Leaders from the nations of North and South Korea met for the first time 20 years ago on June 13, an event hailed at the time as a new era, according to CNN, in Korean political relations.
Last week, North Korea said it has officially cut off all communication with its southern neighbor, a move experts said could signal Pyongyang has grown frustrated that Seoul has failed to revive lucrative inter-Korean economic projects and persuade the United States to ease sanctions.
The historic first summit between North and South Korea was held June 13–15, 2000, in Pyongyang. Kim Jong-il, the North Korean supreme leader, met with Kim Dae-jung, the South Korean president at the time, who received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
Kim Dae-jung had adopted his controversial “Sunshine Policy,” which was meant to signal South Korea’s “softer” approach in its dealings with its communist northern neighbor.
The Korean War broke out on June 25, 1950. Three years of brutal fighting left an estimated 1.3 million to 2.4 million Koreans dead. About 900,000 Chinese troops and 100,000 U.S. troops were killed and wounded. Turkey, Britain, Canada, France, Australia, Greece and other U.N. countries lost between 2,000 and 3,000 troops.
An armistice called for a no-man’s land 2.4 miles wide to run 150 miles across the middle of the peninsula at approximately the 38th parallel. To this day, this heavily mined “demilitarized zone,” or DMZ, bristles on its opposing borders with thousands of troops on hair-trigger alert. Some 37,000 U.S. troops remain stationed in South Korea.
North Korea today is a communist dictatorship, an isolated, destitute country cut off from modern technology and struggling with severe food shortages. South Korea evolved into a capitalist democracy, a manufacturing dynamo now embracing the digital economy.
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