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S-N Join for Liberation Day Celebrations

2003-08-14

A group of 339 South Korean civic leaders will fly to North Korea to take part in this year's anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945, the Yonhap News Agency reported quoting organizers.

The August 15 Liberation Day is a major holiday on both sides of the divided Korean peninsula. The two usually mark the day with pro-unification proposals and celebrations.

The South Korean participants are scheduled to fly to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, on a South Korean charter flight today via a direct route over the West Sea, said the organizers.

Participants include ruling party secretary general Lee Sang-soo and standing advisor Park Yong kil from the Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation, a major pro-unification activist group. Park is the wife of the late Rev. Moon Ik-hwan, a dissident activist for the unification movement.

The four-day celebrations, which will include sporting events, pro-unification seminars and tours to historic sites, will begin on Thursday. The sides plan to adopt a joint statement supporting peace and unification of the divided country.

Last year's celebrations were held in Seoul. It is the third time the divided country will hold the joint commemoration since the inter-Korean summit in 2000.

The Korean peninsula was divided into the communist North and capitalist South in 1945 when it was liberated from Japanese colonial rule.

This year's celebrations, which come amid a flurry of diplomatic efforts among neighboring countries to resolve the North's nuclear weapons issue, are aimed at displaying inter-Korean reconciliation and cooperation while staying away from political maneuvering, said the South Korean delegation.

The initial joint celebrations in 2001 were marred by a scathing controversy here over pro-Pyongyang remarks by the southern delegation in the North.

Seven South Korean delegates, including Dongguk University professor Kang Jeong-koo, were arrested after returning home for making pro-North Korean remarks at Mangyeongdae, the birthplace of North Korea's founder and late president Kim Il-sung.

Source : www.korea.net