GERMANY: South Korean President Lee Myung-bak dines with German President Christian Wulff after announcing that he would be open to a summit with North Korea if certain conditions are met

Record ID: 861784

  • Title: GERMANY: South Korean President Lee Myung-bak dines with German President Christian Wulff after announcing that he would be open to a summit with North Korea if certain conditions are met
  • Date: 10th May 2011
  • Summary: BERLIN, GERMANY (MAY 9, 2011) (REUTERS POOL) CAR CARRYING SOUTH KOREAN PRESIDENT LEE MYUNG-BAK ARRIVING OUTSIDE SCHLOSS BELLEVUE, OFFICIAL RESIDENCE OF THE GERMAN PRESIDENT, CHRISTIAN WULFF WULFF AND WIFE BETTINA GREETING LEE AND WIFE KIM YOON -OK (WEARING TRADITIONAL KOREAN ROBE) VARIOUS OF GROUP POSING GROUP WALKING INTO PALACE
  • Embargoed: 25th May 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany, Germany
  • City:
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics:
  • Reuters ID: LVA7ZTM6IRB03SR08YVXZQKHXFF1
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  • Story Text: South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Monday (May 9) attended a dinner with German President Christian Wulff, just hours after announcing that he was ready to invite North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il to a security summit if he agreed to renounce nuclear weapons and apologised for clashes last year.
    In a news conference following a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin in the afternoon, Lee said he would extend the invitation for the summit next March only if all the conditions were met.
    Momentum has been building towards a resumption of the talks, aimed at encouraging nuclear-armed North Korea to give up nuclear weapons, after inter-Korean tension spiked to the highest level in years in 2010 with the sinking of a South Korean warship and the shelling of a South Korean island.
    Shuttle diplomacy among the six-party envoys has increased in recent weeks, and China's nuclear envoy and his South Korean counterpart agreed in Seoul late last month on a stage-by-stage process for restarting the talks.
    Seoul and Washington are sceptical regarding the North's sincerity about denuclearising, citing its revelations last year of major advances in a uranium-enrichment program which could open a second route to make an atomic bomb.
    Experts say the North has enough fissile material from its plutonium program to make about eight nuclear bombs, and few people believe the secretive state will ever give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons, which it sees as a deterrent against attack and a formidable bargaining chip.
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