N. Korean leader greets S. Korean president without enthusiasm

Posted on : 2007-10-02 16:30 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST

No hugging. No smile. Despite his routine bouffant-style hair and military-like jumpsuit, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's attitude in greeting the visiting South Korean president was apparently different from that of seven years ago.

Appearing in front of a performing arts center in Pyongyang, a poker-faced Kim, 65, looked old and haggard, which could rekindle a controversy over his health.

The bespectacled Kim rarely smiled or talked to President Roh Moo-hyun while shaking hands with him and inspecting honor guards side by side, television footage from the North Korean capital showed. After the brief and rather awkward encounter, the leaders departed in seperate cars.

The dour greeting was in sharp contrast with Kim's fervent welcome in 2000 for then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung who visited Pyongyang for the first-ever inter-Korean summit. Kim surprisingly appeared at Sunan Airport in Pyongyang to greet the southern leader. The Kims smiled, shook hands and embraced each other as if they were old friends. A major South Korean daily even carried a full-page picture of the two shaking hands on the front page the next morning. The two leaders rode together in a car from the airport, and the North Korean leader looked energetic.

Some analysts in Seoul say the halfhearted welcome of the North Korean leader for Roh bodes ill for their three-day summit expected to focus on such thorny issues as bringing a lasting peace to the peninsula and greatly expanding cross-border economic cooperation.

But others play it down as Kim's cautious approach towards his southern counterpart, who is four years younger than him, citing the Korean culture of respecting seniority.

Foreign news media have constantly taken issue with the health of the North's reclusive leader.

A team of German doctors reportedly visited Pyongyang in May to conduct a heart operation for Kim. South Korean intelligence officials said Kim appears to have long suffered from diabetes and heart problems, although there is no clear evidence.

SEOUL, Oct. 2 (Yonhap)