Historic inter-Korean summit: When the two Koreas met

Kim Jong-Un made history in April this year by becoming the first North Korean leader to set foot in South Korea in six decades. He met South Korean president Moon Jae-in for the third inter-Korean summit at the Peace House, a three-storeyed building located just across the demilitarised zone (DMZ) on the South Korean side of Panmunjom truce village.

Smiling and holding hands, Kim and Moon met at the DMZ, one of the most heavily guarded places on earth. Kim invited Moon to step briefly across the demarcation line into North Korea, before the two leaders crossed back into South Korea holding hands.

At the talks on April 27, both sides had a candid and earnest exchange of views on the matters of mutual concern including the issues of improving the North-South relations, ensuring peace on the Korean peninsula and the denuclearisation of the peninsula.

Add WION as a Preferred Source

The talks came weeks before Kim met US President Donald Trump for a summit in Singapore.

The DMZ - a legacy of the Cold War - intersects the 38th Parallel, which was the border separating the two countries before the Korean war of 1950.

Impoverished North Korea and the rich, democratic South are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty and the North has been engaged in a standoff over its nuclear and missile programmes that it conducts in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions.

But tensions have eased in recent months, with the North taking part in the Winter Olympics in the South in February and an exchange of threats of war with the United States and other bellicose rhetoric evaporating.