WEB DESK
Donald Trump has become the first president of the United States to walk across the demarcation line into North Korea to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Sunday.
Trump met Kim Jong Un at the truce village of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone DMZ between North and South Korea.
Trump stepped across the line into the North followed moments later by Kim, when the two leaders crossed to the South.
The two leaders shook hands warmly and expressed hopes for peace when they met for the third time in just over a year on the old Cold War frontier that for decades has symbolised the hostility between their countries, which are technically still at war.
Trump, escorted by Kim, briefly crossed a military demarcation line into the North.
Moments later, they returned to the South Korean side and joined South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in for a brief chat, marking an unprecedented three-way gathering.
Trump said that stepping across that line was a great honor, and a lot of progress has been made.
Kim said that Trump is the first US president to enter his country by crossing the demarcation line. He said Trump had made a brave decision to put the bad past behind them and to open up a bright future.
Trump and Kim sat down at Freedom House on the South Korean side. They spoke about the significance of the meeting for the relationship between their two countries.
It appears that this third face-to-face meeting between the two leaders was a spur-of-the-moment offer by Trump in a tweet on Saturday.
It comes months after they failed to reach an agreement on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula at their second summit in Hanoi in February.