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Indonesia president to visit N.Korea
(AP)
Updated: 2006-05-17 15:03
JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
will visit North Korea and South Korea early next month to discuss ways to
reduce nuclear tensions on the divided peninsula, officials said Wednesday.
The president will be in the North Korean capital on June 5-6, where he
hopes to discuss the nuclear crisis with leader Kim Jong Il and other senior
government officials, said Garibaldi Sujatmiko, head of the presidential press
office.
(L to R) Malaysia's
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Pakistan's Prime Minister Shaukat
Aziz, Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, Iran's President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad and Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono walk after
watching the signing of a trade agreement during the Developing Eight
(D-8) summit on the Indonesian island of Bali May 13, 2006. The D-8 groups
some of the world's most populous Muslim-majority nations and is aimed
primarily at developing economic and trade ties.
[Reuters] |
Sujatmiko declined to comment on
whether it has been confirmed that Kim Jong Il would attend meetings with the
Indonesian president.
Yudhoyono will then visit Seoul on June 7-9 to
meet with his counterpart Roh Moo-hyun.
Ties have warmed significantly
since a meeting of North and South Korean leaders in 2000, but tensions persist
over the North's nuclear ambitions. The two Koreas remain technically at war
because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a cease-fire rather than a peace treaty.
Indonesia is also trying to arrange reconciliatory talks between
high-ranking North and South Korean officials in Bandung, a city 150 kilometers
(90 miles) southeast of Jakarta, later this year. Further details about those
talks were not available.
Yudhoyono postponed his visit to South and
North Korea last month because of scheduling problems.
Indonesia's first
president, Sukarno, was a close friend of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's late
father, Kim Il Sung.
Kim Dae-jung to visit North Korea in
June
In another development, South Korea and North Korea agreed
Wednesday that former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung will visit the North's
capital in late June, news reports said.
It will be Kim's second trip to
North Korea. During his first trip in 2000, he held an unprecedented summit as
the South's president with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency said the two sides have
agreed that the ex-president will make a four-day trip, and that they will fix
the exact date later.
"The former president's visit will take place in
the latter half of June for three nights and four days," Yang Chang-seok,
spokesman for the Unification Ministry, told reporters.
The two sides
agreed to continue negotiations on specific dates for the visit in DPRK's border
city of Kaesong at the end of May, the spokesman added.
The agreement
came after a two-day inter-Korean meeting in DPRK 's Mount Geumgang on details
of Kim's visit.
However, the two sides failed to reach an agreement on
how the former president will travel to Pyongyang although Kim Dea-jung has said
earlier that he hopes to go to the DPRK by train.
"Regarding the route
of travel, our side relayed (Kim's) message that he wishes travel to the DPRK by
train, while the DPRK proposed a direct air route," Yang said.
Kim
Dae-jung is expected to meet with DPRK's top leader Kim Jong-il during his trip.
The two sides agreed earlier this month to have test runs of cross-border
railways on May 25.
In June 2000, Kim Dae-jung paid a historic visit to
Pyongyang for the first-ever inter-Korean summit. The visit was widely regarded
as a milestone in the inter-Korean history as it paved way for peaceful
cooperation and exchanges in various areas between the two
sides.
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