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17th April 2018
03:46pm BST

South Korean soldiers stand guard at the border village of Panmunjom DMZ ahead of the summit (Credit: Chung Sung-Jun)[/caption]
North Korean strongman Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in are scheduled to meet April 27 in Panmunjon, a border village, in the third-ever summit of leaders from the two Koreas.
A phone line is being established between the two men from Friday, although an actual date for the beginning of communication is unknown.
Pyongyang and Seoul have technically been at war since the 1950-1953 Korean conflict ended with a truce. A successful meeting between Moon and Kim could pave the way for one between Kim and American President Donald Trump - the first between a sitting American president and a North Korean leader.
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Protestors in Berlin during the last flare-up of relations between America and North Korea (Credit: Omer Messinger)[/caption]
"Ending the state of conflict is the core of the whole thing. Peace is as complicated as denuclearisation," John Delury, an associate professor of Chinese studies at Yonsei University in Seoul, told Bloomberg.
"There also has to be a process of actually delivering the peace," he added.
A Seoul official said Tuesday that South Korean security officials may visit Pyongyang ahead of the summit in hopes of getting Kim to reaffirm his commitment to denuclearise, Reuters reported.
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A North Korean military check point seen from an observation post in Panmunjom (Credit: Chung Sung-Jun)[/caption]
"Even though our special envoys confirmed his denuclearization will, it is entirely different if the two leaders confirm it directly among themselves and put that into text," Moon’s chief of staff, Im Jong-seok, told reporters.
"We expect the summit will confirm the denuclearisation will (of North Korea)," he added.Explore more on these topics: