This summit is a peculiar and special meeting. The president has set out to hold a summit whose consequences will have a decisive effect on the future of his country, at a time when he has just two months left in office and when his approval rating hovers in the 20 percent range. This is unheard of even between the United States and the Soviet Union and between East and West Germany during the Cold War.

The only condition under which the U.S. and West Germany were willing to hold such meetings was if the president who was to attend that meeting had ample time left in his term and the solid support of his people. That’s the only way the president would not be pushed around in negotiations and was able to protect the long-term interests of his people.

Perhaps it is due to these concerns that the majority of South Koreans would prefer the summit to pass without any problems than talks to lead to a breakthrough in inter-Korean relations. As he goes to North Korea, the president should contemplate the wishes of his people deeply.

At a speech commemorating Armed Forces Day, President Roh said his priority for the second meeting between leaders of the two Koreas is to establish permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula. He added that without confidence in peace, there can be no promise of mutual prosperity and unification. He is right.

The problem is that it is difficult to pursue real peace that is backed by action and not be deluded by a deceptive peace packaged with seemingly plausible words. There have been countless numbers of non-aggression treaties and announcements in modern world history. But most of these pledges yielded no substantial peace and ended up hiding the true intentions of invasion. That was the case in the nonaggression pact between Germany and Russia. That was also the case for the Prague Declaration, which promised the territorial sovereignty of Czechoslovakia. Peace is not achieved by the exchange of sweet words and flowers. That type of peace is simply the rhetoric of the cheap pacifist. In real politics, peace is guaranteed by convincing the other side that peace is the only way to ensure mutual survival and breaking that promise would lead to self-destruction.

North Korea has announced it is a nuclear-equipped state and has deployed weapons along its front lines that can exterminate South Korea. Yet President Roh is seeking to declare peace on the Korean Peninsula during this summit. That’s no different than denuclearization pledge the two Koreas announced in the past, which ended up being tossed away.

No country in history actually has given up nuclear weapons after successfully conducting a nuclear test. But President Roh says raising the nuclear issue during the summit would be like picking a fight with the North Korean leader. Recently, at a Korea-U.S. summit, President Roh pressed President Bush several times to mention a “peace treaty.” Roh must use that same attitude to demand the North Korean leader makes a strategic decision to abandon his nuclear program and convince him that that’s the only way South Korea can guarantee the survival of North Korea and promise the rebuilding of its economy. If the two Koreas issue a peace declaration without even mentioning the nuclear issue, which will decide the fate of the Korean Peninsula, the whole world will deride their declaration of peace.

The South Korean public is nervously watching how the basic dilemma surrounding the North Korean demands so far will play out. They are redrawing the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de-facto maritime border between the two Koreas, abolition of the National Security Law and an end to joint military exercises between South Korea and the U.S. These are all issues involving the nation’s strength, and that is why North Korea has been persistently demanding changes to them. The South Korean public is also nervous about discussions of unification without national consensus, as well as any agreement to financially support the North at the cost of overburdening the South.

The president said not long ago that if a former president signs a deal, his successor can do nothing about it. But while we are worried about such attitude, we also expect the president to deal wisely with the situation. Roh must show firm resolve, since the North Korean leader will seek to talk about serious issues with the U.S. while just collecting economic assistance from South Korea.

Roh must feel tremendous pressure to produce significant results from the summit, due to the political situation at home and his position in that meeting, which he pursued with two months left before the presidential election. The South Korean public is worried that their president, who is at a disadvantageous situation, would have to make 10 or 20 concessions to win just one from the North Korean leader.

The president should not be fixated on producing a bombshell agreement, but maintain the attitude that he is taking a small step forward in establishing peace on the Korean Peninsula. That step is what will be recorded in history. And as a token of that step, we hope that South Korean prisoners of war and South Koreans kidnapped by North Korea and their family members will soon see better days.