Why the Korean War didn’t end — and why it could now

It’s been just over two months since President Trump met North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in Singapore, and there has been little visible progress so far in persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.

On Wednesday, North Korean state media seemed to offer an explanation: First, the Korean War must officially end.

“Let us adopt the declaration on ending war, build a peace mechanism to make durable peace,” the Korean Central News Agency said. “Let us not insist on ‘denuclearization first’ only and never pardon the unreasonable act of the U.S. forcing the north to make a unilateral concession!”

The remarks were a reminder that the future of the two Koreas is still tightly tied to their past — in particular, to a war in which the bulk of the fighting stopped 65 years ago.