hankyoreh

South Korea's former President Kim Dae-jung on Monday urged Seoul to pursue another inter-Korean summit apart from the situation surrounding North Korea's nuclear arms program and said it should take place by August to keep the momentum up.

Kim, a 2000 Nobel Peace laureate, sent an explicit message to his successor President Roh Moo-hyun, who has linked it to progress in the six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

"The Roh Moo-hyun government seems to have a position that it will hold the summit talks in relation to or simultaneously with the six-party talks, but the inter-Korean summit is possible before the second part of this year and I believe it should (be held)," Kim said in a forum organized by the German Council on Foreign Relations, Germany's national foreign policy network.

As for the timing, Kim envisioned the landmark meeting before Aug. 15, when the two Koreas hold joint celebrations to honor their independence day. Korea regained sovereignty from Japanese colonial rule on that date in 1945.

The first and only inter-Korean summit between Kim and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in 2000 opened the doors for a flurry of economic, cultural and political reconciliation projects such as an industrial park being developed by South Korean companies in the North Korean border town of Kaesong and tourism programs to the North's scenic Mount Geumgang for South Koreans.

"If he leaves office without the inter-Korean summit materializing, President Roh Moo-hyun will lose many marks on inter-Korean issues," he said when asked by forum members to assess Roh's North Korea policy.

The prospect of a new summit seemed to be dampened by the delay in implementing a landmark six-party accord North Korea signed with South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.

In the February agreement, North Korea was expected to shut down its main nuclear reactor and allow United Nations inspectors back into the country in return for energy aid and diplomatic concessions, but the mid-April deadline passed without action. A new obstacle emerged over how to get North Korean assets frozen in a Macao bank released. The Macao bank had frozen the North Korean money under pressure from Washington, which accused it of aiding Pyongyang's money laundering and other illicit activities in late 2005.

Amid the stalemate, Kim said an inter-Korean summit "doesn't need to go side by side with the six-party talks" and that South and North Korea should nevertheless hold a summit to take the initiative in their own affairs.

Kim's suggestion showed a gap between himself and what the current administration was reportedly pushing: a four-nation summit. Former Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan, now a special advisor to Roh on political affairs, is visiting Washington this week, mainly to convey Seoul's proposal to hold the summit between South and North Korea, the U.S. and China aimed at building a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. The peace regime would officially terminate the Korean War, which ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty in 1953.

Lee and other aides to Roh have said it was difficult to hold an inter-Korean summit in the midst of the nuclear dispute.
BERLIN, May 14 (Yonhap News)