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Why gushy greetings are key to Korean talks

June 13, 2000
Web posted at: 10:28 PM HKT (1428 GMT)

By Tony Karon

He may be the notoriously reclusive head of a notoriously closed communist state, but Kim Jong Il appears to have studied the Ronald Reagan image-management playbook. North Korea's secretive strongman shocked his guests and most observers Tuesday by not only showing up at the airport, but greeting South Korea's President Kim Dae Jung with a winning smile and a two-handed handshake -- the Korean cultural equivalent of a hug.

By opening the historic first-ever visit by a leader of one Korea to the other with that telegenic gesture, the Dear Leader has given Koreans on both sides of the 1953 cease-fire line an enduring image of reconciliation that will kindle hopes for the reunification of families divided by the world's most dangerous Cold War boundary -- and even for the reunification of the broader Korean family.

The handshake was an epic gesture of mutual recognition of each other's legitimacy, which neither side has been prepared to make over decades of low-intensity war and sullen peace. President Kim backed it up with a statement, released to the media, which proclaimed, "Compatriots in the North: We are one people. We share the same fate. Let us hold hands firmly. I love you all." The two men then climbed into a limousine that carried them off to talks at an undisclosed location, reportedly holding hands for much of the journey.

Atmospherics akin to those of a family reunion after an epic feud may be essential to begin bridging the gulf between two countries whose neighborly relations are still defined by a cease-fire agreement rather than any mutual recognition treaty. After all, while there are grounds for optimism on areas such as allowing family reunions across that cease-fire line and economic aid from the prosperous South to the famine-stricken North, progress may be slower when President Kim urges his host to curb a missile program that has put North Korea at the top of Washington's "rogue state" charts, and when Dear Leader Kim suggests that his guest get rid of the 30,000 U.S. troops dug in along the cease-fire line.

Deep differences, in other words, may remain for some time, as Pyongyang makes its first, hesitant moves toward opening its doors to the world, ever fearful that such an opening could bring the edifice of its personality-cult communism crashing down. But in opening a dialogue that could continue for years, the two Kims warmed the hearts of their divided people with the first set of images almost certain to make it into any "Great Moments of the Decade" collection.

Copyright © 2000 Time Inc.