Controversies over N. Korean leader’s call for ‘highest-level’ talks

There are divergent interpretations of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s remarks of highest-level talks in his New Year’s speech, as the North calls a summit “top-level meeting.” Some experts argue that the “highest-level talks” referred to a meeting involving the North’s titular leader Kim Yong Nam.

The August 5, 2007 inter-Korean agreement on a summit between South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and the North’s Kim Jong Il also has the expression “top-level.” At that time, Pyongyang’s documents for the summit state that the two Koreas would hold preparatory contacts for the “top-level meeting” in Kaesong “as soon as possible.”

However, the North used the expression “highest-level talks” for the first inter-Korean summit. The June 15, 2000 joint declaration issued after the summit between then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and the North’s Kim Jong Il says that the two leaders “had a historic meeting in Pyongyang and held the highest-level talks.” The North’s 1994 notification to the South on an agreement to hold preliminary contacts for a summit between then South Korean President Kim Young-sam and North Korean leader Kim Il Sung also called the summit “highest-level talks.” Kim Il Sung’s New Year’s speeches in 1986 and 1900 that offered inter-Korean summits also uses the expression a “meeting between the authorities in which highest-level (leaders) would participate.

In fact, the inter-Korean meetings involving the North’s titular leader Kim Yong Nam was not called “highest-level talks.” The Kim Dae-jung-Kim Yong Nam talks in 2000 were called “exclusive” talks, while the one between South Korean President Roh and Kim in 2007 were simply dubbed the “talks.” An official at Seoul’s Unification Ministry said that it saw Kim Jong Un’s reference to “highest-level” talks as a summit.