After the talks, time for some action

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and the South’s President Moon Jae-in came face to face on Friday for a historic summit at the truce village of Panmunjom after exchanging warm greetings with each other over the military demarcation line.
Like any public diplomacy event, the meeting was full of symbolic gestures.
The two sides proclaimed their commitment to “denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”. In that respect, the announcement qualifies as a new era of peace. 
But like everything else, the devil is in the details. The opening formalities were surprisingly relaxed, indeed.
The South Korean leader said we must “proceed together on a path of reconciliation and cooperation”. The North Korean leader replied that “you will not be disappointed”.
But despite the rhetoric, one should not lose sight of the fact that history has not been kind to the optimists. After all, we have been there and seen it before.
We saw the same optimistic news coverage in 2000 for the summit between then-South Korean president Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang, which had many parallels with what one saw on Friday in Panmunjom.
As it stands, the 2000 meeting produced more tangible results: There were concrete steps taken towards creating a joint South Korean-North Korean industrial park in Kaesong, permitting South Korean tourists to visit the North, and permission to reunify families long divided by the demilitarised zone.
Between 1998 and 2008, South Korea provided some US$8 billion (Bt256 billion) in economic assistance to North Korea, thinking that they could influence the reclusive regime. Kim Dae-jung even won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for his efforts. And yet his Sunshine Policy is now widely judged a failure. It failed not because his counterpart in the North was not ready for peace. He was more interested in buying time to build up his nation’s military capability so that he could effectively bargain with the South, with the United States, his ally China and the rest of the world.
While the images of Friday’s inter-Korean summit created a lot of positive energy with some rushing to a campfire to sing “Kumbaya”, it makes sense for us to keep the lessons of history in mind.
True, Friday’s summit was huge leap forward from the sabre-rattling the world saw four months ago, with Pyongyang firing off missiles like firecrackers on Chinese New Year and US President Donald Trump threatening to rain down on the North with “fire and fury”.
The inter-Korean statement had the right ring to it with a promise of “no more war on the Korean Peninsula”.
Moreover, the two leaders agreed to transform the demilitarised zone –the most heavily militarised area in the world – into a “peace zone”, and to conclude the Korean War with a “robust peace regime”.
These are empty words unless backed up by concrete steps. The bottom line is what are the concessions the two sides are willing to make.
Indeed, for the past 70 years, the Kim Jung-un family has been telling the entire North that it is in their destiny to rule the entire peninsula on behalf of the Korean workers.
Did Friday’s handshake change all that? If so, does that mean an end to the nation-state construct of the North?
For the South, does a peace agreement with the North mean the departure of US troops from its soil? After all, no normal country wants foreign troops on its soil.
No matter how friendly they are, the presence of foreign troops permanently stationed says something about the security situation of the host country.
But despite all the hoopla about “denuclearisation”, Kim Jong-un is unlikely to give up a nuclear arsenal that serves as a guarantee for the survival of his regime.