A U.S. soldier from the United Nations Command watches over the Peace House at Panmunjeom on April 18, where today's inter-Korean summit is to be held. / Korea Times file

By Ko Dong-hwan

The heads of the two Koreas meet at Panmunjeom today, the first inter-Korean leaders' summit in 11 years and the first at the border village divided in two by the military demarcation line (MDL).

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will cross the MDL to the south side of Panmunjeom to meet his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in around 9.30 a.m. They will begin their historic summit at 10.30 a.m. in the Peace House. A state dinner also will be held at the venue.

The meeting has attracted the largest media contingent ever to an inter-Korean summit, with almost 3,000 reporters from South Korean and around the world covering the event.

Panmunjeom is known as the truce village where China, North Korea and the United Nations Command (UNC) signed the armistice that brought the Korean War to a halt in 1953.

Panmunjeom, previously known as the village of Neolmun-ri, had a group of tents erected there in 1951 so liaison officers from North Korea and the UNC could meet to talk about how to end the war.

A South Korean soldier at Panmunjeom in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, watches North Korean soldiers across the military demarcation line as they change shift on April 19. / Korea Times file

The village saw no progress on talks until July 1953, when both sides agreed to put hostilities on hold indefinitely. They established the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas and agreed to jointly monitor Panmunjeom's security _ establishing the Joint Security Area (JSA).

The first inter-Korean meeting in the post-Korean War era came in August 1971, when the two sides used Panmunjeom for the first time as the venue for talks to arrange Red Cross societies' contact. It heralded future inter-Korean talks at the truce village that have amounted to 360 ― more than half the 655 rounds of inter-Korean talks held so far.

In 1975, the village witnessed a chilling clash between U.S. and North Korean soldiers. U.S. Army Major W. D. Henderson, a UNC security officer in the JSA, was sitting on a bench outside the UNC's Joint Duty Officer office when an argument with a North Korean journalist drew several North Korean guards who beat the major until his larynx fractured.

A gruesome attack followed the next year, when North Korean soldiers in the JSA killed two U.S. Army officers who were chopping down a tree that partially blocked the line of sight with a U.N. observation post. The North's soldiers claimed their country's founder Kim Il-sung planted the tree.

South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon, left, shakes hands with North Korea's Chairman of the Committee for Peaceful Reunification Ri Son-gwon in the Tongilgak building on the northern side of Panmunjeom, March 29, after discussing details for Friday's inter-Korean summit. / Korea Times file

In 1984, Soviet tourist Vasily Matuzok, who was on a visit to the JSA hosted by the North, ran across the MDL saying he wanted to defect. North Korean soldiers chased him and opened fire, which South Korean soldiers returned as they rescued Matuzok. One South Korean and three North Korean soldiers were killed.

In 1994, former United States President Jimmy Carter visited Pyongyang via Panmunjeom and returned after three days.

In 1998, Hyundai Group founder Chung Ju-yung crossed the border through the village with 1,001 cows to provide aid to the North. The "unification cows" carried the South's message of wishing to tear down the border, an idea the South had been championing.

In 2017, a North Korean soldier defected to the South through the village, with armed North Korean guards chasing him. The defector, Oh Chong-song, was shot multiple times and taken to Ajou University Hospital in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, where he recovered.

Oh, who had been watching South Korean TV dramas and harboring dreams of defecting, drank eight bottles of soju before running toward Panmunjeom. South Korean investigators concluded Oh "impulsively" defected.