Moon, Kim shake hands, raising hope for formal end of Korean War

KYODO NEWS - Apr 27, 2018 - 09:35 | World, All

South Korean President Moon Jae In and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shook hands for the first time on Friday, fueling hope that the two may be paving the way for a formal end of the Korean War.

As the two countries remain technically in a state of war due to the 1950-1953 conflict that ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty, their leaders have held formal talks only twice, in 2000 and 2007.

In the war that began on June 25, 1950 with a North Korean invasion, the United States and the United Nations fought alongside South Korea against the North, which was supported by China and the Soviet Union.

Hostilities ceased with an armistice agreement signed on July 27, 1953 by the U.S.-led U.N. Command, North Korea and China, to which South Korea was not a party.

The Korean Peninsula has since been split in two by the Demilitarized Zone, a 4-kilometer-wide strip of land that runs for 250 km across peninsula and has come to be known as the world's last Cold War frontier.

North Korea has long called for a peace treaty to formally end the war, but the United States has rejected it, saying it makes not sense to discuss a peace treaty without making progress in North Korea's nuclear issue.