6.15 선언 '20주년', 되돌아보는 남북정상회담<br /><br /> Twenty years ago today was the historic meeting between the late former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung... and North Korea's late former leader Kim Jong-il.<br />Our Choi Won-jong details several key events from that summit and the ones since. <br /> When the late former President Kim Dae-jung shook hands with Kim Jong-il, it was the first time the leaders of South and North Korea had met in person since the division of the Korean Peninsula more than half a century before.<br /><br />"I look forward to it. With this visit, I sincerely look forward to transforming a relationship filled with distrust into a relationship of reconciliation and cooperation." <br /><br />Sitting down in Pyeongyang, the two leaders signed the June 15 Inter-Korean Joint Declaration. <br />The agreement included promises like reuniting separated family members,... and easing military tensions.<br />Some of those promises, like the reunions, were fulfilled, but relations became tense again after the North conducted several nuclear tests in 2006.<br /><br /> The following year, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun went to Pyeongyang for talks on the nuclear issue, and the leaders agreed to move ahead in earnest with a joint industrial complex near the border at Gaeseong.<br />That part of the agreement, at least, lasted until 2016... when the Gaeseong complex was shut down by the administration of Park Geun-hye due to a series of nuclear tests by the North.<br /><br /> But in 2018 there was a renewed sense of hope for relations, with a new liberal administration in South Korea and a young leader in charge in the North.<br />They decided to hold a summit in April that year, the first one in a decade, and another one the following month, at the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjeom, inside the DMZ.<br /> Their third, and fifth overall, was held in the North Korean capital of Pyeongyang in September.<br />The leaders agreed to reduce tensions between the two sides, but for two years on, there has been no sign of another inter-Korean summit. <br />Choi Won-jong, Arirang News. <br />
