South Korea's Moon Jae-in makes a historic trip to Pyongyang Tuesday

Pedestrians walk past a giant banner showing a picture of the summit handshake between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

(Image credit: Jung Yeon-je/Getty Images)

published 16 September 2018

South Korean President Moon Jae-in will travel to Pyongyang Tuesday for his third summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in 2018.

Moon's trip will be the first time a South Korean president has visited the North's capital city in more than a decade, and the meeting is expected to be a landmark moment for both Moon's presidency and inter-Korean relations. "Depending on what the government's goal from the summit is, it could make or break his presidency," Lee Eun-young of the Korea Public Opinion Lab told Bloomberg.

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"We will not let this heartfelt opportunity slip through," said South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo on Thursday. "Returning to our 70-year history of conflict and hatred is not an option."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.