"The war is over" is the announcement that arose from North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and South Korea’s Moon Jae-in first historic meeting on April the 27th. "The starting signal at the threshold of a new history", as the North-Korean leader put it during the opening ceremony in border town of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone between the the two countries. For months, the world held its breath as tensions over Pyongyang’s military provocations escalated, igniting a war of words between Noth Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump. With his 2018 new year’s speech, however, Kim signalled an abrupt shift in strategy, launching a diplomatic offensive toward Seoul and Washington, which culminated in the intent to meet with his South Korean and US counterparts and in his latest announcement on halting nuclear and missile tests. The third inter-Korean summit - the last one was held 11 years ago - is expected to be a crucial stepping-stone towards a peace regime aimed at letting Koreans reconnect across the 38th parallel and finally move beyond the Cold-war framework that ruled over the Korean Peninsula since 1953. What is at stake? What can the two sides realistically hope to achieve? And which impact will the North-South meeting have on the negotiating agenda for the recently announced US-North Korea summit?
