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| North Korean flagpole in the Gijeong-dong propaganda village in the North's section of the Demilitarized Zone. / Korea Times photos by Choi Won-suk |
By Kim Hyo-jin
Although the armistice agreement that ended the Korean War is still valid, it is not functioning as intended under the originally agreed conditions, an expert has said.
"It isn't just because North Korea refuses to abide by it, but also because the armistice itself has some fundamental structural problems," said Park Tae-gyun, a professor of Korean Studies at Seoul National University. "Some changes have been made because both sides have violated the regulations for years."
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| A North Korean soldier in front of North Korea's liaison office "Panmungak" stares at the South Korean side. |
The armistice agreed after the war created peace-keeping bodies such as the Military Armistice Commission (MAC) and the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (NNSC) to investigate possible violations of the agreement between the two sides.
The MAC consists of representatives appointed by the United Nations Command (UNC) and members of the joint forces of China and North Korea, which signed the truce in 1953.
However, both MAC and the NNSC have not been fully operational since 1994, according to Prof. Park.
In 1991, the UNC appointed a Republic of Korea Army general as a senior member at the MAC; previously it was a position only held by American generals. North Korea argued that a U.S. general must be a representative because Washington guaranteed the ROK army's compliance with the armistice that South Korea did not sign.
The following year North Korea stopped attending the MAC, which has been convened 459 times since 1953. Chinese representatives also withdrew from MAC on Pyongyang's request in 1994.
After the communist regimes in Czechoslovakia and Poland collapsed and opened diplomatic relations with Seoul, Pyongyang withdrew its representatives from the NNSC in 1993 and 1995 respectively, which virtually nullified the body.
The isolated regime declared the armistice "invalid" in 2009 and later rejected Seoul's offer to investigate the 2010 Cheonan Vessel incident, saying the MAC had become a "ghost organization."
Prof. Park believes that while it is not functioning as originally intended, the unilateral veto does not make it invalid.
"There should be either a peace treaty that can replace the truce, or an agreement among parties that signed the truce," Park said.
Park pointed out that paragraph 13 (d) of the armistice prohibits both sides from importing upgraded weapons from outside the peninsula, but after the armistice was signed the U.S. imported tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean peninsula in 1957.
As Park put it, there is an inherent problem with the armistice. With no agreed maritime border, a series of inter-Korean maritime clashes have taken place in recent years, particularly along the disputed Northern Limit Line (NLL) sea border in the West Sea.
North Korea argues that the truce should be replaced with a peace treaty but South Korea and the U.S. have expressed their will to maintain the truce, and the southern part of the NNSC exists as a reflection of this, Park said.
"The armistice agreement was to end hostilities until a final peaceful settlement is achieved. Considering its characteristics, we may need to start devising a peace treaty," he added.
