Roh Crosses N. Korea Border To Meet With Kim

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea's president walked across North Korea's border today on his way to Pyongyang for a summit with Kim Jong Il, pledging to foster peace on the divided peninsula in the second-ever such meeting between its leaders.

President Roh and his wife, Kwon Yang-sook, stepped across a yellow plastic strip marked with the words "peace" and "prosperity" and laid across the Military Demarcation Line that divides the Koreas in the middle of the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone.

Crossing near the North Korean city of Kaesong, the South Korean delegation was greeted by North Korean officials and women in traditional Korean hanbok dresses bearing bouquets.

"This line is a wall that has divided the nation for a half-century. Our people have suffered from too many hardships, and development has been held up due to this wall," Mr. Roh said. "This line will be gradually erased, and the wall will fall. I will make efforts to make my walk across the border an occasion to remove the forbidden wall and move toward peace and prosperity."

The presidential motorcade will make the entire 125-mile journey to Pyongyang from Seoul. For the first summit between the Koreas in 2000, the South Korean president at the time, Kim Dae-jung, traveled by plane, although land crossings by other officials are not rare. The meeting comes at a time of talks over disarmament, with North Korean negotiators set to respond today to the road map.

Nearly a year ago, the North tested a nuclear bomb, rattling regional stability and leading to a dramatic turnaround in a previously hard-line American policy. Since then, Pyongyang has shut down its sole operating nuclear reactor, which produced material for bombs, and has tentatively agreed to disable its atomic facilities by year-end in a way that they cannot easily be restarted.

North Korea's U.N. ambassador, Pak Gil Yon, said yesterday that his government is looking to the summit to ease tensions and improve relations. He told Secretary-General Ban, a former South Korean foreign minister, the meeting resulted from "the good atmosphere" between the two governments. Accompanied by industry leaders, politicians and cultural figures, Mr. Roh will spend hours in dialogue with Mr. Kim, tour the country, and watch the spectacle of thousands of synchronized performers glorifying the North's communist regime.