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It is a surreal moment in international diplomacy.
Only in fevered dreams could the image of Kim Jong-un walking hand in hand with Moon Jae-in have been conjured.
The two leaders who, just last year, were trading insults and threats looked like old friends enjoying the moment in the sun.
The ceremonial welcome put on by the South was full of colour, reflecting an optimism that just maybe this could be the start of a real breakthrough.
But despite the positive orchestration, the needs of these two men are very different, and perhaps mutually exclusive.
South Korea, indeed the world, would dearly love to see Mr Kim give up his weapons of mass destruction that his family have spent decades developing.
But he sees his security, his regime's survival, guaranteed by the threat of nuclear attack.
We have seen the light of compromise from Pyongyang many times before.
He and his father played the region and beyond with ruthless skill, extracting billions in aid in reply for promises to end the North's nuclear program, which never happened.
The sanctions have had their effect. It's brought the smiling young leader south for the first time.
It's encouraged the hope this time will be different and maybe a genuine deal can be done; one that actually sticks.
But what could the South and its many allies offer Mr Kim that could possibly guarantee regime survival? That is the fundamental problem.
The North Korean leader can look to Libya's Colonel Gaddafi, who agreed to give up his WMD research and ended up dying in a ditch.
The simple lesson of history is atomic power really does protect the possessors. At least, it has up until now.
If these and Donald Trump's talks fail to produce a verifiable end to North Korea's nuclear weapons, it's almost certain the Americans will act.
And that could spark a catastrophic war in which the biggest losers will be ordinary Koreans on both sides of the DMZ who could perish in their millions.
It's hard to see how both sides can be satisfied. The North wants an end to the crippling sanctions and no doubt more billions in aid.
And Mr Kim will demand the 30,000 American troops now stationed in South Korea go home. So far so good.
That is all possible but only if the North gives up the one weapon it believes has kept it safe. It's almost impossible to imagine.
But this is just the beginning of perhaps many months of negotiations.
There is just a chance a real deal can be done. But it's not likely given the history of false hope and deception.
What then? The threat of nuclear war could become horrifyingly real. And no-one can afford that.
Topics: government-and-politics, world-politics, unrest-conflict-and-war, korea-democratic-peoples-republic-of, korea-republic-of
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