South Korea 'effectively' enters agreement on draft with US for ending korean war

South Korea on Wednesday, Dec. 29 announced that it has agreed with the United States on a draft declaring an official end to the 1950-53 Korean War and the United States has agreed “in principle” for the formal end to the decades-long conflict and cold war. According to reports, South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-Yong announced at a press conference that the United States and South Korea have been working on the draft since South Korean President Moon Jae-in proposed the initiative at the United Nations. The Armistice Agreement of July 1953 brought a cessation of hostilities during 1950 to 1953 Korea war but the two nations have technically remained at war ever since.

The former South Korean leader, however, vigorously pushed for cooperation from the allies and the neighbouring countries to resolve the Korean Peninsula issues. However, North Korean territory refrained from showing any kind of participation to end the hostilities. But an agreement on a draft for the end-of-war declaration to end the conflict between the two Koreas has been agreed by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Washington and Seoul reached the decision at the G-7 Foreign and Development Ministers’ Meeting held from December 11 to 12 in the UK, according to several reports.

North Korean combatants in Seoul during the Korean War. [Credit: Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP Images]

Months of dialogue, no significant progress

Due to the lack of Pyongyang’s involvement, there has been no significant progress despite months of dialogue between Seoul and Washington over the draft. At the press conference, Chung reportedly said that the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reaffirmed Washington’s progress and both the countries have "effectively reached an agreement”. The initiative, however, has been contested by scores of US Republican lawmakers who believe that the war must not be officially declared as over until the complete denuclearizing of North Korea. This, they say, could also dismantlement of the US military presence and UN Command stationed in South Korea, and that South Korea’s security would be at stake.

Think tanks also fear that the Biden administration has shown no “calibrated and practical diplomacy” in engaging with North Korea and the outgoing South Korean president, whose term will end in May 2022, is desperate to restore permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula despite that the inter Korean cooperation failed one time in 2019 at a summit in Hanoi, Seoul.

'We seek concrete progress': US Prez Biden 

Moon, however, has urged the allies to “mobilize strengths for the end-of-war declaration on the Korean Peninsula and propose that three parties of the two Koreas and the US or four parties of the two Koreas, the US and China come together and declare that the War on the Korean Peninsula is over,” the former said in a statement. “We seek serious and sustained diplomacy to pursue the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” US president Joe Biden meanwhile told reporters at a White House briefing.

“We seek concrete progress toward an available plan with tangible commitments that would increase stability on the Peninsula and in the region, as well as improve the lives of the people in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” he stressed. A US State Department spokesperson told CNN that Washinton is ready to engage with North Korea and that it has "no hostile intent,” adding that officials are ready to meet "without preconditions."

"We hope the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) will respond positively to our outreach. We continue to consult closely with the Republic of Korea, Japan, and other allies and partners about how to best engage the DPRK," the spokesperson said in his televised remarks with the network. If passed the draft will officially end the Korean War that divided the peninsula along the 38th parallel which now separates North and South.