This led to the Panmunjom Declaration on 27 April 2018, when the North and the South agreed to work together to denuclearize the peninsula, improve inter-Korean relations, end the conflict officially, and move towards the peaceful reunification.

[6] The many leaders advocating for Korean independence included the conservative and U.S.-educated Syngman Rhee, who lobbied the U.S. government, and the Communist Kim Il Sung, who fought a guerrilla war against the Japanese from neighboring Manchuria.

[19][20] Kim Il Sung lobbied Stalin and Mao for support in a war of reunification, while Syngman Rhee repeatedly expressed his desire to conquer the North.

In September 1950 United Nations Command, led by the U.S., intervened to defend the South, and following the Incheon Landing and breakout from the Pusan Perimeter, rapidly advanced into North Korea.

[42] In the Sino-North Korean Mutual Aid and Cooperation Friendship Treaty, China pledged to render immediate military and other assistance by all means to North Korea against any outside attack.

[59] In 1969, North Korea shot down a U.S. EC-121 spy plane over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 crew on board, which constituted the largest single loss of U.S. aircrew during the Cold War.

[61] In response to the Blue House raid, the South Korean government set up a special unit to assassinate Kim Il Sung, but the mission was aborted in 1972.

[61] In 1976, in now-declassified minutes, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense William Clements told Henry Kissinger that there had been 200 raids or incursions into North Korea from the South, though not by the U.S.

[69] According to South Korean politicians who have campaigned for compensation for the survivors, more than 7,700 secret agents infiltrated North Korea from 1953 to 1972, of which about 5,300 are believed not to have returned.

[80] As it increasingly emphasized its independence, North Korea began to promote the doctrine of Juche as an alternative to orthodox Marxism-Leninism and as a model for developing countries to follow.

[87] After Reagan supplied the South with F-16 fighters, and after Kim Il Sung visited Moscow in 1984, the USSR recommenced military aid and co-operation with the North.

[89][90] In 1983, North Korea carried out the Rangoon bombing, a failed assassination attempt against South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan while he was visiting Burma.

[91] The bombing of Korean Air Flight 858 in 1987, in the lead-up to the Seoul Olympics, led to the U.S. government placing North Korea on its list of terrorist countries.

[101] However, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, U.S. President George W. Bush denounced the policy, and in 2002 branded North Korea a member of an "Axis of Evil".

[2][3] Six-party talks involving North and South Korea, the United States, Russia, Japan, and China commenced in 2003 but failed to achieve a resolution.

[104] The North's Korean People's Army was numerically twice the size of South Korea's military and had the capacity to devastate Seoul with artillery and missile bombardment.

In 2013, amidst tensions about its missile program, North Korea forced the temporary shutdown of the jointly operated Kaesong Industrial Region.

[115] In 2014, according to the New York Times, U.S. President Barack Obama ordered the intensification of cyber and electronic warfare to disrupt North Korea's missile testing,[116] but this account has been disputed by analysts from the Nautilus Institute.

[123] It was also reported that, in 2016, North Korea hackers had stolen classified South Korean military data, including a plan for the killing of Kim Jong Un.

According to cybersecurity experts, North Korea maintained an army of hackers trained to disrupt enemy computer networks and steal both money and sensitive data.

[129] Following the sanctions, Trump warned that North Korean nuclear threats "will be met with fire, fury and frankly power, the likes of which the world has never seen before".

[135] In January 2018, the Vancouver Foreign Ministers' Meeting on Security and Stability on Korean Peninsula was co-hosted by Canada and the U.S., regarding ways to increase the effectiveness of the sanctions on North Korea.

[139] Kim Jong Un and Moon met at the Joint Security Area on 27 April, where they announced that their governments would work toward a denuclearized Korean Peninsula and formalize peace between North and South Korea.

[142] In September 2018, at a summit with Moon in Pyongyang, Kim agreed to dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons facilities if the United States took reciprocal action.

[148] On 16 June 2020, at approximately 2:49 p.m., the North Korean regime of Kim Jong Un blew up the North-South Joint Liaison Office in the Kaesong Industrial Complex.

[159] Kim further confirmed a shift in policy in January 2024, when he gave a speech to the Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) calling for the constitution to be amended to remove references to cooperation and reunification, as well as specify DPRK's territorial borders and add an article specifying the ROK as the most hostile country.

[164] On 1 March 2024, the government of President Yoon Suk Yeol plans to develop a new vision of unification with North Korea to include the principle of liberal democracy.

This response followed weeks of activists in the South launching balloons carrying K-pop, dollar bills, and anti-Kim Jong Un propaganda, which had infuriated Pyongyang.

[172] In October 2024, intelligence services from Ukraine, South Korea, and the United States began reporting the dispatch of several thousand North Korean troops to Russia.

[173][174][175] Moscow and Pyongyang initially denied this information, but at the BRICS summit, Vladimir Putin acknowledged the presence of North Koreans for the first time, without specifying the purpose of their arrival.