Peter Thompson
Staff Writer
It has been 65 years since North Korean and Chinese troops crossed the 38th parallel to invade South Korea and drive out the UN from the peninsula, since then the two have formally been at war with truce in place. However, with the historic summit having taken place at the end of April, the North and South have agreed to formally end the Korean war in which tensions and provocations have flared on numerous occasions.
"The two leaders declare before our people of 80 million and the entire world there will be no more war on the Korean peninsula and a new age of peace has begun," Declared President Moon of South Korea.
This language is stark compared to a few months ago when the threat of war lingered. The North has even dropped the demand to withdraw US troops from South Korea on the grounds that it was for the sake of US-Korean relations and not directed towards deterring the North.
The inter-Korean summit now completed, Kim Jong Un is scheduled to meet the US president in person at the Demilitarized Zone towards late May or early June. There the two leaders will discuss the denuclearization of Korea and the conditions of peace in Northeast Asia. South Korea was not a signatory of the armistice that ended the Korean war so their inclusion in a peace treaty will be questioned. So far Beijing and Washington have expressed interest in modifying the 1953 Armistice into an official peace treaty. North Korea is beginning to react positively to the summit, recently Pyongyang moved its time in sync with Seoul and as a good gesture to the US has released three American captives.
