Two Koreas edge closer

SEOUL, South Korea – Wary optimism greeted North Korea’s promise Wednesday to disable key elements of its nuclear weapons program by the end of the year, amid signs of warming relations between North and South that included a strongly worded commitment of nonaggression.

The leaders of the two Koreas concluded a three-day summit today with a declaration vowing to widen economic ties and begin talks on ways to reduce military tensions on the peninsula.

It followed a separate formal agreement on denuclearization among the U.S., North Korea and four other countries, announced in Beijing, that adds momentum to diplomatic efforts aimed at getting North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions in exchange for badly needed economic aid and an end to its international pariah status.

The Bush administration reaffirmed its readiness to remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism if the nation follows through on its promise to disable its reactor at Yongbyon.

“It’s the farthest we have gotten since the nuclear issue erupted 15 years ago,” said Charles Armstrong, the director of the Center for Korean Research at Columbia University.

The progress on the nuclear negotiations came as a wan-looking Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s mercurial leader, bade farewell today to South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun after a three-day summit in Pyongyang, the North’s capital. The leaders emerged from their first, and sometimes awkward, meeting pledging deeper Southern investment in the North and declaring they would work to end their nations’ 60-year hostility. The two also agreed to establish a “peace zone” along a disputed coastal region to avoid accidental clashes.