The Korean War began on June 25, 1950 with an invasion by the Soviet-supported Korean People’s Army (KPA) of the south following the post-World War II division of the Korean peninsula. Over the course of three years, over three million people died, and countries from around the world were embroiled in a conflict that reflected the East-West divide characteristic of the Cold War era. Finally, on July 27, 1953, representatives from North and South Korea signed an armistice agreement that ended fighting until a more permanent peace treaty was developed and signed. However, more than 70 years after the armistice, no such peace treaty exists and semantically, the Korean War continues. Satellite images from January 2024 show that North Korea has destroyed the Arch of Reunification, a physical symbol of their hope for reunification with the South built in 2000, following a historic meeting between leaders of both states.
How does this lack of closure affect the relationship between North and South Korea? Will a peace agreement ever exist between the two nations? These questions have plagued members of the international community since the armistice and could provide further insight into the significance of formal multilateral agreements for geopolitical peace.
Since the armistice was signed in 1953, many nations have attempted to facilitate ratification of a formal peace treaty that would officially end the war between North and South Korea. In 1991, both North and South Korea signed the Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-Aggression and Exchanges and Cooperation, also known as the ‘Basic Agreement‘. Under this agreement, both countries pledged to recognize the continued authority of the original armistice, while also committing efforts to devise a more concrete peace agreement. Additionally, both nations agreed to refrain from interfering in each other’s domestic affairs, use force against one another, and slander each other. The vitality of this agreement, then, rested on the perceived adherence to the conditions of the agreement. As a result, the agreement only weakly affirmed the bilateral commitment to peace on the peninsula.
In 1996, as relationships between North and South warmed slightly, North Korea drafted a treaty with the nonnegotiable condition of the US’s complete withdrawal from the Korean peninsula. The US immediately rejected this condition, promptly ending hope of a treaty and worsening relations between the countries. Throughout the early 21st century, tensions between North and South Korea fluctuated, swinging between open negotiations and near-violent exchanges. In 2019, North Korea, South Korea, and the United States convened in Hanoi, Vietnam to engage in bilateral and multilateral negotiations in pursuit of peace between all three nations. However, the summit abruptly ended amidst US-North Korean talks, with both US President Trump and North Korean leader Kim leaving without accomplishing any of their stated goals. Finally, in a series of statements from leaders in 2021, both North and South Korea, along with the US and China, indicated that they support a formal end to the war ‘in principle’. This culmination of decades of failed negotiations has been heralded by many world leaders as an important step towards peace on the peninsula. Still, it lacks any real authority and hardly signifies genuine intention to pursue a formal peace treaty.
The present stall in progress towards a treaty represents the changing power dynamics brought about by the transformation of the meaning of peace on the peninsula from one characterised by engagement to one of military might. From the period immediately following the armistice through the term of former South Korean president Moon Jae-in, efforts towards peace between the two nations centred around negotiations, summits, and cooperation largely in spite of North Korean militarization. However, South Korea’s newly-elected president Yoon Suk Yeol has diverged from this strategy, responding to North Korean nuclearization by bolstering South Korea’s own military, even signing the Washington Declaration, a cooperative nuclear agreement with the United States in 2022 to ensure it is supplied with nuclear capabilities. North Korea’s flagrant violation of UN sanctions regarding its nuclear program have further complicated prospects of a formal peace treaty with South Korea because of the imminent security threat it poses, as well as the demonstration of North Korea’s disregard for international regulations.
These complexities have prompted discussion about how to best reignite the construction of a formal treaty. Some advocates propose unilateral concessions on behalf of the United States, including lifting State Department restrictions on travel to North Korea in order to signify the US and South Korea’s willingness to negotiate with North Korea on other issues that have prevented a treaty in the past. However, others including Young Kim, chairwoman of the Indo-Pacific Subcommittee of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, oppose these proposed measures. Kim draws comparisons to previous instances where the US made concessions that had disastrous consequences like the complacency of the US to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and advocates instead for more aggressive, deterring measures to avoid repeating Ukraine’s fate. Still, the lack of armed conflict between the two nations since the armistice complicates discussion of peace between the countries, as some question whether a treaty is necessary to address such a remote historical event that has given way to distinctly modern issues.
What do you think?
- Is a formal treaty necessary for peace?
- How do deterrence and cooperation contribute to peacebuilding? Is one more effective than the other? What relationship can they have with each other?
- How does technological advancement affect the conditions under which peace can be built?
- How does the passage of time (in which global events and global order change significantly) affect efforts to resolve a conflict between nations that began decades ago?
- How does the North-South Korea case chime with or challenge your own understanding of ‘peace’?
If you liked this item in our museum…
You might also enjoy (Imperfect) Justice via Gacaca in Rwanda, The Hidden Costs of Unification, Collapse of the Peace Treaty in 2002 in Sri Lanka: the role of International Organisations, and Colombia: the long road to peace.
Sofia LoBue, May 2024