| Unification Pavilion | |
 The Unification (Tongil) pavilion | |
| Korean name | |
|---|---|
| Chosŏn'gŭl | |
| Hancha | |
| Revised Romanization | T'ongilgak |
| McCune–Reischauer | Tongilgak |
The Unification Pavilion is a venue for peace talks between North and South Korea. The building is situated in the Joint Security Area on the North side of the Military Demarcation Line bisecting the area. [1] Before the Korean War,the village,named Panmunjom,consisted of householders.
Situated on the North Korean side of the Military Demarcation Line is the Unification (Tongil) Pavilion,also used as a venue for non-military,diplomatic meetings. [2] [3] [4] The Unification pavilion,located 80 metres (260 ft) northwest of Panmumgak,is a two-story,1,500 square metres (16,000 sq ft) building built in 1969. [2] [5] Closed-circuit television and microphones are installed in the meeting room of the North-South Talks,so that the situation can be monitored in real time in Pyongyang.
A portion of the Unification Pavilion has also been used for North Korean military personnel office space.
Korean reunification is the potential unification of North Korea and South Korea into a single Korean sovereign state. The process towards reunification of the peninsula while still maintaining two opposing regimes was started by the June 15th North–South Joint Declaration in June 2000, was reaffirmed by the October 4th Declaration in October 2007 and the Panmunjom Declaration in April 2018, and the joint statement of U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un at the Singapore Summit in June 2018. In the Panmunjom Declaration, the two countries agreed to work to officially end the Korean conflict in the future.
Panmunjom, also known as Panmunjeom, now located in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea or Panmun-guyok, Kaesong, North Korea, was a village just north of the de facto border between North and South Korea, where the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement that ended the Korean War was signed. The building where the armistice was signed still stands.
The Sunshine Policy (Korean: 햇볕정책) is the theoretical basis for South Korea's foreign policy towards North Korea. Its official title is The Reconciliation and Cooperation Policy Towards the North (Korean: 대북화해협력정책), and it is also known as The Operational Policy Towards the North (Korean: 대북운영정책) and The Embracing Policy (Korean: 포용정책).
The Joint Security Area is the only portion of the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) where North and South Korean forces stand face-to-face. The JSA is used by the two Koreas for diplomatic engagements and, until March 1991, was also the site of military negotiations between North Korea and the United Nations Command (UNC).
The June 15th North–South Joint Declaration was adopted between leaders of North Korea and South Korea in June 2000 after various diplomatic meetings between the North and South. As a result of the talks, numerous separated families and relatives from the North and the South had meetings with their family members in Pyongyang and Seoul.
Formerly a single nation that was annexed by Japan in 1910, the Korean Peninsula has been divided into North Korea and South Korea since the end of World War II on 2 September 1945. The two governments were founded in the two regions in 1948, leading to the consolidation of division. The two countries engaged in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953 which ended in an armistice agreement but without a peace treaty. North Korea is a one-party totalitarian state run by the Kim dynasty. South Korea was formerly governed by a succession of military dictatorships, save for a brief one-year democratic period from 1960 to 1961, until thorough democratization in 1987, after which direct elections were held. Both nations claim the entire Korean peninsula and outlying islands. Both nations joined the United Nations in 1991 and are recognized by most member states. Since the 1970s, both nations have held informal diplomatic dialogues in order to ease military tensions.
Inter-Korean summits are meetings between the leaders of North and South Korea. To date, there have been five such meetings so far, three of them being in Pyongyang, with another two in Panmunjom. The importance of these summits lies in the lack of formal communication between North and South Korea, which makes discussing political and economic issues difficult. The summits' agendas have included topics such as the ending of the 1950-53 war, the massive deployment of troops at the DMZ, the development of nuclear weapons by North Korea, and human rights issues.
2000 inter-Korean summit was a meeting between South Korean president Kim Dae-jung and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong Il, which took place in Pyongyang from June 13 to June 15, 2000. It was the first inter-Korean summit since the Korean War 1950-1953.
Regarding the first inter-Korean summit, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Kim Dae-Jung for his work for democracy and human rights in North and South Korea in East Asia in general. Kim Dae Jung's Sunshine Policy for reconciliation with North Korea was recognized.
The 2007 Inter-Korean summit meeting was held between October 2 and October 4, 2007, in Pyongyang, between President Roh Moo-hyun of the Republic of Korea and Kim Jong Il of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). It is the second Inter-Korean summit following the 2000 inter-Korean summit. It is also called the 10.4 Inter-Korean summit. As a result of the talks, both sides announced a declaration for the development of inter-Korean relations and peace and prosperity.
2018 in North Korea was marked by attempts by the government to develop its international relationships, particularly in regards to South Korea. In February, North Korean athletes marched alongside their South Korean counterparts under the Korean Unification Flag at the 2018 Seoul Olympic Games. North Korea's Kim Jong-Un met with South Korea's Moon Jae-in three times during the year. Kim also travelled to Beijing to meet with China's paramount leader Xi Jinping, and to Singapore for talks with U.S. President Donald Trump.
The April 2018 inter-Korean summit took place on 27 April 2018 on the South Korean side of the Joint Security Area, between Moon Jae-in, President of South Korea, and Kim Jong Un, Chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea and Supreme Leader of North Korea. The summit was the third inter-Korean summit - the first in eleven years. It was also the first time since the end of the Korean War in 1953 that a North Korean leader entered the South's territory; President Moon also briefly crossed into the North's territory.
The 2018 North Korea–United States Singapore Summit, commonly known as the Singapore Summit, was a summit meeting between North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump, held at the Capella Hotel, Sentosa, Singapore, on June 12, 2018. It was the first-ever meeting between leaders of North Korea and the United States. They signed a joint statement, agreeing to security guarantees for North Korea, new peaceful relations, the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, recovery of soldiers' remains, and follow-up negotiations between high-level officials. Both leaders also met separately with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
The inter-Korean Peace House is a venue for peace talks between North and South Korea. The building is situated in the Joint Security Area on the south side of the Military Demarcation Line bisecting the area.
The Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Reunification of the Korean Peninsula was adopted between the Supreme Leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, and the President of South Korea, Moon Jae-in, on 27 April 2018, during the 2018 inter-Korean Summit on the South Korean side of the Peace House in the Joint Security Area.
The Inter-Korean House of Freedom is a four-story building located in the southern part of Panmunjom. It stands opposite to its North Korean equivalent, the Phanmun Pavilion. It is located 130 meters southwest of the Inter-Korean Peace House in the south of Panmunjom. The Inter-Korean House of Freedom was rebuilt on 9 July 1998 after demolition of the old house of freedom. The building hosted the 2019 North Korea–United States DMZ Summit. It was also one of many venues considered for the 2018 North Korea–United States summit, which would be eventually organized in Singapore.
The May 2018 inter-Korean summit was the second inter-Korean summit in 2018. On 26 May, North Korean state chairman Kim Jong Un and South Korean president Moon Jae-in met again in the joint Security Area, this time on the North Korean side in the Inter-Korean Peace House in the Unification Pavilion. The meeting took two hours, and unlike other summits it had not been publicly announced beforehand. Photos released by South Korea's presidential office showed Moon arriving at the northern side of the Panmunjom truce village and shaking hands with Kim's sister, Kim Yo-jong, before sitting down with Kim for their summit. Moon was accompanied by Suh Hoon, Director of the National Intelligence Service of South Korea, while Kim was joined by Kim Yong-chol, a former military intelligence chief who is now a vice chairman of the North Korean ruling party's central committee tasked with inter-Korean relations. The meeting was largely centered around North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's upcoming summit with US President Donald Trump. Kim and Moon also embraced before Moon returned to South Korea. On 27 May, Moon stated in a public address that he and Kim agreed to meet again at "anytime and anyplace" without any formality and that the North Korean leader once again pledged to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula in accordance with the Panmunjom Declaration.
The September 2018 inter-Korean summit was the third and final inter-Korean summit in the 2018-19 Korean peace process.
The Phanmun Pavilion is a North Korean building located in the northern part of Panmunjom, which is a building corresponding to the South Korean building Freedom House. It was built in September 1969 as a two-storey building 80 meters north of Freedom House.
The Inter-Korean Liaison Office (Korean: 남북공동연락사무소) was a joint liaison office of North Korea and South Korea located in North Korea's Kaesong Industrial Region.
The 2018−19 Korean peace process was initiated to resolve the long-running Korean conflict and denuclearize Korea. International concerns about North Korea's nuclear weapons came to a head in 2017, when they posed a direct threat to the United States. At the same time, Moon Jae-in was elected president of South Korea with the promise of returning to the Sunshine Policy, favoring good relations with North Korea. A series of summits were held between North Korea's Kim Jong Un, South Korea's Moon, and Donald Trump of the United States. Trump became the first sitting US President to meet a North Korean leader and to enter North Korean territory. Kim became the first North Korean leader to enter South Korean territory. Moon became the first South Korean President to give a speech in North Korea. In parallel to this, a number of cultural exchanges began. Tensions were lowered on both sides of the DMZ.
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