What an End to the 68-Year Korean War Would Mean

As neighborly disputes go, this one really has dragged
on. Some 65 years since open hostilities ended, North and South
Korea are still technically at war.

However, after a sudden warming of relations this year, Kim Jong
Un became the first North Korean leader to visit South Korea on
April 27. He held talks with his South Korean counterpart, Moon
Jae-in, together reaching an agreement to put an end to hostilities
this year.

1. Why is the Korean War still not over?
Because the parties involved in talks to end the war — North and
South Korea, China and the United Nations (representing the
international community, including the U.S.) — never were able to
agree on a peace treaty. What was signed in 1953 was only an
armistice, or truce, and only among three of the four parties, as
South Korea held out. That’s why the border between the two nations
has been one of the world’s tensest for decades.

2. What did Kim and Moon agree on?
They announced plans to formally declare a resolution to the war
and turn the current armistice into a peace treaty by year’s end,
as well as aiming for full denuclearization of the Korean
peninsula.

3. Have the two countries come close to peace
before?
It’s seemed that way. At a 2007 summit in Pyongyang, President Roh
Moo-hyun and Kim Jong Il (Kim Jong Un’s father) settled on dozens
of agreements aimed at supporting North Korea’s economy and
recommitted to a declaration made at a summit in 2000 — the first
between leaders of North Korea and South Korea — that the two sides
would seek peaceful reunification.

4. What came of that peace effort?
Negotiations — known as the “six-party talks” — broke down in 2008
after North Korea refused to allow international inspectors to
visit nuclear facilities. Around the same time, South Korea elected
a conservative president, Lee Myung-bak, who favored a harder line
and abandoned his predecessor’s so-called “Sunshine Policy” toward
North Korea. The sinking of a South Korean corvette, killing 46
sailors, by a suspected North Korean torpedo prompted the newly
elected president to cut off all ties.

5. Would peace lead to economic ties?
Not necessarily. South Korea would be unlikely to agree to economic
aid until the U.S. agrees to relax sanctions in return for North
Korea agreeing to denuclearize. Those figure to be among the major
issues for U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim at their planned
meeting in the next couple of months.

6. How far apart are the two Koreas economically?

The gap between the North Korea and South Korea today is far
greater than that between East and West Germany when the Berlin
Wall came down. A 2015 report from the National Assembly Budget
Office estimated that even under a peaceful scenario in which Seoul
expanded humanitarian support ahead of a hypothetical reunification
in 2026, it could cost about $2.8 trillion to help bring North
Korea’s gross domestic product to two-thirds that of South Korea’s.
That’s almost 8 times South Korea’s 2017 annual budget.

Culled from bloomberg

As neighborly disputes go, this one really has dragged
on. Some 65 years since open hostilities ended, North and South
Korea are still technically at war.

However, after a sudden warming of relations this year, Kim Jong
Un became the first North Korean leader to visit South Korea on
April 27. He held talks with his South Korean counterpart, Moon
Jae-in, together reaching an agreement to put an end to hostilities
this year.

1. Why is the Korean War still not over?
Because the parties involved in talks to end the war — North and
South Korea, China and the United Nations (representing the
international community, including the U.S.) — never were able to
agree on a peace treaty. What was signed in 1953 was only an
armistice, or truce, and only among three of the four parties, as
South Korea held out. That’s why the border between the two nations
has been one of the world’s tensest for decades.

2. What did Kim and Moon agree on?
They announced plans to formally declare a resolution to the war
and turn the current armistice into a peace treaty by year’s end,
as well as aiming for full denuclearization of the Korean
peninsula.

3. Have the two countries come close to peace
before?
It’s seemed that way. At a 2007 summit in Pyongyang, President Roh
Moo-hyun and Kim Jong Il (Kim Jong Un’s father) settled on dozens
of agreements aimed at supporting North Korea’s economy and
recommitted to a declaration made at a summit in 2000 — the first
between leaders of North Korea and South Korea — that the two sides
would seek peaceful reunification.

4. What came of that peace effort?
Negotiations — known as the “six-party talks” — broke down in 2008
after North Korea refused to allow international inspectors to
visit nuclear facilities. Around the same time, South Korea elected
a conservative president, Lee Myung-bak, who favored a harder line
and abandoned his predecessor’s so-called “Sunshine Policy” toward
North Korea. The sinking of a South Korean corvette, killing 46
sailors, by a suspected North Korean torpedo prompted the newly
elected president to cut off all ties.

5. Would peace lead to economic ties?
Not necessarily. South Korea would be unlikely to agree to economic
aid until the U.S. agrees to relax sanctions in return for North
Korea agreeing to denuclearize. Those figure to be among the major
issues for U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim at their planned
meeting in the next couple of months.

6. How far apart are the two Koreas economically?

The gap between the North Korea and South Korea today is far
greater than that between East and West Germany when the Berlin
Wall came down. A 2015 report from the National Assembly Budget
Office estimated that even under a peaceful scenario in which Seoul
expanded humanitarian support ahead of a hypothetical reunification
in 2026, it could cost about $2.8 trillion to help bring North
Korea’s gross domestic product to two-thirds that of South Korea’s.
That’s almost 8 times South Korea’s 2017 annual budget.

Culled from bloomberg