-4, will be the second inter-Korean summit between South Korea and the DPRK since the Korean Peninsula was divided in 1945.
In a telivised departure statement, Roh said his trip will facilitate ties between the two sides.
"If the inter-Korean summit in 2000 can be said to have paved a new path for South-North relations, the summit this time will be able to remove stumbling blocks on the way and hasten the slow march," he said.
Roh vowed to put a new Korean Peninsula peace arrangement to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War at the top of his summit agenda.
"There will be various items on the agenda for discussion, but, among other things, I intend to concentrate on making substantive and concrete progress that will bring about a peace settlement together with economic development," said the president.
South Korea and the DPRK are still at war technically as the Korean War ended by a truce, not a peace treaty.
On inter-Korean economic cooperation, Roh said there are still "many obstacles along the road."
"Many of those barriers can be attributable not only to international factors but also to the gap in understanding between the South and North," he said. "I will marshal all my efforts to close the gap in understanding between the two Koreas."
The president said he will also work as hard as he can to hammer out a concrete agreement on such issues as building military trust and addressing humanitarian matters.
"I firmly believe that things will progress well. This is because the two Koreas are likely to remain on the same path if we take a far-sighted and broad stand," Roh concluded.
Source: Xinhua
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