South Korea's ruling and opposition party officials gathered on Thursday to commemorate the 16th anniversary of the first summit between Seoul and Pyongyang, amid the prolonged deadlock in the inter-Korean relationship following the North's recent provocations.

   In the June 2000 summit, the leaders of the two Koreas produced a landmark joint declaration, which outlines reconciliation and economic cooperation. South and North Korea remain technically at war as the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

   Lee Hee-ho, the widow of then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, also attended Thursday's event.

   The tension between the two Koreas, however, has been rising this year after Pyongyang's fourth nuclear test in January and the firing off of a long-range missile the following month. Seoul shut down the Kaesong Industrial Complex in the North's border city of the same name in February in response to the test. (Yonhap)