President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea meets Kim Jong-il, leader of North Korea, for the beginning of the first ever inter-Korea summit, in the northern capital of Pyongyang.

Kim Dae-jung was a South Korean politician, activist and statesman who served as the eighth president of South Korea from 1998 to 2003.

Kim Jong Il was a North Korean politician and dictator who was the second supreme leader of North Korea from the death of his father Kim Il Sung in 1994 until his death in 2011, when he was succeeded by his son, Kim Jong Un. Posthumously, Kim Jong Il was declared Eternal General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK).

North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and borders China and Russia to the north at the Yalu (Amnok) and Tumen rivers, and South Korea to the south at the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The country's western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eastern border is defined by the Sea of Japan. North Korea, like South Korea, claims to be the sole legitimate government of the entire peninsula and adjacent islands. Pyongyang is the capital and largest city.

Inter-Korean summits are meetings between the leaders of North and South Korea. To date, there have been five such meetings so far, three of them being in Pyongyang, with another two in Panmunjom. The importance of these summits lies in the lack of formal communication between North and South Korea, which makes discussing political and economic issues difficult. The summits' agendas have included topics such as the ending of the 1950-53 war, the massive deployment of troops at the DMZ, the development of nuclear weapons by North Korea, and human rights issues.