SINGAPORE: For South Korean Choi Nam Sook, the historic handshake between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Tuesday was not only symbolic, it was deeply personal.
For as long as she has lived, the Korean Peninsula has been divided. Her 87-year-old mother, a North Korean, spent years looking for surviving relatives there to no avail.
“This is kind of a big step forward,” Choi, 53, said of the meeting between Trump and Kim.
“I was thinking of my mother … she probably feels more excited than anyone else,” she said with tears in her eyes.
Choi’s mother was a nurse with the national hospital of Pyongyang when the Korean War broke out in 1950. She was 19 when she was sent to South Korea because of the war.
“From that moment, she could never go back home again. She lost her whole family,” she said, choking with emotion.
The two Koreas split in 1945 when Japan lost World War Two. The Japanese, who had colonized the peninsula for 35 years, had to withdraw.
“The Russians (then the Soviet Union) moved in from the northern side to take over what we call North Korea today. The Americans moved into the southern side in what is called South Korea today,” explained Shawn Ho, an associate research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
The initial plan was for the US and Russia to be a stabilizing force, to help in post-war reconstruction and maintain peace and stability until the Koreans could reunify. “But things didn’t work out that way,” said Ho, who specializes in Korean Peninsula affairs.
North and South Korea established their own governments in 1948, but the Korean War broke out two years later, sealing the division further.
Even though an armistice agreement in 1953 ended the fighting, the two sides are still technically at war as no peace treaty was signed.
As a result, the 160-mile frontier between the two Koreas — better known as the demilitarized zone (DMZ) — continues to be one of the most volatile borders in the world today.
But hopes of peace were revived on Tuesday after Trump and Kim inked a denuclearization agreement in Singapore.
South Korean president Moon Jae In welcomed the news and praised Kim‘s decision to hold the summit with Trump, saying: “Leaving the dark days of war and conflict behind, we will write a new chapter of peace and cooperation. We will be there together with North Korea along the way.”
Ho credits Moon for making the summit possible. “Without South Korean president Moon Jae-in’s mediation between the two parties, I don’t even think we will have come to this stage,” he said.
“He put everything he had into this process — his energy, effort, commitment, political capital; basically his whole life.”
Choi remains hopeful for peace and reconciliation — perhaps even reunification — of the two Koreas. “My next generation, maybe they can achieve one country, one Korea again,” she told Arab News.
“It is difficult, we know it is difficult. But times are changing … it is time to start to reconcile.”
