The Korean Summits — Panmunjom and Singapore
After a year in which North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile and both sides traded threats of annihilation, 2018 reversed direction entirely. North Korea sent a delegation to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in February; in April, Kim Jong Un stepped across the demarcation line at Panmunjom to meet President Moon Jae-in, the first North Korean leader to enter the South. The resulting Panmunjom Declaration committed both sides to a formal end to the Korean War and to complete denuclearisation of the peninsula. In June, Kim met Donald Trump in Singapore — the first meeting between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader. The joint statement was four short paragraphs, committing to new relations, a peace regime and work toward denuclearisation, with no definitions, timetable or verification mechanism. A second summit at Hanoi in February 2019 collapsed without an agreement when the two sides could not reconcile partial dismantlement at Yongbyon against the scope of sanctions relief demanded. A brief further meeting at Panmunjom in June 2019 produced nothing. North Korea has continued to expand its arsenal since, and in 2024 formally abandoned unification as a goal, redesignating the South as a hostile state.
- Year: 2018 CE
- Category: Diplomatic
