South Korea and North Korea mark 70th anniversary of signing of armistice
However, 70 years on, the Korean Peninsula remains a tinderbox in the absence of a permanent peace treaty.
SEOUL: South Korea and North Korea on Thursday (Jul 27) marked the 70th anniversary of the signing of an armistice that halted the three-year Korean War.
It was the longest negotiated armistice in history.
On July 27, 1953, military leaders from North Korea, China and the United Nations Command (UNC) led by the United States – the fighting parties in the three-year Korean war – met at Panmunjom as they agreed to a ceasefire deal.
A military armistice commission was set up to negotiate and implement the terms of the agreement.
When the armistice was signed, many Koreans thought it would be temporary and that there would soon be a permanent peace treaty or reunification of the two Koreas.Â
But 70 years on, the Korean Peninsula remains a tinderbox in the absence of a permanent peace treaty.
REGULAR MEETINGS PREVIOUSLY
There used to be regular meetings at Panmunjom until North Korea withdrew from the military armistice commission in 1994.
Retired US Army officer Steve Tharp has lived in South Korea for 32 years, 14 years while on active duty - including time at the UNC Military Armistice Commission.Â
At the time, he met extensively with North Korean and Chinese military officers at the joint security area.
Among the discussion was the repatriation of “war remains" from North Korea - UNC soldiers who were killed whose remains had stayed in North Korea, he said at a media briefing earlier this month.Â
“A great deal of those discussions were about US remains but we even had what were allegedly the remains of two UK (United Kingdom) soldiers back in the fall of 1995. Another one was North Korean soldiers that were swept down into the south during flood season through a river,” he said.
BREAKDOWN IN COMMUNICATIONS
These days, the only communication channel still open is a hotline at Panmunjom. Even so, the North Koreans do not always answer the phone.
Since the breakdown of talks between former US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the 2019 Hanoi Summit, the isolated country has rejected all attempts at contact from South Korea.
The recent incident of a US soldier disappearing into the North during a tour of Panmunjom again highlighted the complications of two neighbours remaining technically at war.
“The armistice agreement is in the Guinness Book of Records, as the longest surviving ceasefire in the world, and 70 years is a long time for a ceasefire that was supposed to be temporary, to have survived,” Lieutenant General Andrew Harrison, deputy commander of the UNC in Korea.
“Despite the fact that millions of people have died in the conflict, it’s still much of a forgotten war to many people outside of Korea. And I've learned that war can creep up on you very easily. And we only have to look to the lessons of Ukraine in the last couple of years to see the danger and the cost if conflagration or conflict does break out.”