South and North Korean negotiators to meet at DMZ for first time since 2015

January 8, 2018 at 19:37

North and South Korean negotiators have met multiple times in the past, without any permanent decrease in tensions or hostilities, and analysts advised caution on Tuesday's talks.

(CNN) - After more than a year of mounting tensions on the Korean Peninsula, we might finally be seeing something different.

Negotiators left Seoul early Tuesday to sit down with their North Korean counterparts for the first time since December 2015, after a hotline between the two technically-still-at-war nations reconnected last week.

The meeting will take place at Peace House in the Joint Security Area, also known as Panmunjom or "truce village," the only part of the 250 kilometer (160 mile), heavily-fortified demilitarized zone where North and South Korean soldiers stand face-to-face.

This was also the location of a dramatic defection by a North Korean soldier last month, who ran across the DMZ to South Korea while under heavy gunfire from his former colleagues.

Negotiators will discuss North Korean participation in the upcoming Winter Olympics, to begin in Pyeongchang, South Korea early next month, as well as "inter-Korean relationships," according to Seoul.

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