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| President Moon Jae-in speaks as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un listens during a joint announcement of agreements reached in a summit at Panmunjeom, Friday. / Joint Press Corps |
By Kim Bo-eun
The leaders of the two Koreas have agreed to set up a joint contact office in the North's city of Gaeseong to promote communication and exchanges to continue the recently established peace momentum, according to a joint declaration announced after the third inter-Korean summit held Friday.
Establishing a joint contact office is part of a comprehensive agreement reached at the historic summit between President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the truce village of Panmunjeom.
Officials from the North and South will be stationed at the contact office to facilitate cooperation between their governments and private sector exchanges. Gaesong city is where the now-shuttered inter-Korean industrial complex is located.
"Today Kim and I set a milestone for a road toward co-prosperity and unification," Moon said in a joint announcement after the summit.
Kim said, "People of the North and South are one and we need to open a way to enable them to live peacefully."
The Koreas will also hold Red Cross talks to resume reunions of family members in the North and South separated by the 1950-1953 Korean War. The first reunion is set to take place Aug. 15, which marks Korea's liberation from Japanese colonial rule.
The North and South will also seek to enable people in the South to visit their hometowns in the North and exchange letters with family members there.
The last family reunion took place in October 2015. The South proposed hosting Red Cross talks last July, and also raised the issue in high-level talks on Jan. 9, but the North did not respond.
According to government data, 130,000 people registered as separated family members in 1988, but 72,000 have died, with only 59,000 remaining. Hosting the reunion had been a pressing humanitarian issue because 60 percent are in their 80s and older.
In addition, the North and South will seek to connect railways and roads along the east coast, the statement said.
Meanwhile, the leaders agreed to seek to host inter-Korean events of governments, national assemblies, political parties, local governments and private-sector organizations on important dates for the North and South, to build the mood of reconciliation and cooperation.
The Koreas will also field joint teams for international sporting events beginning with the 2018 Asian Games in August.
The statement stressed the need to carry out agreements reached in the first and second summits in 2000 and 2007.
The North and South pledged to hold high-level meetings soon to set up measures to carry out the agreements.
The third summit was held after Kim's sister Kim Yo-jong invited Moon for talks with her brother, during her visit to the South for the PyeongChang Winter Olympics in February. The summit was fixed during South Korean envoys' meeting with Kim in Pyongyang last month.
Inter-Korean relations, which remained frozen until early this year, began to thaw after Kim extended a rare olive branch, expressing intentions to send a delegation to the Games in the South.
Pyongyang's participation in the Olympics was arranged after Seoul and Washington decided to push back their annual joint military drills until after the Games.
Tension heightened on the Korean Peninsula last year as the North conducted nuclear and missile tests, raising fears of war.
