After the long, fractious relationship between the US and North Korea that posed a danger to world peace, the Singapore meeting seems like a ray of hope.
The Singapore summit between United States president Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is the first-ever meeting between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader.
After decades of threats, provocation and nuclear testing, there is hope the summit will lead to peace on the Korean Peninsula.
The 1953 armistice between North and South Korea ended the three-year-long Korean War, but, while it ended the fighting, it has left the Korean Peninsula on edge for 65 years.
The two nations are still technically at war and are only separated by a four-kilometre-wide strip of no-man’s-land known as the Demilitarised Zone.
In the years after the armistice, capitalist South Korea rapidly developed into a democratic nation that prospered, while the communist North came under totalitarian rule.
It has been ruled by a series of Supreme Leaders -- Kim Il-sung from 1948 until his death in 1994, followed by his son Kim Jong-il until he died in 2011, and now Kim Jong-un.
North Korea became a largely isolated nation, and former United States president George W. Bush described it in 2002 as part of what he called the "axis of evil. “States like these and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger,” President Bush had said.
In 1976, North Korea began its missile-development program, firing its first Scud missile eight years later in 1984.
Since the mid-1980s, the North has sporadically conducted nuclear tests to the condemnation of the United Nations and world powers.
In 2016, Kim Jong-un declared his country had a missile capable of striking the United States. "The entire United States is within range of our nuclear weapons, and a nuclear button is always on my desk. This is reality, not a threat,” Mr Kim is known to have said.
In July last year, North Korea fired its first intercontinental missile.
Two months later, US president Donald Trump stood in the United Nations General Assembly and promised to destroy the North if provoked. “Rocket Man (Kim) is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime. The United States is ready, willing and able, but, hopefully, this will not be necessary. That's what the United Nations is all about. That's what the United Nations is for. Let's see how they do," President Trump reacted.
But with this year's Pyeongchang Winter Olympics came a thaw in international relations.
North Korea competed in South Korea, with athletes of the two Koreas marching under a united flag.
There was even a joint Korean team in the women’s ice hockey.
Shortly afterwards, the promise of a meeting between the leaders of the North and South -- and a change in rhetoric from Mr Trump -- put a United States-North Korea summit on the agenda. “Kim Jong-un, he really has been very open and, I think, very honourable, from everything we're seeing. Now, a lot of promises have been made by North Korea over the years, but they've never been in this position. We have been very, very tough on maximum pressure. We have been very tough on, as you know, trade. We've been very, very tough at the border. Sanctions have been the toughest we've ever imposed on any country. And we think it will be a great thing for North Korea and it will be a great thing for the world," said President Trump.
Kim Jong-un became the first North Korean leader to step into South Korea when he crossed the Demilitarised Zone in April.
Mr Kim and South Korean president Moon Jae-in promised to bring an official end to the war, with a spokesman for President Moon saying peace on the Korean Peninsula was the focus. “I'm hopeful that we'll have a better future for Korea. And as far as the issues and the problem on the Korean Peninsula, we are the owners and we are responsible to resolve the issues,” President Moon’s translator quoted him as saying.
The meeting between President Trump and Mr Kim was abruptly cancelled last month after angry words were exchanged.
But crisis talks between US officials and North Korean vice-chairman General Kim Yong Chol helped heal the rift, setting the scene for the historic Singapore summit.
Listen to this feature in Punjabi here.
