Friday’s meeting between South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in and North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong Un will mark the culmination of whirlwind diplomacy that has taken the neighbours from the edge of war to openly discussing peace in only four months.
But as Mr Moon moves to secure a deal to establish permanent peace on the peninsula, he is also wary of repeating past mistakes of his two liberal predecessors who held meetings with the late North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il.
The previous summits, which focused more broadly on ending conflict and expanding economic exchanges, were in Pyongyang in 2000 and 2007 and generated a host of economic and military agreements that led to little headway.