The Koreas: Opposite Sides of the Moon

In their first meeting, the Prime Ministers of the North and South discover what they have -- and don't have -- in common

After crossing the demilitarized border in a motorcade of South Korean-made Hyundai sedans, the North Korean general surveyed the bustling, prosperous enemy capital of Seoul and observed that the last time he was there, he had been driving a tank. This time General Kim Kwang Jin, the Deputy Minister of Pyongyang's People's Armed Forces, was a member of the highest-ranking delegation to visit the South since the peninsula split into implacable halves 45 years ago.

In welcoming his counterpart, North Korean Prime Minister Yon Hyong Muk, South Korea's Kang Young Hoon was warmly fraternal. He blamed the North-South division, for the...

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