SEOUL -- Both North Korea's Kim Jong Il, the younger host, and South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, his older guest, have come off last week's world-dazzling summit with a bounce. But can they keep the momentum going?
Converting this impressive symbolic achievement into real change, actually implementing reconciliation through cooperation, will require leadership of a high order from the two Kims, who head two very different political systems.
The outcome could indeed differ from that of the two previous inter-Korean agreements in 1972 and 1991, not just because they were signed by the top leaders, but because the ambience of an "open summit," free from lengthy diplomatic wrangling or secret envoys, signals that this time it was meant for the history books, not the scrap books.