China's President Jiang Zemin arrived in Pyongyang on Monday for talks with North Korean leader expected to concentrate on security on the Korean peninsula.
The North Korean supreme leader laid on a grand welcome for Jiang at the start of the three-day visit, North Korea's state media reported.
Kim Jong-Il went to Pyongyang's decrepit airport to personally greet Jiang's special flight and tens of thousands of people waving flowers lined the 25-kilometer (15-mile) route to the capital of the Stalinist bastion, the reports told.
Kim "warmly greeted" his communist ally, the North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. Kim "cordially hugged" Jiang before they inspected an honor guard and drove off, the report added.
The two were to hold summit meetings expected to be dominated by the faltering Korean reconciliation process, diplomats said. Jiang's visit began as North Korea officially offered to hold new talks with the rival South.
Rodong Sinmun, the Communist Party daily, said the visit would be "an important occasion" for "creating a favourable environment for peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and in the rest of Asia."
Jiang was accompanied by Vice Premier Qian Qichen and Zeng Qinghong, the head of the Communist Party organisation department, and other top officials, China's official Xinhua news agency reported.
Though officially a "goodwill visit", the summit meetings could play a crucial role in relaunching the Korean peace process.
Jiang is expected to press Kim to make efforts to reduce tensions on the Korean peninsula and resume dialogue with South Korea and the United States, diplomats said.
North Korea on Monday made an official proposal to resume talks with Seoul after a six-month freeze on contacts.
South Korea has reacted warily, however, with many politicians suspecting the offer was a bid to influence a vote of confidence in parliament against the South's unification minister. The minister, Lim Dong-Won, lost the vote.
After a summit between Kim Jong-Il and the South's President Kim Dae-Jung in Pyongyang in June last year, confidence-building moves came to a halt when President George W. Bush took office in January signalling a harder line with the communist North.
Kim Dae-Jung has made several appeals for his northern counterpart to name a date for a return summit but Kim Jong-Il has concentrated on seeking the views of Russia's President Vladimir Putin and now of Jiang.
The Chinese leader may also seek to nudge Kim Jong-Il along the path to economic reform, diplomats said.
North Korea's economy is in near collapse and the country can only feed its 22 million people with international aid. According to some Western estimates, up to one million people have died in the worst years of famine since drought and other natural disasters started in 1995.
Jiang last went to North Korea as head of the Communist Party in 1990. Kim Jong-Il has been on two secretive visits to China in the past 16 months.
He went to Beijing in May 2000 just before the historic Korean summit. In January of this year, he went to Shanghai to see its stock exchange and leading joint venture companies that have powered China's startling growth of the past two decades.
North Korean media hailed Jiang's three-day stay and the strength of relations between the neighbors, which cooled after China established diplomatic ties with South Korea in 1992.
Minju Joson said "there is no change in the stand of the government and people of the DPRK (North Korea) to strengthen and develop the DPRK-China friendship in line with the need of the new century and the common interests of the two peoples." -- SEOUL (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
