S. Korean delegation in North to mark summit

A South Korean government delegation arrived in North Korea on Thursday for a joint celebration of the anniversary of a 2007 summit and to possibly hold further peace talks.

South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung Gyon said the visit is an opportunity to strengthen “reconciliation, cooperation and peace” between the rivals.

Cho’s group was greeted at Pyongyang’s airport by Ri Son Gwon, chairman of the North Korean agency that handles inter-Korean affairs, who said the agreements produced by the series of inter-Korean summits — two during the 2000s and three in 2018 — have set the “standard for reunification.”

In addition to government officials, the South Korean delegation includes lawmakers, civic and religious leaders and the son of late South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun, who participated in the 2007 summit with North Korea’s then-leader Kim Jong Il, the father of current ruler Kim Jong Un.

The visit comes as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo prepares to make his fourth visit to Pyongyang on Sunday with the aim of setting up a second summit between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un.

Kim and Trump met in Singapore in June, where they issued vague aspirations for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula without saying when and how it would occur. Follow-up talks between the countries stalled, with Pyongyang accusing Washington of making “unilateral and gangster-like” demands on denuclearization. That left Seoul lobbying hard for a second summit between Trump and Kim to keep alive a positive atmosphere for nuclear diplomacy.

Pompeo said Wednesday he’s optimistic he’ll come away with a plan for a second summit between Trump and Kim and progress on a “pathway for denuclearization.” However, he distanced himself from an earlier stated goal of getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons by the end of Trump’s four-year term in January 2021.