President Moon Jae-in addresses the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Tuesday (EST). Yonhap
Unresponsive Pyongyang, Washington-Beijing rivalry stymie talks
By Nam Hyun-woo
President Moon Jae-in once again renewed his call for a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War in an effort to bring peace to the Korean Peninsula, but the feasibility of his proposal is questionable, given the state of relations between the two Koreas and the U.S.
During a speech at the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Tuesday (EST), Moon proposed a trilateral or quadrilateral declaration to proclaim a formal end to the Korean War.
The war ended in an armistice signed in 1953 by the U.S.-led United Nations Command, China and North Korea, leaving the two Koreas technically still at war.
"Today, I once again urge the community of nations to mobilize its strengths for the end-of-war declaration on the Korean Peninsula, and propose that the three parties of the two Koreas and the U.S., or the four parties of the two Koreas, the U.S. and China, come together and declare that the war on the Korean Peninsula is over," Moon said.
"When the parties involved in the Korean War stand together and proclaim an end to the war, I believe we can make irreversible progress in denuclearization and usher in an era of complete peace," he added.
Unlike a peace treaty, which requires parliamentary level approval, an end-of-war declaration would be a non-binding political statement, thus an easier step for both Washington and Pyongyang.
Due to the relative ease of signing such a declaration, President Moon has been championing the idea since 2018, when inter-Korean relations were at their best in recent years, saying that it would serve as a gateway to peace on the peninsula. He officially proposed the declaration to the international community during last year's U.N. General Assembly. At the time, he did not clarify who should make the declaration, but this time, he specified that the two Koreas, the U.S. and even China could be involved.
