Let's continue our coverage of the upcoming summit between the leaders of the two Koreas.
As part of our build-up to the historic moment in Pyeongyang,... we thought we'd take a look back at the previous two inter-Korean summits that took place this year.
Hong Yoo reports.
At the start of this year, people never imagined that the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un would cross the border to set foot on the southern half of the Korean Peninsula.
That symbolic step was taken on April 27th, the same day that the leaders of the two Koreas agreed to work toward the "complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula".
During the first summit, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed the Panmunjom Declaration.
In it, the two Koreas announced they would work with the United States and China this year to declare an official end to the Korean War. Both leaders agreed to seek an agreement to establish "permanent" and "solid" peace.
"The structure of the declaration itself shows what problem needs to be tackled first. If you take a look at the first article, it talks about working on inter-Korean relations, and then comes improving the North Korea-U.S. relationship. The denuclearization of North Korea comes last. This domino structure shows that the two leaders are also in agreement on what should be done first in order to take the next step".
Next was the North Korea-U.S. summit.
But when North Korea did not show enough effort to denuclearize after the first 2018 Inter-Korean Summit, President Trump threatened that the meeting between him and Kim Jong-un might not take place.
And with that, suddenly, the two Koreas had another summit, which this time was held secretly and wasn't made public until after it had happened.
"President Moon must have talked about his experience with Donald Trump and things that Kim Jong-un must keep in mind when he meets Trump for the first time. And Kim, looking forward to meeting with the U.S. President, was really curious about Trump's style of making political decisions."
This sudden second inter-Korean Summit of 2018 showed that South Korea had actually succeeded at winning North Korea's trust.
And also that inter-Korean summits could now be held any time, even just for one day without any preparation, allowing the two leaders to meet whenever they wish.
Hong Yoo, Arirang News.
