Hong Kong:- North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (left) and South Korean President Moon Jae-in embrace each other after signing on a joint statement at the border village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarised Zone in South Korea on Friday. Minutes before Kim entered South Korea’s Peace House, where the talks were held, a North Korean security team conducted a sweep for explosives and listening devices, and sprayed what appeared to be disinfectant in the air, on the chairs and on the guest book.
A handshake across the world's most heavily fortified border. A lengthy one-on-one conversation on a bridge, beyond the range of microphones. Longstanding enemies on a divided peninsula calling for peace after a year of threats.
Friday's summit meeting between the leaders of North and South Korea was a master class in diplomatic stagecraft, with each scene arranged for its power as political theatre and broadcast live. In a perilous standoff that has resisted solutions, it was these images that offered hope, much more than the actual results from the meeting - vague pledges to work towards nuclear disarmament and a peace treaty.
The dance between Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea began with a two-step: each leader crossed the border into the other man's country before they headed, hand in hand, to a meeting in Panmunjom, the truce village at the centre of the heavily fortified Demilitarised Zone.
From there, the talks unfolded in ways both surprisingly public and surprisingly profound. Few settings present a backdrop more dramatic than the Demilitarised Zone, the bloodstained border that has divided the Korean Peninsula for 70 years and at which the leaders of North and South Korea have never previously met.
The highlight took place in the afternoon, when Kim and Moon sat at the end of a blue bridge and engaged in what appeared to be deep conversation in full view of journalists' cameras. For some 30 minutes, the two leaders talked as the world looked on, scrutinising their gestures and facial expressions for insight into how it was going.
"In an unplanned move, Kim invited Moon to step brief across into Northern Korea , before the 2 leaders crossed back into South Korea holding hands. "
They looked less like sworn enemies than members of the same family, separated by a generation. They spoke alone, without aides, a face-to-face discussion that many would have thought impossible only a few months ago.
In details large and small, the men, each an expert in political messaging, made the most of their shared stage. At times they flexed their personal power. Kim, for instance, drove to lunch in a Mercedes limousine surrounded by 12 running bodyguards. At other moments they savoured the symbolism of their shared history: embracing in front of a painting of Mount Kumgang, a landmark cherished on both sides of the border, and admiring a wall of calligraphy in hangul, the Korean alphabet.
Summit meetings are typically staid and secretive affairs. Held behind closed doors, details filter out only in jargon-filled communiqués intended to be oblique. Friday's meeting was almost the opposite, largely held outdoors under a bright spring sun.
The morning was filled with the classics of public diplomacy - broad smiles long handshakes, even a joke about North Korean missile tests waking the South Korean president early in the morning. But sometimes there was a twist.
There was the traditional pomp and pageantry of a South Korean honour guard, but the soldiers wore 19th-century imperial costumes, recalling a time before the peninsula was divided by ideology and war.
At another moment infused with symbolism, the men replanted a tree with soil and water taken from both sides of the border. It was originally planted in the DMZ in 1953, the year the Korean War effectively ended in an armistice.
As the cameras rolled, two leaders unveiled a new plaque dedicated to "peace and prosperity."
An army of journalists recorded the words. Just yards away, two actual armies stood at the ready, much as they have for 70 years.
A handshake across the world's most heavily fortified border. A lengthy one-on-one conversation on a bridge, beyond the range of microphones. Longstanding enemies on a divided peninsula calling for peace after a year of threats.
Friday's summit meeting between the leaders of North and South Korea was a master class in diplomatic stagecraft, with each scene arranged for its power as political theatre and broadcast live. In a perilous standoff that has resisted solutions, it was these images that offered hope, much more than the actual results from the meeting - vague pledges to work towards nuclear disarmament and a peace treaty.
The dance between Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea began with a two-step: each leader crossed the border into the other man's country before they headed, hand in hand, to a meeting in Panmunjom, the truce village at the centre of the heavily fortified Demilitarised Zone.
From there, the talks unfolded in ways both surprisingly public and surprisingly profound. Few settings present a backdrop more dramatic than the Demilitarised Zone, the bloodstained border that has divided the Korean Peninsula for 70 years and at which the leaders of North and South Korea have never previously met.
The highlight took place in the afternoon, when Kim and Moon sat at the end of a blue bridge and engaged in what appeared to be deep conversation in full view of journalists' cameras. For some 30 minutes, the two leaders talked as the world looked on, scrutinising their gestures and facial expressions for insight into how it was going.
"In an unplanned move, Kim invited Moon to step brief across into Northern Korea , before the 2 leaders crossed back into South Korea holding hands. "
They looked less like sworn enemies than members of the same family, separated by a generation. They spoke alone, without aides, a face-to-face discussion that many would have thought impossible only a few months ago.
In details large and small, the men, each an expert in political messaging, made the most of their shared stage. At times they flexed their personal power. Kim, for instance, drove to lunch in a Mercedes limousine surrounded by 12 running bodyguards. At other moments they savoured the symbolism of their shared history: embracing in front of a painting of Mount Kumgang, a landmark cherished on both sides of the border, and admiring a wall of calligraphy in hangul, the Korean alphabet.
Summit meetings are typically staid and secretive affairs. Held behind closed doors, details filter out only in jargon-filled communiqués intended to be oblique. Friday's meeting was almost the opposite, largely held outdoors under a bright spring sun.
The morning was filled with the classics of public diplomacy - broad smiles long handshakes, even a joke about North Korean missile tests waking the South Korean president early in the morning. But sometimes there was a twist.
There was the traditional pomp and pageantry of a South Korean honour guard, but the soldiers wore 19th-century imperial costumes, recalling a time before the peninsula was divided by ideology and war.
At another moment infused with symbolism, the men replanted a tree with soil and water taken from both sides of the border. It was originally planted in the DMZ in 1953, the year the Korean War effectively ended in an armistice.
As the cameras rolled, two leaders unveiled a new plaque dedicated to "peace and prosperity."
An army of journalists recorded the words. Just yards away, two actual armies stood at the ready, much as they have for 70 years.
