Press center, online platform to be launched ahead of inter-Korean summit

South Korea will open a press center next week to accommodate the massive number of journalists likely to come from home and abroad to cover the upcoming historic inter-Korean summit, the preparation committee and government officials said Monday.

The press center will open at the KINTEX exhibition hall north of Seoul on April 26, according to the officials. Its launch will come a day before South and North Korean leaders will hold what will be the third inter-Korean summit talks in history at the truce village of Panmunjom.

It is expected that more than 2,000 foreign and local journalists and related staff workers will gather at the press center to cover the historic event.

Taking up an area of around 1,000 square meters, the press center will provide around 1,000 seats, along with special purpose rooms for press briefings and interviews. The size is around seven times larger than the press centers that operated during the 2000 and 2007 summits.

Major events unfolding at Panmunjom will be briefed and broadcasted live there. For foreign reporters, simultaneous interpretation services will likely be provided.

A separate press center will also be established at Panmunjom to allow pool reporters to cover the inter-Korea summit, they said.

An image of the online platform for the inter-Korean summit (Yonhap)

In a related move, an exclusive online platform at www.koreasummit.kr will be operational from noon on Tuesday to provide up-to-date information on the summit to both journalists and the general public.

Key information provided through the platform will be available in nine languages, including English, Chinese, Japanese, French, German and Russian, they said.

The inter-Korean summit is drawing keen attention amid hopes that it could provide a breakthrough in the North's nuclear stalemate. This comes after the North continued to carry out missile and nuclear provocations up until late last year and sparked concerns over possible military action against the North's nuclear program.

The two Koreas are expected to discuss ways to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, establish lasting peace and improve inter-Korean relations.

The talks will be followed by an unprecedented US-North Korea summit likely to be held either in May or June. (Yonhap)