Leaders from South and North Korea can make a historic diplomatic breakthrough when they meet in June. It likely will be up to the North Korea leadership to determine how significant the event is. South Korea has been trying to hold high-level meetings for years.
Negotiators from both sides met last Saturday to prepare for the first-ever summit between their leaders, scheduled for June 12-14 in the North's capital of Pyongyang. The two Koreas, divided at the end of World War II, remain technically at war. The 1950-53 conflict ended with an armistice, not a permanent peace treaty. The two have been divided physically and ideologically ever since.But badly needed economic assistance has changed the North's views about not only holding talks but including reunification as a discussion item. Reunification is the most emotional issue of the war. According to the Unification Ministry, 1.23 million people who were born in North Korea now reside in the South. That total jumps to 7.67 million if extended family members are included.
The North has been hesitant to pursue reunification because it would expose communism for what it is. Prosperous-looking elderly South Koreans would be meeting their impoverished relatives in the North. Communism is a bankrupt idealogy, both morally and economically.
But chronic food shortages, created by near-famine conditions and poor economic policies, have killed an estimated 3 million people and left many more malnourished. That has at last caused the North to re-examine its priorities.
Even several years ago it would be hard to imagine a comment like this one delivered by North Korea chief delegate Kim Ryong-song on Saturday: "Let's try to make the summit a historic turning point for reunification and smooth solution for many problems."
It will be if the North allows it to. In the past, the North has been its own worst enemy, utilizing whatever resources it had to build up its nuclear weapons stockpile as opposed to helping its people. Now, northern leaders have little choice but to realize the days of hard-line communism are over. As should be painfully obvious by now, a failure to recognize that fact can only hurt the North more.
The past week is an indication North Korea is willing to take serious steps to join the world community of nations. June's summit meeting will determine just how big those steps are.