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South Korean President Moon Jae-in makes a speech to an audience of North Koreans at Pyongyang’s Rungrado 1st of May Stadium on Sept. 19. (Kim Jung-hyo

South Korean President Moon Jae-in told Pyongyang residents on Sept. 19 that the Korean people “must live together.”

“Today, I am proposing that we clear away the past 70 years of hostility and take a great step of peace toward becoming one again,” he said. It was the first-ever speech by a South Korean President to the North Korean public.

At 9 pm on the second day of his Pyongyang visit, President Moon visited Pyongyang’s Rungrado 1st of May Stadium with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. As a final event following a roughly 90-minute-long performance of mass gymnastics and music with Kim, the South Korean President stood behind the microphone and addressed the people of Pyongyang.

staff photographer)

“Today, Chairman Kim and I agreed on concrete measures to completely eliminate the threat of war and the risk of armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula,” he said.

“We made a definite pledge to turn our beautiful landscape from [the mountains] Baekdu to Halla into a land of peace permanently free of nuclear weapons and nuclear threats, and to pass that on to posterity,” he continued.

President Moon also said he had “become acutely aware through this visit how Chairman Kim and the Korean people long for national reconciliation and peace.”

“I witnessed exceptional courage in the desire to preserve dignity and rise up again on your own during difficult times,” he added.

In a forceful message, he stressed that he and Kim would “firmly hold the hands of 80 million Koreans and create a new homeland.”

An audience of around 150,000 North Koreans cheered and applauded throughout Moon’s speech. The cheering filled Rungrado 1st of May Stadium, North Korea’s single largest general sports venue.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in waves to a crowd of North Koreans at the Rungrado 1st of May Stadium in Pyongyang on Sept. 19. (photo pool)

Ahead of Moon’s speech, Kim declared, “I wish to express my sincere thanks for the tireless passion and efforts of President Moon, who is here in Pyongyang today to make another precious step of progress.”

A large-scale North Korean mass game team performed, with the message “Let the entire [Korean] nation join forces to build a powerful unified country” spelled out in large letters in the stands.

Mass game events involving tens of thousands of participants, mass gymnastics performances typically take place on important commemorative dates and use athletic and artistic techniques to express messages about the future path to be taken by the North.

By Song Gyung-hwa and Um Ji-won, staff reporters

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