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i hope that here there is new history rich with regards to peaceful prosperity. high hopes and ultimas and as the leaders of north and south korea sit down for historic talks. among all the pomp and ceremony it is a permanent peace deal within reach between the two countries still technically at war. with al jazeera life and also coming out a manias acting leader rejects talks with the opposition as political turmoil continues days after the prime minister resigned. bill cosby. three words for you guilty guilty a get out the. downfall of the man known as america's daddy. u.s. court finds t.v.

star bill cosby guilty of sexually assaulting a woman at his home. a new history begins now those are the words of kim jong il and after he became the first north korean leader to set foot in the south since the end of the korean war kim was greeted by south korean president mean jay in as he crossed the demarcation line dividing the two countries moon also briefly stepped into the north side of the border they then walked to the venue where they held the first face to face meeting between leaders of the two koreas in more than a decade and just moments ago they planted a memorial tree in a gesture that is meant to symbolize peace they use soil from the highest mountains on each side of the demarcation line they also unveiled a stone marker which read planting peace and prosperity

live now to our diplomatic editor james bay who is observing all of this from nearby power jews i'm from your point of view james how successful has the summit been so far. certainly the optics have been extremely good the pictures. the world have seen are historic we have seen a handshake we have seen smiles we've seen both leaders cross into each other's country president moon briefly stepped into north korea really unprecedented pictures particularly given the backdrop of recent months and how close it felt to war and how tense the korean peninsula has been and really unprecedented events can tin you as we speak because you look at those live pictures and you can see there's sometimes smiles sometimes they're a little serious but the two leaders now have stopped they were walking across this

footbridge we were told they would have a private conversation with soon it was going to be brief as they walked snow they've stopped there they are alone they have no no takers with them and they are discussing and they have been discussing for some considerable time now the issues we understand that it's likely that there is a separate meeting going on with other officials discussing some of the details but some of the things i think are being discussed and worked out as we watch right now live on international television this is the negotiation going on right now between north and south korea and they seem very calm and good natured. yes and some smiles but also some serious looks as well there are serious issues to be discussed here part one of the summit which is setting a good tone the pictures the choreography the images that stand that's been a success part to try and get something concrete out of this that will that will

please both sides and the other party in all of this which is the u.s. that's what they're working on now the plan and they're definitely overrunning the schedule was to go for another meeting with the two delegations around the round table in the peace house maybe those discussions are going on without the two leaders while they resolve certain issues man to man that's not clear at this stage what we hear is if they come to an agreement and they're smiling again as they speak if they come to an agreement on a joint declaration then it's likely that that joint declaration will be signed will see it signed and then after that it's likely that both men will speak publicly to the media and they're also having a banquet after this again we expect both men on this very long day of diplomacy to speak publicly to make speeches at that banquet and james with regard to the final

declaration what will we now on the wild consider to be a successful declaration. well we've been told so far that in the first series of talks before they pause for lunch it was one hundred minutes and we're told that they talked frankly and sincerely about denuclearization and also about a path to peace on the korean peninsula remembering that the korean war ended in one nine hundred fifty three the fighting stopped but actually technically in never ended these nations are technically the two men you can see on your screens at war with each other because there never was a peace treaty signed ending the korean war and so that's one thing that perhaps of the issues is one of the zero ones no i don't think we're going to get a peace treaty signed today in part because that truce in one nine hundred fifty three wasn't signed by south korea it was signed by the us and its allies on one

side and north korea on the other but perhaps we'll get a serious commitment about a peace treaty and i think the u.s. will be looking to for that so some information that shows the willingness of the north koreans to really talk about giving up both their nuclear weapons and the delivery system which is those long range missiles which could potentially reach the united states now in the past james quite often it's been changes in political leadership that have a skype and the feel good maintenance experience with the north koreans i'm just wondering whether there is. an awareness of there being a time frame to this a rapprochement. yes i mean political cycles often affect these things when there's a change of policy a change of government things change the good thing going for this is you have

a south korean president is not even done a year in office and his popularity is high it's about seventy percent right now in the various opinion polls of the people of south korea support these peace efforts right now north korea doesn't need to worry about elections kim is there right now for as long as he likes because he has effectively absolute power as did his father and his grandfather of course the other component in it is the united states and president trump now he is planning a separate summit meeting if this one goes according to plan and they get a real commitment from the north koreans that they're prepared to have everything on the table in the next month to six weeks from now president trump of course is in office for another two and our fears and i think that makes it interesting that i've heard from diplomats that the u.s. side are saying that after they've had

a summit meeting if that goes ahead between kim and trump where they can reach an overall political agreement of intent they then want the details to be on doubt within two years so before a first term of the trumpet ministration ends and president trump tries to seek reelection all right james for now thank you james there is a diplomatic editor watching those scenes live with that the two leaders still deep in conversation and contemplation i think we can say but. not everyone is happy about those talks taking place there are anti north korea protests that have happened very close to where the summit is taking place. where james has his position the demonstrators want president mean to cancel the summit outright. the peace between murder. is a disguised peace which means i will hand over south korea to murder

a human north korea and set up a federal system under the korean unification flag which means reunification under communism but on the other hand there's been a rally in support of of the summit that's been taking place a large crowd watched the historic meeting unfold on big television screens they saw they say that they hope to see improved relations between the two countries and the white house has reacted as well they've released a statement saying we are hopeful that talks will achieve progress toward a future of peace and prosperity for the entire korean peninsula the united states looks forward to continuing robust discussions in preparation for the planned meeting between president trump and kim jong il in the coming weeks. right let's go live now to another important player in this development and that of course is china the chinese government has applauded what it calls the courage of the two

korean leaders in taking this historic step adrian brown is our correspondent there so the chinese watching sharing in the optimism then that much of the world is expressing at this summit taking place today. i think from beijing it's a mixture of being positive but also being cautious i mean a statement as you say applauds the courage of both men it also says that they hope that the two men can now begin a new journey to peace and of course before this day of history happened china had said that it wanted to have a nuclear korean put into that was free of nuclear weapons it wanted there to be a peace treaty but it's much more hesitant when it comes to the idea of a unified korea because china doesn't know whether a unified korea would be good or bad for china now china doesn't have a seat at the table today it also doesn't have

a seat at the table if the meeting between kim jong un and president donald trump goes ahead but at some stage china's going to have to be involved in the talks because china of course was a signatory to the one nine hundred fifty three armistice and so china would expect its signature to be on any final peace agreement now in the past the six party talks were held here in beijing those talks involve russia japan the two koreas the united states and russia but i think before we get back to the six party talks were perhaps going to have four party talks this is looking ahead i think you know china would like to be in a situation where it sits down with the united states and the two koreas that will be the opportunity the moment i think when cheating ping gets involved you know china doesn't want to be overtaken diplomatically by washington on this really does want to play a central role because you know china is about the only ally that north korea has china fought with the north in the korean war it lost one hundred thirty thousand

soldiers so this is a relationship that has been forged in blood that say it said you know a lot of analysts say that you know the leadership here in beijing is also a little bit concerned the north korea perhaps might be moving away from china's orbit and perhaps the. north koreans might be prepared one day to strike out on their own that is something that china's leaders want to avoid they need to maintain their influence over north korea remember just at the end of march the north korean leader came here to beijing the first world leader kim met with president xi jinping and i think two things happened there i think president xi was reminding the world that in the she can relationship kim is very much the junior partner and the china will play a central role in any peace negotiations indeed because of course china has its own specific concerns with regard to the u.s. presence militarily in south korea and not to mention the third anti missile

defense system which has caused a lot of concern in beijing. yes that's right and this really almost sort of ruptured relations between beijing and so last year there was real you know anger here in beijing in fact beijing was almost as concerned about sad as it was about kim's missile test but you know move forward you know the weird thing now is that china a year ago was really concerned about the outbreak of war on the korean peninsula now in a sense it's concerned about you know what will happen if it's truly peaceful on the korean peninsula because peace could mean unification and that's something as i say the chinese leaders are very hesitant about one thing i do want to mention martin is what's being said on social media here in china that's always interesting one comment that really caught my eyes that. the two koreas are making nice china risk rude another says after this we hope taiwan can be reunified with the mainland

so just the selection of some of the comments on social media here in china and where we're looking at live pictures adrian all of the leaders have had a fairly lengthy and what appeared to be a fairly good natured talk sitting there on that symbolic floor pledge and then out walking back. to get on with the next stage of this summit which is sitting down face to face and working on what is expected to be a declaration a declaration of intent if nothing else what would the chinese like to see in that statement ideally. well must say that these pictures are also being beamed live here into china so that's a measure of just how much importance of leadership places on this historic day because of course the media here in china is controlled by the government i think that the chinese leadership will be hoping for

a briefing fairly soon from the south korean leadership as well as from their north korean allies they want a deep. solid briefing from both sides as they work out how to move forward but i think what china wants first and foremost is a korean peninsula that's free of nuclear weapons it wants a lasting peace but when it comes to the issue of a unified korea it is as i say much more hesitant because it worries it worries potentially that it could have a neighbor that's less friendly toward china the north korea and south korea at the moment and it worries that perhaps some of those twenty eight thousand u.s. troops currently in south korea might remain in a united korea in the future not something they want to avoid they want to avoid the prospect of apps having u.s. bases close to their side of the border the something else to factor in here marty which is quite interesting just across the border from north korea in northern

china there is the korean autonomous region and some two million ethnic koreans live there so i wonder what they make of today's historic events and what is the what is the state of the relationship between president xi and president trump there's a lot of water has passed under the bridge since they had their their rather pleasant and amicable summit in mar-a lago there's been a quite a bit of bad blood has it they say i'm just wondering given that donald trump doesn't seem to be particularly interested in multilateralism how likely is it that the americans are going to bring the chinese into this process. well i think you know the next stage as i say is going to be no one so if this summit does happen between trump and kim then i suppose the next stage will be you know four party talks that will involve china and the united states that's certainly what china is hoping for but it wants to avoid

a situation where it is overtaken diplomatically by washington especially at a time when there is increasing increasing trade friction between washington and beijing and you know it knows it'll have to be involved at some stage but it won't start to happen sooner rather than later i think martin and is there a general consensus in china that we've reached the stage that we're at today in part because of more effective implementation of sanctions on the part of china as we've already said and north korea's closest ally. yes that's absolutely right i think china feels it deserves some credit for the fact that today's meeting is happening at all because they believe it is partly the result of the economic pressure they have exerted on north korea because china has really been at the forefront of implementing sanctions on north korea the onus is

falling on china to do that remember ninety percent of what the north receives passes through china so china's had the difficult task of enforcing sanctions against an ally a country that had fought alongside in the korean war and china has an enjoyed that experience even though it's been angered by the tests that north korea carried out even though it's been angered by kim jong un's continued defiance they still regard north korea in a sense as an ally you know here in china you know some people almost regard north korea as an extension of china for instance you know it's not the foreign ministry in the sense that the grounds policy in north korea it's the commerce ministry the people's liberation army and of the communist party. all right adrian thank you very much for that adrian brown our correspondent in beijing now we're going to go back to james james out at the magic editor who is observing. all of those happenings in the demilitarized zone and james said the two leaders have finished

their tete a tete they're now walking slowly literally pace presumably back to the peace house where they're going to continue with their consultations we've already had one hundred minutes this morning and this is this will be part two. yes part two is about to take place although maybe it's part three you're seeing the two leaders there walking behind team members of their delegations we knew what was going to happen in terms of the tree planting walking over the bridge we knew that at one point they were going to have a private meeting what we didn't know until. happened was that they were going to sit down on that bridge and have a private meeting in the glare of the world's media there just the two leaders the supreme leader of north korea the president of south korea with no aides present no one else could hear them no one taking notes speaking face to face about the key

issues it looked serious times now as they walked back they are smiling again so one can conclude that they didn't go very badly indeed and i think certainly they would have talked about some of the issues that they need to resolve in the final declaration and in this next session which will take place between the two leaders but also now surrounded by their key advisers around that round table inside the peace house we were originally told that there will be a banquet taking place they're going inside the peace house now and back inside and probably the doors will close and we won't see anything more than that they do we were originally told that there would be a banquet we heard the supreme leader kim wife was coming from the north she hasn't been here during the day but she was joining for the evening banquet the banquet was supposed to start in america ten minutes time if they stick to schedule and

certainly what happened on the bridge was way behind schedule there not only leaves an hour and ten minutes for that joint declaration because we what we also been told is that if they get reach the joint declaration they are likely to sign it on camera and both speak to us about what they have signed we're also told in that banquet which i think is likely now to be pushed back we're going to see and again it will be broadcast a speech by the two leaders all right finale james thank you very much indeed james will be keeping us to trust everything of course taking place in the demilitarized zone but now let's take a look back there's a take a look back. the modern history of the peninsula it was divided into north and south at the end of the second world war after the defeat of the occupying power japan the former u.s.s.r. the soviet union controlled the north and the us controlled the south in one nine hundred fifty the north invaded the south starting a three year war that ended with

a cease fire but no formal resolution meaning that the countries is still technically at war well the following decade saw the north become increasingly isolated from the rest of the world a drop in food production and imports led to famine in the one nine hundred ninety s. hundreds of thousands of people died despite peace initiatives in the two thousands pyongyang pushed on with its plans for miniaturize asian is antagonize its neighbor in the south by saving its first nuclear test in two thousand and six escalating tensions led to the shutdown of the case song industrial park that's a joint enterprise between the north and the south that was close in twenty sixteen all right now let's go live to seoul south korean capital of course and speak to just became the director of the center of conflict management at universities also the author of the book persuasion the hidden forces that influence negotiations that's rather intriguing what do you think of the hidden forces that are

influencing these negotiations. well one of the hidden forces that i talk about in the book is dealing with framing and perception this is a complex negotiation between the two koreas and later between north korea and the united states and as a negotiation strategy what you want to do is frame things very positively and nonverbal communication something that we've seen a lot with the visuals and the optics all throughout the media today is very very telling and we see that there are signals of cooperation between these two koreas and that's very important because i think the aspiration the objective of today's talks is to create an atmosphere of trust they go she is a function of trust it's a function of perception and information but the core thing among the two koreas is trust because there is virtually nonexistent until today right you're absolutely right everyone's been commenting on the atmospherics on the very positive chemistry seems between the two particular leaders but what about the issues of substance was

about. peace between the two countries was about the need. why i think there's really three traunch is for today's agreement one is the emotional second is the economic and thirty security and i think these are really in a related the emotional part we see here these two koreas joining forces the leaders talking about things maybe talking about the families that have been split up fifty or sixty thousand or so as a result of the korean war and that leads into economics and economics the trade between these two countries they border one another of course but the trade is basically nothing there was the case on industrial complex a few years ago but that was shut down so the key issue is should we revive it what other type of trade agreements or economic arrangements should the two koreas engage in and ultimately that culminates into the third area which is security and because it's the most complex because it's the most sensitive that's probably left to the very end and if there is an agreement on these three and in particular on

security my best guess is that it'll deal with ford torrie broad based language such that both sides can interpret and extrapolate what they want out of this agreement take it back to their constituents and claim when just a came in thank you very much indeed talking just life in the south korean capital seoul. now let's go to armenia because the acting head of government there has rejected talks with the opposition just days before parliament is due to choose a new prime minister and this follows days of political turmoil which saw the sudden resignation of the prime minister's surge surrogacy and after a major antigovernment protests the opposition leader nicola. is pushing for the ruling republican party to give up power but acting prime minister cameron katter petir now says he is the only possible candidate all right we're going to get the very latest now by talking to our correspondent robin for a ca walker who's in the capital yerevan and it all seems so complex in that

nothing really has been resolved despite the opposition managing to get rid of the prime minister who they disapproved of. yes it's not going to happen in one day although when when the prime minister resigned everyone was astonished at how swiftly things gathered pace but i would say that right at the moment we're talking about at least in the capital yerevan a little bit of a breather going on with the opposition actually saying everybody in the capital should rest and prepare for what is going to be a very important day on tuesday next week when parliament is expected to appoint a new prime minister and they call passion yeah and. presumed people's kind of date he is described the right person to take that place and certainly the tens of thousands of people that we've seen over the last few days coming out want him to

be that. but it's not going entirely the way the opposition would want because the administration the government there is still nominally in charge off the. resignation is pushing back today we were expecting the possibility of talks between. the acting prime minister who is taking over from his name is karen as you mentioned that a bit like happened a little earlier this week mr. declined to participate in these talks because. he has stated these are really not negotiations as he understands them because he says that he's just being dictated to that the opposition is only making. in the mood for negotiation the opposition wanted to have the press that in the

interests of transparency this is what they're all about they don't want. secret discussions behind closed doors they want this to be about. as democrat. so you can as open as possible and in a way that's has been working very well for them that's why they have so much support from ordinary armenians who you know are frustrated fed up with years of of sort of you know secretive and. you know background. talks and wheeling and dealing going on that's how they see their government in a corrupt sort of well maybe i'm just i'm just wondering i'm just wondering about the democratic process they've had elections the republican party victorious they nominated their own person. whatever reason sags i guess he and his has now stepped down but does that invalidate the election.

the elections that have taken place in the media have over the years been a widely criticized internationally by credible observers as being fundamentally flawed in terms of vote rigging in terms of manipulations and control of the electoral system. so-called administrative resources whether the leading party has control over things like you know. a very large bureaucratic bureaucracy you know people employed by the government whether they're in in the universities or in let's say the health sector and so this is why. their legitimacy is in question say the opposition and this is why the opposition is so insistent that it's time for the leading party to step aside. they want their sort of total surrender capitulation which means. with the with the current existing

acting a prime minister pushing back and saying no we're not going to be talked to this way things are set for a pretty. turbulent few days ahead and culminating in that vote in parliament we're expecting on tuesday so it's not over yet for the for the opposition all right thank you for that and robin for us a walk live from the armenian capital yet a fun. ride to take a look at the top stories here no doubt is there a denuclearization and permanent peace these are the issues that the leaders of north and south korea talking about at the summit in the demilitarized and kim jong un made history by becoming the first north korean leader to set foot in the south since the end of the korean war. much to james this meeting i hope that there is a new history. of prosperity and i will approach this with a feeling of a brand new stuff. i'd like to discuss issues that are standing on the street and

frankly i would like to take this opportunity to say that i hope to have a very good conversation with president on a frank and with intent. when the supreme leader across the demarcation line on this historic moment there is a mensa expectation almost all over the world and i hope this discussion is productive let's approach this discussion boldly and wishing for peace and i like to give something very big to the people looking up we have all day to talk and let's do something and make up for the ten years stuff we have that passed. just a short while ago the two leaders planted a memorial tree a gesture that is meant to symbolize peace they use soil from the highest mountains on each side of the peninsula they also unveiled a stone which read planting peace and prosperity armenia's acting head of

government has rejected talks with the opposition just days before parliament is due to choose a new prime minister this follows days of political turmoil which has seen the sudden resignation of the prime minister after a major anti-government protest the opposition leader is now pushing for the ruling republican policy to give up power but the acting prime minister is now saying that hazy any possible candidate for a job today those are the very latest headlines in here at al-jazeera i'll be back after the stream. he has no passport yet he's politically active in two countries. hour at peaceful transition because you know some people think you are stupid and crazy if you do that mikhail saakashvili former president of georgia and ex governor of the odessa region in ukraine talk to al jazeera.