Composite: Park Tae-hyun/AP / Getty
North and South Korea share a language and traditional culture, but politically their modern history is one of conflict and division. The Korean peninsula, a Japanese colony from 1910 to 1945, was roughly divided in two along the 38th parallel by US and Soviet occupying forces at the end of the second world war. In 1948, North Korea was established by Kim Il-sung – the first of three generations of the Kim dynasty to rule the country with an iron fist. The South, a US ally, was proclaimed a republic the same year.
Tensions boiled over in 1950, when North Korea launched an attack on the South – the opening salvo in what would become a bloody three-year conflict, with the North supported by China and the Soviet Union and the South by a US-dominated UN force. The war ended in 1953 in an uneasy truce, but not a peace treaty.
More than 70 years later , the two countries remain divided by a 2.5-mile (4km) wide and 155-mile (249km) demilitarised zone (DMZ), which serves as a reminder that North and South Korea are technically still at war. The border is often the focal point for tensions between the neighbours, including the North’s recent demolition of roads leading to the South – symbols of the goal of reunification recently abandoned by current leader Kim Jong-un.
Relations between the neighbours have alternated between engagement and estrangement, and even conflict. Under Kim, North Korea has defied international sanctions to develop a nuclear deterrent that he has shown no sign of wanting to give up.Cross-border ties reached another low point with reports the North sent thousands of troops to help Russia in its war against Ukraine, in addition to large quantities of ammunition. And there has been a new round of cross-border friction in the form of the “balloon wars”.
