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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un meets with Song Thao

South Korean President Moon Jae-in is fleshing out his plan for bringing permanent peace to the Korean Peninsula. While it is still unclear how exactly South and North Korea will take their first step toward a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula – whether through declaring peace, announcing the end of the war or making a peace treaty – it seems to be more likely that the inter-Korean summit will mark the beginning of the end for the Cold War framework on the Korean Peninsula, which has lasted since 1953, and a genuine bolstering of peace.

“We have been reviewing and deliberating a variety of ways to ultimately develop the security situation on the Korean Peninsula into a peace regime. As one of those ways, we are considering the idea of moving from the armistice agreement on the Korean Peninsula to a peace regime,” a senior official at the Blue House told reporters on Apr. 18.

“Since there is some skepticism about whether a bilateral agreement between South and North Korea is enough to convert the armistice regime into a peace regime, we also think that a three-party or even four-party agreement would be possible, if necessary,” the official added.

The Blue House is apparently contemplating the idea of including a “ban on hostile behavior between South and North Korea” in the agreement about the inter-Korean summit and finalizing this with the help of the parties of the armistice agreement. Another plan that is reportedly under review is having the summit statement include past agreements between South and North Korea – including the Protocol on Non-Aggression and the Inter-Korean Basic Agreement reached in 1992 – as well as the promise made by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in March to the South Korean special delegation that the North would not use nuclear weapons or conventional weapons against the South.

As the inter-Korean and the North Korea-US summits approach, multiple government officials predict that confirming North Korea’s commitment to denuclearization and declaring an end to the war must be the goals of the inter-Korean summit. Many experts are also making similar predictions.

But under the current armistice system, it would be meaningless for South and North Korea to declare the end of the war and make a peace treaty without a guarantee from the US and other major parties. Declaring the end of the war first could be problematic for the status and role of the UN Command, which is responsible for maintaining and managing the armistice system on the Korean Peninsula, and another objection is that South and North Korea do not have the authority to deal with this. That is presumably why a senior official from the Blue House said that “it’s unclear whether we’ll actually use the phrase ‘end the war.’”

“Since ending the war is not something that South and North Korea can do, if they don’t declare the end of the war separately, they can confirm their previous mutual non-aggression declaration and push for a peace treaty and a promise to prevent war from ever reoccurring on the Korean Peninsula,” said Cho Sung-ryul, chief of research for the Institute for National Security Strategy.

It appears, therefore, that the inter-Korean summit will push for a political declaration that contains language about resolving direct hostility between South and North Korea and easing military tensions.

“One option is for the leaders to make a declaration confirming that South and North Korea will not engage in military hostilities and for more detailed discussions to take place during subsequent talks between the two sides’ defense ministers or military officials,” a senior government official said.

“Prior to this, North Korea and the US had to reach an agreement about denuclearization before a discussion could be held about peace on the Korean Peninsula. But now the discussion of a peace regime has been decoupled from the discussion of denuclearization. Inter-Korean relations had been a dependent variable of North Korea-US relations, but now they have become an independent variable. South Korea is actually moving with a considerable degree of autonomy,” said Lee Hea-jeong, a professor at Chung-Ang University.

By Kim Ji-eun and Noh Ji-won, staff reporters

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