hankyoreh

John Feffer

After several dozen trips to South Korea, I finally visited the DMZ a few weeks ago.

I’ve never wanted to see the DMZ. After all, it is a place of sorrow. It is a dividing line chosen by two U.S. government officials in 1945. It is the 38th parallel where two sides fought for 38 months, leaving many dead and injured. It is a zone that is not at all demilitarized. It is heavily mined, with a couple hundred guard posts, two armies facing one another, and plenty of artillery nearby that could cause even more death and destruction than the Korean War.

Some people who visit the DMZ are Korean War buffs. Others want to get a glimpse of North Korea or hope to see the infamous infiltration tunnels from north to south.

I’ve never been interested in any of those things. So, I’ve stayed away.

But at the beginning of November, as part of an international conference organized by the YMCA, I accompanied a delegation to the DMZ. First, we went to Cheorwon county, where we were treated to a delicious dinner at a municipal hall. Then we visited the ruins of the former Korean Workers Party headquarters, where we watched a performance that mixed together b-boy dancing with shamanistic songs and dance. It was a combination of old and new Korea, and north and south as well. All of Cheorwon county where we were visiting had once been part of North Korea. Only after the armistice agreement in 1953 was the county split in two. What remained of the Party headquarters became part of the south.

The next day we visited Woljeong-ri train station, the last station on the Gyeongwon line before the border. The twisted wreckage of a train, bombed during the Korean War, was still on the tracks. The tracks ended abruptly, with the DMZ only a short distance away. It was a powerful visual reminder of a country cut in two.

I wouldn’t have wanted to visit Cheorwon last year. But much has changed over the last several months as a result of inter-Korean negotiations. The DMZ is no longer just a symbol of a divided peninsula. It is also where the two Koreas are beginning to dismantle the Cold War structures of division.

For instance, just days ago, South Korea destroyed the guard post on a hill in Cheorwon, just at the DMZ. It’s part of a plan to get rid of nearly a dozen guard posts on each side before the end of the month. The two sides have also demined the JSA, established a no-fly zone above the DMZ, and agreed to stop confronting one another along the maritime boundaries.

Also, North and South have agreed (once again) to reconnect the rail lines between the two countries. So, trains might someday soon pass through Cheorwon again.

Seoul and Pyongyang had agreed to conduct a joint inspection of the rail lines n August—and then again in October. It was postponed both times.

Seoul has cited as a reason for the postponement “slight differences” between the South Korean and U.S. governments.

“Slight” is an understatement. The United States has insisted that the rapprochement between North and South not violate the sanctions regime. According to the Korea Times, “the U.S.-led United Nations Command has yet to approve a request for a South Korean train carrying personnel and supplies to cross the military demarcation line (MDL). This is because taking supplies such as oil into the North contravenes U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed on Pyongyang.”

This is an extraordinary mistake by the U.S. government. It is so worried about South Korea getting “too far ahead” in its negotiations with the North that it has proven inflexible on the issue of sanctions. It is preventing the inspection of the railroads on the basis of a technicality. In any other circumstances, the United States would welcome an opportunity to acquire important intelligence about the situation inside an adversarial country.

In other words, the Trump administration has put a limit on what the two Koreas can accomplish by themselves in tearing down the Cold War structures that divide the peninsula. The U.S. government has been remarkably consistent in its insistence – across several administrations – on maintaining maximum economic pressure on Pyongyang.

The only thing that distinguishes the approach of the current administration is Donald Trump himself. The president continues to believe that he can solve the nuclear issue by himself. That’s why he’s focused on a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Trump might be right.

After all, according to the foreign policy consensus in Washington, the United States should not give any concessions to North Korea until it completely, verifiably, and irreversibly ditches its nuclear program. But North Korea, since it has only one major bargaining chip, won’t do that. It has sensibly proposed a step-by-step approach in which the two sides make a series of concessions to one another.

Only Donald Trump has the authority to challenge the foreign policy consensus in Washington – which was also against his summits with Kim in the first place – and agree to some kind of give-and-take with North Korea. So, for instance, Trump could offer a modest relaxation of sanctions in exchange for an inventory of North Korea’s nuclear complex. More ambitiously, the two sides could come up a detailed timeline of concessions that would reduce both the sanctions and North Korea’s nuclear complex.

Much, unfortunately, depends on Trump. After all, almost everything that Seoul and Pyongyang are currently negotiating – economic projects, tourism projects, further dismantlement of Cold War structures – requires incremental progress in U.S.-North Korean relations.

It’s tantalizing to see what Seoul and Pyongyang have already accomplished and what they plan to do in the months ahead. It’s exciting to see the Cold War structures at the DMZ begin to dissolve. It’s not inevitable. It’s not irreversible. But for the first time in decades, peace on the peninsula seems within reach.

By John Feffer, director of Foreign Policy In Focus

The views presented in this column are the writer’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those of The Hankyoreh.

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