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Moon Chung-in

The Moon Jae-in administration has set the goal of having the leaders of South and North Korea, the US, and China take part in a declaration ending the Korean War at a UN General Assembly meeting convening in New York in late September, special presidential adviser for unification, foreign affairs and national security Moon Chung-in said.

Moon’s remarks came in an interview published on Aug. 29 in the US current affairs magazine The Atlantic. In it, he says that an initial attempt by President Moon to have the South and North Korean and US leaders take part in a declaration at the North Korea-US summit in Singapore in June, which failed to pan out. The adviser also expressed hopes that China would take part in the declaration as one of the parties to the armistice agreement that halted the Korean War.

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if President Trump, President Xi Jinping, President Moon Jae In, and Chairman Kim Jong Un meet together at the United Nations [and] adopt the declaration to end the Korean War?” Moon asked in the interview.

Moon also mentioned four elements that the South Korean administration envisions as part of the declaration. The first was a “symbolic” ending of the armistice state that has lasted for over 60 years since the agreement was signed in 1953, while the second was the pronouncement on the “elimination of hostile relations” between South and North Korea and between North Korea and the US.

The third was a stipulation keeping the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) and UN Command in place until a legally binding peace treaty is signed, and the fourth was a completion of a peace treaty and normalization of diplomatic relations among the parties.

“[I]n the process of adopting a declaration to end the war North Korea could demand a withdrawal of American troops [from South Korea], but neither the US nor South Korea would accept it,” Moon noted.

“Nothing is irreversible other than the death of a human being,” he added, suggesting that an end-of-war declaration would not award an “irreversible” victory to Pyongyang as some in the US have feared.

Moon’s message was echoed in remarks he made to reporters in Washington the same day after attending a closed-door seminar on the South Korea-US alliance jointly organized by the Atlantic Council and Korea Foundation.

“An end-of-war declaration bears no connection to the withdrawal of US Forces Korea or issues of the South Korea-US alliance,” he stressed.

His remarks suggested that a debate over the South Korea-US alliance is unnecessary as long as the MDL and UN Command are kept in place between the end-of-war declaration and signing of an official peace agreement. This too was a response to concerns being voiced in the US over the end-of-war declaration issue.

By Hwang Joon-bum, Washington correspondent

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