Lee says inter-Korean summit possible this year under right conditions

By Lee Chi-dong
DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 29 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Myung-bak said Friday that
he is open to a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il any time, even this
year, if conditions are created for peace on the peninsula and a resolution to
the nuclear crisis.

"I am prepared to meet (North Korea's leader) Chairman Kim Jong-il any time," Lee
said in an interview with the BBC, a British public broadcaster, using the
official title of the North's supreme leader, chairman of the National Defense
Commission. "I think the two sides should have dialogue with their minds open for
cooperation and reconciliation."
He said, however, a precondition for the summit is that the nuclear issue should
be high on the agenda.
Lee's comments came amid rampant media speculation over the possibility of
another inter-Korean summit this year.
High-level officials from the two Koreas reportedly had a preliminary meeting in
Singapore to tap the possibility of summit talks last year but it remains
unconfirmed whether there was progress.
Some observers construed Lee's latest wordings on the sensitive summit issue as
indicating that South and North Korea are working to arrange the third summit.
The previous two rounds were held in Pyongyang in 2000 and 2007.
Lee's office Cheong Wa Dae played down such analysis.
"President Lee's remarks were a reiteration of his basic position that an
inter-Korean summit is possible anytime if a condition is met," Lee Dong-kwan,
top public relations secretary at Cheong Wa Da explained.
The South Korean government's stance remains firm: No meeting for the sake of
meeting and no talks to be used for political and tactical purposes, he stressed.
The official said there is "no concrete move currently for an inter-Korean
summit," but such a summit, if held, should produce "substantial and tangible"
results to help resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis.
With regard to the North's latest provocations near a disputed sea border in the
Yellow Sea, meanwhile, the South's leader said, "It is not desirable for North
Korea to make this kind of threat."
Earlier this week, North Korea fired artillery shells towards a South Korea
island near the Northern Limit Line in what it claimed was part of standard
military training.
The president said North Korea, under growing pressure to rejoin the six-party
nuclear talks, might be trying to put pressure on South Korea to resume
inter-Korean dialogue.
"Or, it may be a strategic move to sign a peace treaty," he said.
The North has been demanding talks among "relevant parties" to replace the
armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War with a formal peace treaty.
Lee is on a trip to this Swiss town to attend the annual World Economic Forum.
lcd@yna.co..kr
(END)

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