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Building Peace Regime on the Korean Peninsula: Analysis and Assessment of Two Koreas' Perspectives on Peace Regime-Building
Jin-Hyun Paik
1995.08
Professor, Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security.
Introduction
The Korean War came to an end with the conclusion of the Armistice Agreement on 27
July 1953 between the United Nations Command, on the one hand, and the North
Korean Army and the Chinese People's Volunteer's force, on the other. Since then, the
Agreement has served as a principal instrument in preserving the status quo and fragile
peace on the Korean peninsula. The current armistice regime, however, has recently
come under a serious challenge as North Korea has stepped up its 20-year-old demand
for a United States-North Korea peace treaty. Beginning in January 1995, North Korea
issued more frequent demands for a bilateral peace treaty with the United States. To be
sure, it is not the first time that North Korea made such demands. Since 1974, North
Korea has consistently proposed negotiating with the United States for the replacement
of the Korean Armistice Agreement with a US-North Korean peace treaty.
However, Pyongyang's recent moves seem to differ from its past ones at least in two
important aspects. First, in the past Pyongyang's demand was intended not so much for
the immediate conclusion of such treaty as for a kind of peace offensive toward
Washington. However, its recent moves appear to be more serious, directly aiming at
the very conclusion of a peace treaty itself. In fact, apparently to boost its case for
making such treaty, Pyongyang has taken a series of unilateral measures to undermine
the current armistice regime: first, paralysing the Military Armistice Commission(MAC)
by withdrawing its own delegation and pressing China to recall its delegation from the
Commission; and then closing down the Neutral Nations Supervisory
Commission(NNSC) by expelling its Polish members from the North Korean soil. Such
unilateral acts have resulted in the virtual suspension of the operation of the armistice
mechanism. With the single most important security instrument in Korea out of function,
a sense of crisis looms large on the part of South Korea. Second, North Korea's demand
for a peace treaty with the United States hardly carried much weight in the past, as
Pyongyang obviously lacked means or leverages to back up its claim. The United States
and South Korea have thus attached little significance to Pyongyang's claim, which they
considered a mere absurdity. However, the emergence of the North Korea's nuclear
issue has, to substantial extent, changed this. With a powerful nuclear card in its hands,
Pyongyang seems to believe that it has at last acquired means to realize its long-held
objective. While it has not yet pressed hard, Pyongyang has been unmistakenly
employing a strategy of linking the question of peace treaty with the resolution of the
nuclear issue. During the three rounds of the high-level talks with the United States to
resolve the nuclear issue, for instance, Pyongyang had several times demanded the
signing of a peace treaty with Washington in return for its acceptance of the inspection
of the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA). Despite the adoption of the Agreed
Framework in Geneva in October 1994, the North may continue its strategy of linkage,
this time with the implementation of the Geneva Framework.
The above observation suggests that the four-decade-old Korean armistice regime is
now subject to one of the most serious challenges of its lifetime. Moreover, the idea of
a Pyongyang-Washington deal to revise the basic structure of security in Korea, which
has been once rejected as a nonsense, may no longer be flatly discounted as such.
Unless dealt with carefully, therefore, the recent development could further strain the
ROK-US relationship, which is already quite delicate as a result of US-North Korea
nuclear deal.
Apart from this rather immediate challenge to the Korean armistice regime, one may
also raise a question of more fundamental nature or broader context regarding the
transformation of such regime. The Cold War structure of political and ideological
confrontation around the Korean peninsula has been substantially relaxed over the past
several years. South Korea normalized relations with its former opponents, the Soviet
Union and China. North Korea now places a top policy priority on improving relations
with its arch-enemies, the United States and Japan. Such trend of reconciliation and
realignment seems to suggest that time is ripe for terminating the state of war in Korea
and introducing a more stable and durable regime on peace on the peninsula. However,
relations between two Koreas, the improvement of which is conditio sine qua non to any
meaningful discussion of peace regime, remains all-time low not least because
Pyongyang's persistence in isolating Seoul. Such ambivalence makes it rather difficult to
assess the nature of current developments and the timeliness of raising an issue of
peace regime on the peninsula.
In light of these developments, it may be opportune to review some of the key issues
related to the transformation of the current armistice regime into peace regime, to
assess major areas of contention between two Koreas in this respect, and to determine
what are the fundamentals of peace regime-building in Korea. This may help to figure
out the real intention and objective behind the recent moves of North Korea. This would
also help South Korea to work out the most appropriate response to the current
developments. Above all, this may help to find out what is the most credible and
effective way to peace regime-building on the Korean peninsula in the increasingly
complex and ambiguous post-Cold War Northeast Asia.
Two Koreas' Views on the Transformation of the Armistice Regime
Assessment of Two Koreas' Views
Conditions for Peace Regime Building
How to Build Peace Regime on the Korean Peninsula
Epilogue
Statement by H.E. Mr. Gong Ro-Myung, Minister of Foreign Affairs, at the Opening Session of the ASEAN Post Ministerial Confe...
Joint U.S.- DPRK Press Statement
Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization Executive Board Resolution(No. 1995-12)
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