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US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will hold their first ever summit in Singapore on June 12

South Korean President Moon Jae-in is reportedly attempting to include a non-aggression pact as a key plank in the trilateral declaration of the end of the Korean War by South Korea, North Korea and the US. The idea is to combine the political declaration of the end of the military confrontation between the three parties on the Korean Peninsula with an agreement between South and North Korea and between North Korea and the US not to attack each other, focusing on the US’s promise not to engage in military aggression against North Korea.

Since the trilateral declaration of the end of the war represents one way to guarantee military security to the Pyongyang regime, this represents a plan to accelerate the discussion and measures that are necessary for successfully holding the North Korea-US summit and for entering into a permanent peace regime. President Moon has reportedly already been discussing this plan with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in an attempt to build a consensus with these leaders.

“The declaration of the end of the war ought to be understood in terms of regime security for North Korea, which is a key point of controversy in the North Korea-US summit. This plan is behind President Moon’s recent repeated emphasis that the end of the war should be declared by South Korea, North Korea and the US, even though China had originally been considered as well,” a source who is familiar with recent developments on the Korean Peninsula said on June 4.

“Although this is a political declaration stating that war is over on the Korean Peninsula, augmenting this with a trilateral non-aggression pact, and particularly a promise by the US not to attack North Korea, is an attempt to enhance the declaration’s status as a military security guarantee for North Korea,” this source said.

The critical need for a non-aggression pact is rooted in the historical reality that the military confrontation on the Korean Peninsula has unfolded in two directions—between South and North Korea on the one hand and between North Korea and the US on the other. While there have already been several non-aggression pacts between South and North Korea, there has never been an official non-aggression pact between North Korea and the US.

The first inter-Korean non-aggression pact appeared in the Agreement on Reconciliation, Nonaggression and Exchanges And Cooperation Between the South and the North (called the Inter-Korean Basic Agreement), which took effect in Feb. 1992. Article 9 of Chapter II South-North Nonaggression states that “The two sides shall not use force against each other and shall not undertake armed aggression against each other.”

In the US-DPRK Joint Communique issued in Oct. 2000, on the other hand, the two sides promised “respect for each other's sovereignty and non-interference in each other's internal affairs” and stated that “neither government would have hostile intent toward the other,” but no mention was made of non-aggression. This is the historical background for President Moon’s attempt to include a pledge for the US not to attack North Korea in the trilateral declaration of the end of the war.

The trilateral declaration as a guarantee of military security for the North Korean regime has been evolving and being made more concrete during the recent “top-down” attempt to reach a breakthrough through summits between a range of leaders. President Moon initially raised the issue of officially ending the war as a theoretical first step toward a peace regime. “In order to establish a permanent peace structure on the Korean Peninsula, we need to conclude a peace treaty with the participation of relevant countries, and formally end the war,” he said during a speech to the Korber Foundation in Germany on July 6, 2017.

And the Apr. 27 Panmunjeom Declaration did not specify that three parties would declare the end of the war: “During this year that marks the 65th anniversary of the Armistice, South and North Korea agreed to actively pursue trilateral meetings involving the two Koreas and the United States, or quadrilateral meetings involving the two Koreas, the United States and China with a view to declaring an end to the war [converting the armistice agreement to a peace treaty] and establishing a permanent and solid peace regime.

But the Blue House said that President Moon had “traded opinions about the idea of the three countries [South Korea, North Korea and the US] declaring the end of the war after the North Korea-US summit” during President Moon’s summit with Trump on May 22. Then during the press conference announcing the results of President Moon’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at Unification House on May 26, President Moon said, “If the North Korea-US summit is a success, it is my hope that a push will be made to declare the end of the war through a trilateral summit between South Korea, North Korea and the US.”

“I think that Chairman Kim’s determination to denuclearize is not uncertain; rather, he is concerned about whether the US can be trusted to end its hostile relationship and guarantee the regime’s security if North Korea denuclearizes,” President Moon also stressed. This can be understood as hinting at the plan to use the declaration of the end of the war as a security guarantee for the Pyongyang regime.

“President Moon has discussed the plan for a trilateral declaration of the end of the war with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump. I am told that the response from the two leaders was not bad,” said a senior official in the South Korean government.

When Trump was asked about declaring the end of the war shortly after a meeting at the White House with North Korean Kim Yong-chol, vice chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) and director of the WPK United Front Department, he said, “We talked about ending the war. [. . .] That’s something that could come out of the meeting.”

This marked the official beginning of the discussion of a formal end to the war.

Another important point of controversy in the push for a trilateral declaration of the end of the war is the concern about a backlash from China. But a senior government official said, “I have not heard about any disagreement between the leaders of South Korea and China about moving toward a declaration of the end of the war.”

“We need to focus on the fact that President Moon openly mentioned pushing for a trilateral declaration of the end of the war after his telephone deliberations with Chinese President Xi Jinping. It’s safe to say that the two leaders reached an understanding,” a well-informed source agreed.

According to the Blue House, Moon and Xi agreed during a phone call on May 4 that “South Korea and China would remain in close communication and would actively cooperate in the process of formally ending the war and converting from an armistice agreement to a peace treaty,” which can be understood as implying that a trilateral declaration of the end of the war would be followed by quadrilateral talks about a peace treaty.

According to this approach, the declaration of the end of the war will be made by South and North Korea on the one hand and by North Korea and the US on the other, who have all been engaged in the military standoff on the Korean Peninsula, while the peace treaty will be signed by South Korea, North Korea, the US and China, who are all parties (either actual or effective) in the 1953 armistice agreement as well as countries with a key interest in the Korean Peninsula.

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer

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