"North and South Korea sign pact for peace."

After WWII while the US, Britain, France, and Russia were dividing the spoils, it became clear the Korean Peninsula was a problem. The US wasn't going to tolerate a Sino-Russian puppet aimed at Japan, and Russia and China weren't going to tolerate a Western puppet on their border. The decision was made to divide it at the 38th parallel and satisfy everyone except, maybe, the Koreans.

That's why there was the fight to the 38th again as the result of the Korean Conflict. Neither side would let the other go any farther. The war took place after, like Kuwait, the US signalled that the area was outside our sphere of interest. That was taken by the North Koreans as permission. While the Soviet Union and China did not want the conflict, North Korea invaded without their permission and they were stuck with it. Dictators, like capitalists, like to extend their influence. (The Soviet Union used it as a training ground for their combat pilots.)

This "reconcilliation", I think, will take place as fast as Russia, China and the US acknowledge their mutual interdependence and become less afraid of invasion. It's not very much a Korean thing.

(I know, I know, the North Koreans were and are evil, and invaded because it was the cruelest things they could do and at the insistence of the evil Chinese and Russians, as part of their drive for world hegemony. Spare me.)

Arf