Moon wants to formally end the Korean War. Can it bring peace? | Nuclear Weapons News

North Korean Day test shot The first missile of the year, South Korean President Moon Jae-in was in the border town of Goseong to take part in the opening ceremony of a railroad that he hopes will one day reconnect the divided Korean peninsula.

Concerned that the January 5 test is likely to further destabilize Korean relations, Moon stressed that his government will not give up hope of resuming peace talks.

Only talks can “fundamentally overcome this situation,” the South Korean president said. “If the two Koreas work together and build trust, peace will be achieved one day.”

Since taking office five months ago, Moon has made unprecedented efforts to contact North Korean Kim Jong Un. The couple reunited Three times In 2018, committing Proclaim the Korean War – which did not end with a peace treaty in 1953, but with an armistice – ended by the end of the year.

But that offer, along with negotiations to dismantle Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal and speed up global sanctions, stopped the following year, when a summit between former US President Kim and Donald Trump broke down in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi.

Kim pulls back offers On the part of Trump’s successor, to enter into talks without preconditions.

In recent months, Moon, who is due to resign in May, has done just that he took the step efforts to reorient the peace process by lobbying the United States and China, both of which took part in the Korean War, to formally end the conflict.

In a recent appearance at the UN General Assembly, Moon said that all major parties to the conflict “if we call for an end to the war, I believe we can make irreversible progress in denuclearization and usher in an era of full peace.”

The proposal has the support of most South Korean audiences, but has divided experts. Some say it could help break the diplomatic impasse on the Korean peninsula, while others fear it could threaten South Korea’s security, including weakening the country’s defense alliance with the United States.

‘Political and symbolic measure’

Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online.

Christine Ahn, executive director of the Women Cross DMZ promoter group, said that the US, South Korean and North Korean leaders’ summits in 2018 and 2019 were imposed by Kim. moratorium about nuclear missiles and long-range tests release Among the three Americans arrested, removal of mining Parts of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separates the two Koreas, as well meeting separated families.

“It’s time to dump her and move on.”

But to be effective, the statement says “all parties must be committed to reducing fundamental changes and hostilities in U.S. policy.” This could lead to steps such as easing sanctions, reducing US and South Korean ones military exercises, as well as the U.S. uprising travel ban To enable family reunions in North Korea.

Ahn says the signing of the end-of-war declaration will allow diplomats to “get to work, start negotiations where they left off in Hanoi, and begin the process of establishing disarmament schedules.”

He added that those who argue against the statement have not offered a viable alternative.

“It is not a viable solution to emphasize that North Korea is giving in to US demands for denuclearization and to believe that more pressure tactics will achieve these goals when there is no evidence to the contrary,” he said.

The U.S. has yet to confirm how much support it will give to the Moon’s peace push, and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said last October that Seoul and Washington have “relatively different views on the proposed agreement on sequence or timing or conditions.”

Washington has not commented much on the proposal, although South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong said on Dec. 29 that Seoul and Washington had “effectively reached an agreement on its draft text.”

The South Korean Foreign Ministry also said earlier this month that China supports its initiative, and a senior Chinese official said Beijing believes the move “will help promote peace and stability on the Korean peninsula.”

Diplomatic invention?

North Korea’s response, however, has been lukewarm so far.

Kim’s strong sister, Kim Yo Jong, called The proposal was “interesting and admirable” last year, but said the conditions were not right for Seoul’s “enemy” policy – a reference to economic sanctions and Pyongyang’s annual US and South Korean military exercises that call for an invasion attempt.

And Kim, same new year lecture this year, he made no mention of the South Korean proposal.

Lee Sung-yoon, a North Korean expert at the Fletcher School at Tufts University in the United States, believes that North Korea is only “pretending to be disinterested,” as the U.S. has been pushing for a declaration of an end to the war since the 1970s. He signed a peace agreement to end the Vietnam War.

“North Korea remembers the long-term reduction and elimination of US military aid to South Korea. And the declaration of the end of the war is a child’s step, but a significant step in that direction, ”he said.

There are currently about 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea in the United States, and the Moon government has said the end-of-war declaration will not affect the alliance between the two nations. In addition, the proposal does not imply “a legal and structural change in the current armistice regime,” in a U.S.-led charge. An order (UNC), a multinational military force that helped repel the North Korean invasion in 1953 and is now in charge of enforcing the armistice.

But Lee says a statement at the end of the war “would undoubtedly make the UNC illegal and should be disbanded,” which also raises questions about the need to deploy American troops on the Korean peninsula and the U.S. in South Korea.

“The most attractive model for North Korea is the Paris Peace Agreement of January 1973, which ended the Vietnam War and led to the US withdrawing from South Vietnam,” Lee said. “It was called a peace treaty, a peace agreement, but a day later it was a war, and the North united Vietnam under the communist government in 1975.”

He added: “So all these pleasant and peaceful sound agreements are good if there is a will to keep the peace, on both sides or between all the signatories. Sometimes it’s a bad diplomat, it’s a trick to get the opposite, to gain control and to get the territory through peaceful means. “

‘Long’

For all the merits and dangers of the South Korean proposal, its fate is uncertain.

The five-year term of the Moon will end in less than five months, and there will be close competition for the presidency.

Lee Jae-myung, Moon’s party candidate, backs the plan, but his main opponent, Yoon Seok-yul, has spoken out against it, saying an end-of-war statement could weaken the UNC and weaken the U.S. military’s internal military presence. South Korean.

And while Seoul has claimed support for the proposed US-China declaration, experts say there is little clarity internationally.

Bong Young-shik, a researcher at the Yonsei University Institute for North Korean Studies in Seoul, says the United States and North Korea want different results from an end-of-war declaration.

“For the United States, a joint statement is acceptable if it will lead to significant and significant progress in the denuclearization of North Korea. But this statement is not closely linked to progress in that direction,” he said.

“And for North Korea, agreeing on a joint statement should bring some significant benefits. What North Korea wants most is easing sanctions. But that’s not something the South Korean government can decide. So if the benefits aren’t guaranteed, the North Korean government won’t have that proposal. will look attractive.

“This has been a long, long time since the beginning.”