The north and south of the Korean Peninsula, divided by a 240-km, five-decade-old military demarcation line, have in recent years agreed on the need to ease tensions and safeguard peace on the peninsula, but the root cause for a potential flare-up of armed conflict has yet to be removed if peace is here to stay.
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, who is scheduled to travel to Pyongyang for an inter-Korean summit on Oct. 2-4, said earlier this month that a peace treaty ending the 1950-53 Korean War will top the agenda of the meeting.
At the dawn of the new century, the top leaders from the two sides met for the first time in more than 50 years and agreed, in a joint declaration issued at the end of their meeting here in June 2000, to "solve the question of the country's reunification independently by the concerted efforts of the Korean nation responsible for it."
As a result of arduous joint work, the two sides, which had been wide apart on how to achieve reunification, recognized that "a proposal for federation of lower stage advanced by the North side and a proposal for confederation put forth by the South side for the reunification of the country have elements in common" and both sides agreed to work for reunification in this direction.
The DPRK and South Korea are technically still at war as the Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. But cooperation and exchanges between the two sides have been unprecedented since the June 2000 summit in Pyongyang. Ministerial-level talks and general-level talks have been held while economic cooperation was boosted.
Ending military confrontation has been the acutest issue as north-south relations thaw in other fields. The two sides have been working to ease the tension in the military realm since the first inter-Korean summit.
The general-level military talks have produced agreements on some issues. The two sides have realized that, to achieve common prosperity, it is important and imperative to end military confrontation.
Under the accords they have reached, both sides stopped the propaganda activities along the military demarcation line and made the first ever direct radio contact. They also agreed on providing security guarantees for a test run of the cross-border railways in May.
But the root cause for a potential armed conflict has not been eliminated. The maritime demarcation of western waters has been a focal point.
South Korea unilaterally set the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the Yellow Sea at the end of the Korean War as a maritime border, but the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) does not recognize it. Naval clashes between the two sides occurred in 1999 and 2002 near the disputed maritime territory in the Yellow Sea, killing some people and injuring some others.
The DPRK maintains the western waters should be redemarcated according to international law while South Korea says the NLL should be respected. The two sides, however, have agreed on control measures to ward off any future conflicts.
Disputes also flared over the annual joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States. The DPRK views the exercises as drills for war against it and vows to strengthen its defensive war deterrence force. South Korea says it is an annual event and poses no threat to the DPRK.
About 28,000 U.S. troops are currently stationed in South Korea as a legacy of the war.
Source: Xinhua
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