Column: If the Koreas can do it, why can't the rest of us set aside Cold War hostilities?

My initial reaction was surprise. Isn’t this the very same Kim Jong-un we have come to think of as an incurable madman? Yet here he is, shaking hands with his opposite number from South Korea and asking aloud, ‘Why has it taken so long?’

Of course, only a fool would be naïve about a man like Kim Jong-un who heads up one of the cruellest dictatorships on the planet. Nor is it implausible that he has been driven to negotiate by economic problems and pressure from China, the state on which North Korea depends for its basic survival.

In addition, the road to peace is a long one that must involve long term trust-building and concrete steps to remove the possibility of nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula.

For all that, I cannot believe I was the only citizen of Planet Earth last Friday who felt a flutter of hope as the two leaders shook hands outside the aptly named Peace House. For too long we have been told by the military-business establishment that only more war and arms sales can bring about peace between nations. Yet billions of us humans, generally ignored by the powers-that-be, nurture different beliefs. Namely, that dialogue, empathy, respect and co-operation remain the surest route to lasting peace through finding areas of mutual self-interest.

Sadly, this proposition was rejected recently by our government when they made a futile missile attack on Syria – possibly in the hope of diverting our attention from their domestic failures and unravelling policies. The justification in the case of Syria was that another dictator, President Assad, was entirely immune to rational dialogue.

But where else have we found hope in seemingly intractable conflicts between nations and people if not through dialogue?

The end of Apartheid and the creation of the rainbow nation in South Africa is a classic example. Personally, I find it immensely moving to recollect how the collapse of the odious Apartheid regime did not end in the inter-racial bloodbath so many predicted. Instead, goodwill and comprise led to the astonishing forgiveness of the Peace and Reconciliation Committees. There we saw the best sides of human nature in action.

Reconciliation is a word we should never underestimate. It is more powerful than hate in the end, as anyone who has fallen out and reconnected with a friend knows only too well.

And what about the Good Friday Agreement that settled the Troubles in Northern Ireland? I am old enough to remember that seemingly intractable conflict with its terrorist bombings, knee-cappings and military occupation of Ulster.

For all our folly, the evidence shows human beings can learn better.

I wish the Korean people only good fortune as their leaders promise: “To completely denuclearise, we declare that we will cooperate to bring about everlasting peace on the peninsula.”

Perhaps there are lessons for other troubled areas of the world. Israel’s illegal occupation (according to the UN and international law) of territories seized through military conquest since 1967 springs to mind. Likewise, the sufferings of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank.

Maybe it’s the right time for Britons to start our own denuclearisation program by scrapping the hyper-expensive nonsense that is renewing Trident. I would love to see a government in Britain actively seeking to negotiate nuclear disarmament all over the world through the United Nations. How about calling a world conference of nuclear powers to kick start the disarmament process?

A vital first step would be having the courage and vision to ban nuclear weapons in the British Isles. Let’s face it, only a maniac would ever consider using them. Their very existence makes their eventual misuse inevitable. As the Greek poet Homer pointed out long ago: ‘The blade itself incites us to deeds of violence.’ The time has come to set Cold War blades aside.