Kim Dae-jung is widely remembered as a peacemaker today, so it’s not as well known that his presidency (1998-2003) didn’t start off on such friendly footing with North Korea.
In fact, for his first two years, North Korean state media treated him more or less the same as his center-right predecessors. They greeted his arrival by declaring no mere change of government could resolve inter-Korean differences, regardless of how lofty the talk coming out of Seoul was.
Kim Dae-jung is widely remembered as a peacemaker today, so it’s not as well known that his presidency (1998-2003) didn’t start off on such friendly footing with North Korea.
In fact, for his first two years, North Korean state media treated him more or less the same as his center-right predecessors. They greeted his arrival by declaring no mere change of government could resolve inter-Korean differences, regardless of how lofty the talk coming out of Seoul was.
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