This year, North Korea did not carry out provocations that the US could not condone, such as a nuclear test or an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch, but it still did a lot to listen to our government, claiming that they are the true masters of the Korean Peninsula.



President Moon Jae-in, who claimed to be the 'driver' of the situation on the Korean Peninsula, but had difficulties in producing practical results, threw the game out with six months remaining in his term of office.

In a speech to the United Nations on September 22 (the 21st in the United States), he once again proposed an 'end of war declaration' to North Korea and the United States.

The reason I said 'one more time' is because this is not the first time that a declaration of an end to the war has been proposed.



A lot has happened since that day.

High-ranking diplomatic officials in the South Korean government went all-out to persuade the United States.

North Korea made several statements—sometimes in conflict with each other—and fired missiles to reveal its true intentions.


[What is that] Declaration of the end of the war, what are we going to do?

the end of the bell.

before the war.

The declaration of the 'end of war' literally means to declare that the war is over.



The Korean War, which began with North Korea's invasion of South Korea on June 25, 1950, was ended with the signing of an armistice agreement on July 27, 1953.

The armistice agreement was signed by three people: Mark Wayne Clark, Commander-in-Chief of the United Nations Command, U.S. Army General Mark Wayne Clark;


In general, armistice agreements are then replaced by peace agreements with permanent effect, which are ratified by the Parties' parliaments.

However, the Korean War has been practically peaceful by maintaining a 'non-combat state' without such follow-up procedures.

If we compare it to the lives of ordinary people, it is not officially a smoking cessation, but it is like living for decades while maintaining the daily 'Let's not smoke only today'.



President Moon Jae-in's proposal (September 22, this year's UN speech) to 'declare' that this ambiguous state is now over.

The gist is this:

  • * Nougat: 3 people from North and South America or 4 people from North and South America

  • * What: Let's declare together that the war on the Korean Peninsula is over.

  • * When, where, and how: Not specified (because it is a matter to be determined by discussion later)

  • * Why: Because we believe that complete peace can begin with irreversible progress in denuclearization.

[Effects of the end of the war] How is the armistice system?

Since July 27, 1953, the Republic of Korea has existed on the armistice system.

The military demarcation line between the two Koreas and the NLL in the West Sea are also products of the armistice agreement.



When the 'army' (the state in which the war is stopped) is changed to 'the end of the war (the war is over)', the question arises as to how this system will change.

The United Nations Command may lose its basis for existence.



Another question may arise as to what the USFK will do.

The official position of the

ROK and US

governments is that the

USFK is stationed on the basis of the ROK-US Mutual Defense Treaty, not the Armistice Agreement,

and thus has nothing to do with the declaration of an end to the Korean War.

Nevertheless, it is clear that the argument, "Why don't you go out when the war is over?" will be strengthened by the arguments inside and outside the country.



Evans Revere, former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the US Department of State, best represents these concerns.

In a situation where the root cause of the war remains the same, the proposal to declare an end to the war is a dangerous and magical way of thinking, 'We will only solidify North Korea's status as a nuclear weapons state, and China will actively intervene and insist on the withdrawal of US forces from Korea together with North Korea. ' was predicted.

[Legal binding force] Is it only a political declaration, can it be revoked?

In response to these concerns, President Moon Jae-in explained that it is only a political declaration, not a binding international law, and should be canceled if the situation worsens.


This was said in an interview with Fox News in late September 2018, between the Singapore summit and the North Korea-U.S. summit in Hanoi, in the process of persuading the Trump administration, which had not responded well to the declaration of an end to the war.

At the time, there was a controversy in both Korea and the United States.

However, North Korea did not like this explanation.

Kim Yeo-jung expressed a skeptical position, saying, "Reading a declaration or taking pictures may be desperate for someone, but it has no meaning, and even if the war ends, nothing will change."


[How To Get Here] This isn't the first time the end of the war has been proposed.

The discussion of converting the armistice state to a permanent end-of-war state goes back at least to the first basic agreement between the two Koreas in 1991.



The Moon Jae-in administration's North Korea policy has succeeded the Roh Moo-hyun administration in terms of content and human network, and the idea of ​​an end-of-war declaration is no exception.

In the agreement of the Inter-Korean Summit in Pyongyang on October 4, 2007, the two leaders, Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Jong-il, mentioned the declaration of an end to the war.

"Agreeing on the need to end the current armistice system and build a lasting peace regime, the three or four-party leaders directly involved agreed to work together to promote the issue of declaring an end to the war on the Korean Peninsula."


- From the 2007.10.4 Inter-Korean Summit Agreement

However, President Roh Moo-hyun failed to persuade US President George W. Bush, who strongly urged North Korea to give up its nuclear program, and the Lee Myung-bak administration took office in February of the following year.



The idea of ​​an end-of-war declaration gained strength again in the conciliation phase held after the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un announced in the Panmunjom Declaration on April 27, 2018, that they would declare an end to the war within the year.

“In this year, the 65th anniversary of the signing of the armistice agreement, we declare the end of the war and convert the armistice agreement into a peace agreement…”


- Article 3, paragraph 3 of the Panmunjom Declaration on April 27, 2018

At first, President Trump seemed interested in the idea of ​​an end to the war.

However, there was no specific mention of participating in the end-of-war declaration.

The agreement of the US-DPRK summit in Singapore on June 12, 2018 mentioned a stable peace regime as the ultimate goal, but did not specify a declaration of an end to the war as a process leading to it.

[Why Was It Twisted?] US Rejects Declaration of End of War Without Resolving North Korean Nuclear Weapons

The issue of an end-of-war declaration, which seemed optimistic only in the spring of 2018, fell into a deadlock as the second half of that year. In a commentary article on July 25, 2018, the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North Korean Workers' Party, said, "An obstacle is being created in resolving issues related to the declaration of an end to the Korean War." attitude,” he said. It was because of the United States that the "South Korean authorities" showed an indecisive attitude.



According to media reports at the time, after the US-DPRK summit in Singapore, North Korea returned the remains of US soldiers to the United States and requested a declaration of an end to the war, but the United States refused, arguing that North Korea should submit a 'nuclear material declaration list' first. A nuclear declaration is the first step in a nuclear inspection. North Korea did not accept it.



At that time, the leaders of the two countries had opposing views on the issue of an end-of-war declaration.



In President Moon Jae-in's denuclearization initiative, the declaration of an end to the war was the entrance to the tunnel. It was a calculus of symbolically declaring 'the end of the war and the beginning of peace' in a good mood, and solving the difficult problems one by one. However, in the United States, once an end-of-war declaration is made, many concessions must be made to North Korea, whereas it is difficult to impose sanctions when North Korea causes additional problems. There was a strong public opinion that it should be given. It was said that if a declaration of an end to the war was premature, only the negotiating terrain would be advantageous to North Korea without actually solving any problems.


When this confrontation shows no sign of resolving, North Korea's position changes.

[Changes in North Korea's Demands] Declaration of the end of the war → lifting sanctions → withdrawal of hostile policy

From the second half of 2018, North Korea has given up hopes for an end-of-war declaration and has increased the pressure on the South to help North Korea despite its demands for the lifting of Security Council sanctions.



The February 2019 North Korea-U.S. summit in Hanoi was a win-win for Kim Jong-un to get sanctions lifted.

At the time, Kim Jong-un expected that the lifting of the Security Council sanctions would be obtained from Trump in exchange for abandoning the Yongbyon nuclear facility.

You must have heard from North Korean diplomats and South Korean government officials who served as mediators that it was possible.



But Trump, who appeared in Vietnam, made an unexpected request from Kim Jong-un.

In addition to the old and well-known Yongbyon facility, he demanded that other nuclear facilities be released.

Kim Jong-un was bewildered and angry.

After returning to Pyongyang, Kim Jong-un began to strain relations between the United States and South Korea in earnest, calling himself "I'm angry."


In the spring of 2019, Kim Jong-un abandoned the proposal of exchanging nuclear facilities and Security Council sanctions and was no longer clinging to economic cooperation from South Korea.

In April of that year, Kim Jong-un began to strongly demand the withdrawal of his 'hostile policy'.

South Korea's introduction of new weapons and South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises began to show a sensitive reaction.



From 2020 onwards, it will start a full-fledged 'communication line politics' against Korea.

I broke it at will...

Is 'network politics' a means of pressure for USFK/joint training?

North Korea unilaterally cut off inter-Korean communication lines on June 9, 2020.

A week later, on June 16, the North-South Joint Liaison Office, which was the result of the 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, was blown up.



Then, on July 27 of this year (the anniversary of the Armistice Agreement), the communication line restoration was suddenly notified.

It had been 13 months since the break.

There was no expression of regret for the unilateral measures to worsen relations in the past.



Five days later, on August 1, Kim Yo-jong issued a discourse, demanding that the joint South Korea-US joint exercise, which was otherwise scheduled to be held on a reduced scale, be suspended.

On August 5, 74 pan-passport lawmakers, including the Democratic Party, issued a statement urging the postponement of the training.

However, it was already a training that could not be canceled even considering the recovery schedule for the wartime OPCON, and the training proceeded as scheduled.


Then, on August 10, the first day of the joint exercise, North Korea cut off the communication network again after 14 days of network restoration.

This move can be said to be an abuse of the fact that the Korean government attaches considerable meaning to telecommunication communication.

That day, Kim Jong-un entrusted Kim Yo-jong with a statement saying, "(South Korea) will pay the price."

This discourse contains a very important passage.

Kim Yeo-jung took issue with the very existence of the USFK.

"If peace is to dwell on the Korean peninsula,

the aggression force and war equipment deployed by the United States in south Korea must first

be

demolished

."


- Kim Yeo-jeong, from August 10 discourse


It is in this context that President Moon Jae-in's speech at the United Nations in late September, when he again proposed an end to the war, came out.

[North Korea's response to the proposal for an end-of-war declaration] Unusual 'one after another' statement

North Korea will respond to this on September 24, two days after President Moon's speech to the United Nations.

First, Vice Foreign Minister Ri Tae-sung asserts that "the declaration of an end to the war does not help at all to stabilize the situation on the Korean Peninsula at this point, and it can be misused as a smoke screen to cover up the US hostile policy."

“The U.S. military force deployed or in operation on the Korean Peninsula and surrounding land, sea, air, and water, the vast latest war assets, and the various nominal war exercises that take place every year make the U.S. hostile policy toward the DPRK becoming more and more vicious day by day. is showing."


- Ri Tae-sung, Vice-Chancellor of the US Department of the North Korean Foreign Ministry, in a speech on September 24

Such discourse could not have come out without the approval of Kim Yo-jong or Kim Jong-un.

However, just 7 hours later, Kim Yeo-jeong speaks directly about the same problem.

It was an exceptional measure.

I felt frustrated that 'the nuances were not conveyed properly when I ordered someone below me'.

What drew attention in this discourse was the positive evaluation of President Moon's proposal for an end-of-war declaration as an "interesting proposal and a good idea" in itself.

However, if we go to the main part, the theory of the end-of-war declaration is repeated again.

"In that dual standards and biased, hostile policy and eondong hostile to our nation continues as it is now ... do not leave everything that declared the war horse.


(Omitted) strive each other laugh and smiled war Although the declaration or reading of the declaration and taking pictures may be desperate for some, it has no real meaning, and I think that nothing will change even if the war ends.


- Kim Yeo-jeong, from the September 24 discourse


At the same time, he proposes 'prerequisites' for the discussion of the end of the war.


In an additional discourse on the 25th, Kim Yeo-jung gave hope and torture to the Korean government that if mutual respect is maintained, 'reinstallation of the inter-Korean joint liaison office, summit meeting' can be discussed.

What does North Korea mean by 'double standards'?

North Korea's 'abandonment of double standards' against the South Korean government is a disgrace to the question, 'Is the introduction of weapons strengthening national defense power, and is developing weapons a provocation?'

The problem is that there is an agreement in the international community that nuclear weapons should not be spread any more, even if it is inevitable that some countries already have nuclear weapons.

Since the early 1990s, North Korea has rejected such an agreement system and has begun to manufacture nuclear warheads and develop missiles that can launch nuclear warheads.

That is why North Korea has been subject to sanctions by the international community, including China and Russia.

If North Korea abandons its nuclear program and returns to the framework of an international agreement, North Korea can escape sanctions and criticism.

Even provocations using conventional power (such as the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island) were always attacked by North Korea first, and neither Korea nor the United States attacked North Korea first.



Nevertheless, North Korea insists not to question the strengthening of its (nuclear) force.

That is the inner meaning of the demand to 'abolish the double standard'.



On September 15 of this year, there was a battle between the South and the North on this issue.


On the same day, North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea from a train launch pad in Yangdeok, South Pyongan Province.

The flight distance was 800 km and the altitude was about 60 km, a violation of the Security Council resolution.


But on this day, we also succeeded in launching a new missile that day.

It succeeded in test-fire by independently developing an SLBM launched from a submarine.


After observing the launch test at the Defense Science Research Center in Taean County, South Chungcheong Province, President Moon mentioned the missile deterrent ability against North Korea's 'provocation'.


North Korea was furious when President Moon called the missile launch a 'provocation'.

Four hours after President Moon's remarks were made public, Kim Yeo-jung made a discourse and said, "If even the president steps forward and slanders and bets on the (superior) opponent, there will inevitably follow the behavior of a face-to-face response. It will come crashing down,” he warned.

North Korea fired a hypersonic missile on September 28 and watched the South Korean authorities' response.

Our government no longer uses the term 'provocation'.

Kim Jong-un appears...

Presenting a 'major task'

On September 29th, Kim Jong-un, who had left the message to Kim Yeo-jung for the time being, puts out a message to South Korea.

It was a speech at the Supreme People's Assembly.

The main contents were the re-opening of inter-Korean communication lines from the beginning of October, and the presentation of a 'major task'.



North Korea started receiving calls from the ROK again on October 4, 55 days after the break on August 10.

The 'major tasks' that Kim Jong-un posed to the South, saying, 'Indicate the meaning of the resumption of communication lines', can be summarized in three points.


On this day, Kim Jong-un said that South Korea must implement these important tasks well, which will help rectify inter-Korean relations and open up a bright future ahead, but he did not say anything about the proposal to declare an end to the war.

[What is that?] What is 'withdrawal of hostile policy toward North Korea'?

Before the appeasement phase in 2018, former U.S. President Trump frequently used threatening remarks that seemed to bomb North Korea at any moment.

This was 'hostile' to anyone looking at it.

However, North Korea repeatedly insists that "the United States should give up its hostile policy toward North Korea," no matter how many US officials say, 'We have no intention of using force against North Korea' or 'We will not attack first.'



Chairman Kim Jong-un, in his speech to commemorate the National Defense Development Exhibition (Self-Defence-2021) on Oct. 11, argued that "the United States has recently been sending frequent signals that it is not hostile to North Korea, but there is no behavioral basis to believe that it is not." (Reported by the Rodong Sinmun)



Then, what does North Korea mean by 'abandoning its hostile policy toward North Korea'?

This can be seen through the remarks of diplomatic officials who talk more practically than the Baekdu-born Kim siblings.



The North Korean speech, which corresponds to the September 22 UN speech that President Moon Jae-in proposed to declare an end to the war, was delivered by UN Ambassador Kim Seong.

Ambassador Kim Seong said, "The first step should be taken from the permanent cessation of joint military exercises aimed at us and the deployment of various strategic weapons in and around the Korean peninsula, to abandoning the policy against the DPRK."


Ri Tae-sung, the vice foreign minister for the United States, mentioned above, said the same thing in the September 24 discourse.

“The U.S. military force deployed or in motion on the Korean Peninsula and surrounding land, sea, air and water, the vast latest war assets, and the various nominal war exercises that take place every year make the U.S. hostile policy toward Korea become more and more vicious day by day. show that there is."


In other words, the USFK and strategic assets of US forces such as Japan and Guam that can be deployed on the Korean Peninsula are all implementations of the 'hostile policy toward North Korea'.

The fact that such a position is repeatedly expressed in various discourses and speeches means that this is the organized perception of the North Korean leadership.

In fact, at the time of the request to cancel the joint South Korea-US joint exercise in August, Kim Yeo-jeong insisted that "the aggression force and war equipment deployed by the United States in south Korea should be removed first."

[What Kim Jong-un wants] What does North Korea really want?

The ROK-U.S. alliance to prepare for the threat of North Korea's nuclear power and armed provocation is not supported solely by the U.S. military presence in South Korea.

In the event of a serious armed conflict, the main strategic weapons of the U.S. military, additional troops, and supplies will flow from nearby Japan, Guam or Hawaii, and from as far away as the U.S. mainland.


At the root of the argument for 'withdraw the hostile policy toward North Korea' is a request to remove all of these strategic asset projection capabilities together with the USFK. And this is also the content of the 'denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula' that North Korea insists on the US.



In other words, North Korea wants

'a strategic state in which the US cannot intervene in case of an emergency on the Korean Peninsula

'. In such a state, North Korea will be able to carry out its will to the South without having to forcefully invade the South. Because they have nuclear weapons. (That's why we call nuclear weapons a strategic asset.) In


that sense, Kim Jong-un's statement on October 11th (Self-Defense-2021 Arms Exhibition) that "South Korea is not something our armed forces can deal with" contains some truth.



North Korea does not expect this condition to be easily achieved. However, North Korea has not given up on this strategic goal for a moment since July 1953, when the Korean War entered a state of armistice. Although it has sometimes created chaos through appeasement gestures and other times through forceful provocations, it is the consistent desire of North Korea to somehow break up the ROK-US alliance and cook the Korean Peninsula as it wants.


Strategically set up a tabletop, in other words, creating a state where you can do what you want without interference from others.

There is a 20th century politician who was very obsessed with this.

That's Adolf Hitler.

Hitler didn't suddenly invade neighboring countries like a maniac one day.

He relentlessly engaged in diplomatic warfare against Britain and France before devouring Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland.

'It's all historically under German influence anyway.

If we close our eyes until that point, we won't even have to shed blood with you.

You too were broken a lot in World War I, so it's hard to fight again, right?'

At that point, Britain and France, which eventually passed over, signed an agreement to set up Hitler's dogbed in Central Europe.

And the result is as everyone knows.


North Korea will only respond positively to the declaration of an end to the Korean War when it is calculated that it will help to move one step closer to the strategic goal of blocking US intervention on the Korean Peninsula.

Or, it will only be when the calculation is made that something will be obtained from the side who is thirsty for the declaration of an end to the war or that the other side will be able to use it.

Otherwise, has North Korea ever given us the confidence that it wants true peace?



Since a country is made by people gathered together, complicated affairs between countries are bound to resemble those between people in the end.

Consider the relationship between individuals.

Those who regret it, those who are in a hurry, and those who cling to it are likely to lose.

The election is now four and a half months away.

It is necessary to consider whether it is a good time to conduct an experiment on the unknown in the Korean Peninsula situation.



(Composition: Senior Correspondent Lee Hyun-sik, Reporter Jang Seon-i, Kim Hwi-ran Editor / Designer: Myung Ha-eun, Park Jeong-ha)