North and South Korean officials shake hands and share a toast to peace

Senior North and South Korean parliamentarians shook hands and shared a toast to “peace” with Swiss wine on Tuesday, in a rare gesture of friendship suggesting relations between their two countries are thawing.

South Korean MP and politician Young Chin shook hands with Ri Jong-hyok, director of North Korea’s National Reunification Institute and deputy head of its Supreme People’s Assembly.

They were attending the annual assembly in Geneva of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), an organisation that brings together members of national parliaments from around the world.

“This is to peace, and the reunion of the Korean peninsula. Thank you very much for your commitment,” IPU secretary general Martin Chungong of Cameroon, who organised the meeting, told the two delegations as they toasted.

The diplomatic detente began in January with the announcement that Pyongyang would send athletes to compete in the Winter Olympics held in the South, as part of a unified Korean team.

It came after a year in which Pyongyang staged several missile launches and its biggest-ever nuclear test.