After meeting South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in, North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un has vowed to permanently dismantle a missile testing and launching sites and Korean peninsula should turn into a “land of peace without nuclear weapons and nuclear threats”.
The agreement signed in Pyongyang “will open a higher level for the improvement in relations” between the two Koreas, Kim added, describing it as a “leap forward” toward peace.
After meeting in Pyongyang, the two leaders “agreed on a way to achieve denuclearisation,” said Mr Moon.
Mr Kim also said he hoped to “visit Seoul in the near future” – he would be the first North Korean leader to do so.
He would be the first North Korean leader to visit the South’s capital since the peninsula was divided at the end of the Second World War.
The two sides also plan to bid to jointly host the 2032 Summer Olympics.
The Koreas also plan to link up their railways, allow reunions for families separated by war and co-operate on health care.
North Korea says it will also permanently dismantle its main Nyongbyon nuclear complex but only if the United States takes reciprocal measures, Mr Moon added.
The two countries will establish a joint military committee to evaluate how to reduce tensions and maintain communication, Mr Moon said.
Other agreed measures included setting up the first-ever joint search effort at the border for bodies of soldiers killed in Korean War.
Both countries also vowed to disarm a jointly-controlled border village, starting with the removal of land mines, and to withdraw 11 guard posts from the demilitarised zone by December.
US President Donald Trump said the measures agreed by North and South Korea, including the joint Olympic bid, were “very exciting” and claimed Kim had “agreed to allow Nuclear inspections, subject to final negotiations”.
When President Moon Jae-in of South Korea embraced Kim Jong-un with a broad smile on an airport tarmac in Pyongyang, a crowd of North Koreans released a deafening cheer.
>Juthy Saha
