SEPT. 2 (Reuters) — North Koreans on Tuesday (September 1) welcomed news that North and South Korea had reached an agreement a week ago at high-level talks.
Video provided to Reuters by North Korea’s official news agency KCNA, which Reuters cannot independently verify, showed North Koreans expressing their pleasure to hear an agreement had been reached.
“I felt the pride of a North Korean who holds the dear respected leader Kim Jong Un in high esteem after seeing the joint statement between the North and South Korea which changed the touch-and-go situation,” said Kim Yun Mi, a representative at the Monument to the Three Charters for National Reunification.
“I sincerely hope that the North and South will open a new era of unification and revive our glory which was represented in 6.15 Joint Declaration by the North and South Korea in early 2000,” added another representative, Kang Yong Mi.
The first summit in 2000 between the North’s Kim Jong Il, who died in 2011, and South’s Kim Dae-jung led to a period of rapidly expanding ties including the opening of a factory park in the North run by South Korean businesses and a tourism project. The two leaders concluded the summit with a 6.15 joint declaration pledging peace.
Under the deal last Tuesday (August 25), the two Koreas agreed to end a military standoff that sparked an exchange of artillery fire after the South began propaganda broadcasts in response to a landmine blast that seriously wounded two of its soldiers.
The accord pulled the rivals back from the brink of an armed conflict, and led the two sides to agree to work towards resuming the meetings of families, an emotional issue given the advancing years of surviving family members.
Seoul and Pyongyang have technically remained in a state of war since the Korean war ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.