October 06, 2007	Saturday	Ramazan 23, 1428

SEOUL: South Korea’s president raised North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s arm into the air on Thursday like a champion prizefighter after a bout, wrapping up the second-ever summit between the divided Koreas.

But after three days of meetings, the two Koreas remain far from delivering a knockout punch for peace, because of the lingering threat of North Korea’s nuclear weapons – a subject mostly glossed over at the Pyongyang summit.

Kim and South Korea’s Roh Moo-hyun agreed on Thursday on a symbolic drive for peace to end the decades-long stalemate that ensued after the Korean War was halted with a cease-fire, not a formal peace treaty. The two sides face each other across what is commonly called the world’s most heavily fortified border.

Roh and the authoritarian North Korean ruler said in a joint declaration that they would ‘cooperate to push’ for an end to the Korean War by raising the issue with related countries – presumably meaning the US and China, which also fought in that conflict.

The pact signed in Pyongyang mentioned the North’s nuclear weapons programme only in a single sentence, noting both Koreas remain committed to previous agreements at international arms talks that include the US and regional powers.

It was progress at those separate six-nation nuclear talks — fostered by an about-face in US policy, granting concessions to win Pyongyang’s trust — that enabled Roh to get this week’s photo opportunity with Kim, just months before the South Korean leader leaves office.

As part of those talks, the North shut down a decrepit plutonium-producing reactor in July and agreed on Wednesday to disable the facility by the end of the year, so it cannot be easily restarted.

The nuclear agreement drew praise from US President George W. Bush, who would have to be brought into any real conversation about peace between the Koreas.

Roh and Bush met last month on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in Australia at a moment remembered most for its diplomatic clumsiness, where Roh repeatedly pressed the American president to explicitly say that a peace settlement with the North could be in the offing. Officials on both sides dismissed the apparent discord as a translation problem.

Bush insisted that any peace deal was in Kim’s hands, requiring the total nuclear disarmament of his country.

That goal remains elusive; the North will insist on major rewards to abandon its most potent weapons.

In exchange for disabling the reactor, North Korea is to get the equivalent of 1 million tons of oil to fuel its beleaguered economy and cope with energy shortages that often plunge even the showcase capital of Pyongyang into darkness.

The price for giving up his bombs will be far higher than agreements at this week’s summit to expand economic projects.

The North’s initial demand is to be removed from a US list of countries that sponsor terrorism, a step toward ending its pariah status that would make Pyongyang eligible for international loans.

It also has long coveted a new nuclear reactor that could help generate power. Under a 1994 disarmament deal, the US offered it two reactors – of a type that cannot easily be used to make bombs. But that deal went awry when Washington claimed Pyongyang broke the agreement by starting a secret uranium enrichment programme.

In the latest nuclear standoff, the US so far has agreed only to discuss such reactors.

Roh toasted the 65-year-old Kim’s health at least twice during festivities around the summit, and the pudgy North Korean himself denied suffering from any physical ailments as he bid farewell on Thursday to the South Koreans.

Kim views his nuclear weapons as an insurance policy against his forceful removal from power – meaning he is likely to hold on to his bombs as long as he hopes to remain in good health in his fortress nation.—AP