The visit, which Kim is due to make as part of an official delegation accompanying South Korea's president, Roh Moo-hyun, to the second ever North-South Korean summit on October 2-4, will be the first by a South Korean defense minister since the division of the Korean peninsula at the end of WWII.
The 13-member delegation will also include South Korea's unification minister, Lee Jae-joung. The summit had been set for August, but was delayed due devastating flooding that destroyed buildings and crippled infrastructure across North Korea. South Korea has made a major contribution to aid and reconstruction efforts following the floods, providing $7.5 million in emergency medical and food aid, and $40 in fuel and construction materials.
Delegations from the two countries are also expected to meet in mid-September for a new round of the six-nation talks aimed at resolving the North Korean nuclear issue. The negotiations also involve Russia, the United States, China, and Japan. The previous round, held in July, resulted in North Korea's closing down its nuclear facility at Yongbyon in exchange for 50,000 metric tons of fuel oil from South Korea for its thermal power plants.
War broke out on the Korean peninsula in 1950 at the height of the Cold War, and although a ceasefire was declared in 1953, the two Koreas have never signed a peace treaty, and are still officially at war.
