The Korean War and its Aftermath : North Korean Perspectives on the Armistice Agreement System

The Korean Peninsula has been in the knife-edge situation for several decades. In March 2013, North Korea announced that it would not be bound by the Armistice Agreement any longer, hinting that it would withdraw from the Armistice system. The announcement reminds us of the fact that the Korean War has just temporarily ceased yet to end permanently. This article aims to provide the North Korean perspectives on the Armistice Agreement system in order to understand the contemporary crisis and establish peace in the Korean Peninsula. First, by reviewing the origin and process of the Korean War, this article examines the ways in which the Armistice Agreement system was established. The Korean War was a civil war fought over post-colonial state-building, which later escalated into an international war with Sino-American intervention. In that sense, South Korea and the United States on one side and North Korea supported by China on the other side were the direct actors in the war. The Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty, maintaining the military confrontation among these countries since 1953. Second, the article points out the substantial change of the Armistice system in the early 1970s. Due to the Sino-American rapprochement, North Korean leaders wanted to seize the chance of terminating the Armistice and signing a peace treaty. Therefore, they urged China to support this goal and mediate with the Americans. However, China rather ended up in prioritizing the cooperation with the US to maintain the Armistice Agreement, which disappointed the North Korean government. In this sense, the Armistice Agreement system in the early 1970s, from the North Korean point of view, further sustained the military confrontation of North Korea versus the US-South Korea alliance. Third, the article demonstrates diplomatic efforts made by North Korea since the late 1970s. Due to the experience in the early 1970s, North Korean leadership started to seek for both direct negotiations with the US and tripartite negotiations with the US and South Korea, in an attempt to exclude China. This tendency has been continuing to this day. In conclusion, this article proposes the following measures to end the Armistice Agreement and sign a peace treaty: dialogues between North and South Korea, tripartite negotiations among North Korea, South Korea and the US, quadripartite negotiations including China, and six-party negotiations including Japan and Russia. By so doing, the nuclear development by North Korea could be in the process of resolution and international security in North East Asia would be improved