Clinton, Gates to visit Demilitarized Zone

By Jung Sung-ki

Staff reporter

The top U.S. foreign and defense officials will visit the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that divides the two Koreas today, amid heightened tension on the peninsula following the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship in March in the West Sea.

The symbolic visit to the heavily armed border by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates will be made ahead of their “2+2” security talks with Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Yu Myung-hwan and Defense Minister Kim Tae-young later in the day.

“Tomorrow Secretary Clinton and I along with our Korean counterparts will visit the DMZ, to highlight how important operations are there to the security of the peninsula as well as the region and demonstrate our steadfast commitment to the ROK,” Gates said during a visit to Camp Casey, north of Seoul, about 20 miles south of the DMZ, Tuesday.

Gates and Clinton will visit the Joint Security Area (JSA) in the truce village of Panmumjeom, the de facto border between South and North Korea. The JSA consists of several blue buildings, some of which straddle the border between the two Koreas, where most diplomatic and security talks between the United Nations Command and the North occur.

A vestige of the fratricidal 1950-53 Korean War, the 250-kilometer-long, 4-kilometer-wide DMZ is a strip of land dividing the Korean Peninsula and serves as a buffer zone between the two Koreas.

The Armistice Agreement signed by the U.S.-led United Nations Command, China and North Korea on July 27, 1953, established the DMZ along the approximate line of ground contact between the opposing forces at the time the truce ended the Korean War.

Since the armistice accord has never been followed by a peace treaty, the two Koreas are still technically at war. The DMZ has seen numerous incursions by the North Koreans, although the reclusive state never acknowledges direct responsibility for any of their provocations.

An international investigation concluded in May that a North Korean submarine launched a torpedo to sink the warship Cheonan near the sea border in the West Sea. The sinking killed 46 South Korean sailors.

North Korea flatly denies the accusations, and has warned any punishment would trigger war.