DATE=5/18/2000 TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT TITLE=KOREAS SUMMIT (L-ONLY) NUMBER=2-262505 BYLINE=HYUN SUNG KHANG DATELINE=SEOUL CONTENT= VOICED AT: INTRO: Officials in Seoul say the two Koreas have fully agreed on the agenda and arrangements for their landmark June summit in Pyongyang. As Hyun-Sung Khang reports from Seoul, the announcement follows a compromise on the last major disagreement: the size of the media delegation, which will accompany the South Korean president to North Korea. TEXT: South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Park Jae-Kye says both counties have agreed on all the guidelines for the summit. The agreement - signed in the border village of Panmunjom (Thursday)- came after the two Koreas resolved the issue of the size of the media delegation. They agreed that 50 journalists will travel to Pyongyang with the South Korean president next month. Seoul had proposed sending 80 journalists, but North Korea had been pressing for half that number with no foreign media reporters. The South Korean news agency, Yonhap, quoting the chief South Korean negotiator, Yang Young-Sik, says Pyongyang has agreed South Korean journalists will be allowed to bring live broadcasting and satellite communications equipment into North Korea. It says North Korea has also guaranteed that the South Korean journalists will be allowed to gather their own material, rather than having it provided by North Korea. The June summit between South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung and the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il will be the first ever between the countries since the division of the peninsula in 1945. North and South Korea are still technically at war since their civil conflict of 1950-1953 ended without a peace treaty. /// OPT /// It is expected that the two men will meet several times during the summit and that neither country will use their nationals flags or songs. One South Korean paper, quoting an unidentified government official, said the reduced protocol was in line with the precedent set by the two Germanys, when they started to improve relations during the Cold War. /// END OPT /// Unification Ministry spokesman Park Jae-Kye says an advance team of South Korean officials will visit Pyongyang at the end of May to prepare for the summit. /// OPT /// The team -- likely to consist of some 30 specialists in communications, media and security -- will visit the location of the leader's meeting and talk with their North Korean counterparts. /// END OPT /// The North Korean negotiator, Choi Sung-Il says both sides have agreed to a broadly-worded agenda calling for self-reliance, peace and national unity. This will give North Korea an opportunity to raise the issue of U-S troops in the South and Seoul's national security law against contacts with communists. South Korea will be pressing the issues of reunification of families separated by the division of the peninsula, economic cooperation, the end of Cold War structures and the ways to have on-going dialogue between the two governments. NEB/HK/HSK/JO/PLM 18-May-2000 04:34 AM EDT (18-May-2000 0834 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America .
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
