SEOUL, South Korea (CNS) – Bishop Peter Lee Ki-heon of Uijeongbu has been waiting years for this moment, with the leaders of the two divided Koreas poised to meet for a historic summit just inside South Korean territory April 27.

Ucanews.com reported Bishop Lee, president of the Korean bishops’ Committee for the Reconciliation of the Korean People, released a statement April 13 expressing his belief that the summit would end decades of struggle and open a new era of peace on the peninsula.

“Now the Korean Peninsula is entering an important time of turbulence,” Bishop Lee wrote in the statement titled, “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

“With the inter-Korean summit, as well as the ensuing summit between North Korea and the U.S., expectations are growing that the 65-year-long confrontation and struggle will end and a new era of peace will come,” the statement read.

This will be the third major inter-Korean summit, decades after the Korean War ended in a cease-fire.

It comes in the wake of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung meeting former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang in 2000, and former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun following in his predecessor’s footsteps by venturing to the North Korean capital in 2007. Both of those meetings ultimately went nowhere, with the signs of rapprochement crumbling only to be replaced by threats of war.