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South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un walk together after the inter-Korean summit on May 26, 2018, held in Panmunjom’s Tongilgak unification pavilion. (provided by the Blue House)

Following a summit between then South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and US President George W. Bush in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Nov. 18, 2006, a White House spokesperson said the US was willing to officially end the Korean War.

That was the first mention of a declaration to end the Korean War, which technically continues, though fighting was halted with an armistice. The South Korean press dubbed this “Bush’s Hanoi declaration,” and said, “the US has offered North Korea a new incentive.”

Those are the grounds for saying even now that the US was the first to propose an end-of-war declaration. But there’s a tragicomic side to this story.

The Roh administration in South Korea paid a great deal of attention to remarks about the end-of-war declaration. With North Korea demanding a peace treaty before denuclearization and the US demanding denuclearization before a peace treaty, Roh believed an end-of-war declaration could provide a vital impetus for both goals.

That was what Roh was hoping for during another meeting with Bush in Sydney, Australia, 10 months later. But in the news conference following their meeting, Bush said, “It’s up to Kim Jong-il as to whether or not we’re able to sign a peace treaty to end the Korean War.”

When Roh asked his counterpart to “be a little clearer,” Bush, looking flustered, said, “I can’t make it any more clear, Mr. President. […] The day when we can end the Korean War […] will happen when Kim Jong-il verifiably gets rid of his weapons programs and his weapons.”

In the inter-Korean summit held in Pyongyang one month later, South and North Korea agreed to “pursue a three-party or four-party summit on the Korean Peninsula with the goal of making an end-of-war declaration.”

When Roh told Kim Jong-il, then the leader of North Korea, that Bush had proposed the end-of-war declaration, Kim said, “that’s very significant, if true.” It looked as if the leaders of South Korea, North Korea and the US were on the same page about an end-of-war declaration.

But things didn’t end there. While the Bush administration was the first to use the expression “declaration to end the Korean War,” it had used it as a synonym for a peace treaty. That’s why it predicated the declaration on North Korea’s denuclearization.

In contrast, the Roh administration viewed a declaration to end the war as a political declaration that would come before a peace treaty. As such, Roh believed that the declaration would create momentum for the denuclearization talks before denuclearization was completed.

The narrative about the end-of-war declaration originated from a misreading of the Bush administration’s position. Indeed, South Korea and the US’ conflicting positions became public knowledge after the second inter-Korean summit.

The Bush administration explained that an end-of-war declaration was the same as a peace treaty and stated that the US would not sign a peace treaty with a nuclear-armed North Korea. And then discussion of an end-of-war declaration was shelved after a new occupant entered the Blue House in February 2008.

Ten years later, South Korean President Moon Jae-in brought up the idea of an end-of-war declaration once again. With an inter-Korean summit and a North Korea-US summit just around the corner, Moon had reached the strategic decision that an end-of-war declaration could breathe new life into his pursuit of denuclearization and a peace regime.

This time around, the three countries managed to clear up the confusion from a decade earlier. South Korea, North Korea and the US all agreed that the end-of-war declaration would be made prior to the peace treaty. That led to an effort to incorporate that wording into the Panmunjom Declaration of April 27, 2018 — an idea that was reportedly welcomed by then US President Donald Trump.

During their summit in Singapore on June 12 of the same year, Trump gave North Korean leader Kim Jong-un a verbal promise that the war would be declared over.

Seemingly all that remained for the end-of-war declaration was picking the day. North Korea had even settled on July 27, the anniversary of the armistice signing. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo himself communicated a similar position when he visited Pyongyang in early July.

But then Pompeo brought up the idea that North Korea must denuclearize first. Annoyed at the shifting goalposts and chiding themselves for their naivete, the North Koreans began to lose interest in an end-of-war declaration.

But the Moon administration strived to keep hope alive while continuing to stress the necessity of such a declaration. Moon even appealed to the international community for its cooperation in a speech before the UN General Assembly on Sept. 21 of that year. If the parties to the Korean War — South Korea, North Korea, the US, and maybe even China — could come together and formally declare the end of the war, Moon said, it could lead to “complete denuclearization and permanent peace.”

The US responded by saying that it was open to discussing the possibility of an end-of-war declaration, while China also voiced its support. Even North Korea, which had seemingly lost interest in the idea, said that an end-of-war declaration was something to consider. At the time, North Korea said that declaring an end to the war is a necessary step in the direction of establishing a system that would ensure peace.

Notably, Kim Yo-jong, vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, described an end-of-war declaration as “an interesting proposal and a good idea.”

Does that mean that the stakeholder countries have reached a consensus on an end-of-war declaration? Not yet.

The US’ basic position is that it won’t consent to such a declaration until it’s confident that it would definitely contribute to denuclearization. In contrast, North Korea has underlined that the US must either retract its “policy of hostility” or provide some kind of guarantee that it will. Another condition for North Korea is that South Korea and the US must abandon the “double standard” that characterizes their own arms buildup as legitimate but the North’s arms buildup as a provocation.

North Korea also tested launched a hypersonic missile on Sept. 28 that it dubbed the Hwasong-8. The Moon administration responded by expressing its “regret,” while refraining from using the term “provocation.” That shows how strenuously the administration is trying to preserve hard-won progress toward declaring an end to the Korean War.

Given the tragicomic origins of the end-of-war declaration, there’s no telling yet what its conclusion will be. Let us consider a few questions that may be pertinent to either a happy ending or a fresh beginning.

Does it make sense for the Moon administration to advocate an end-of-war declaration while simultaneously orchestrating Korea’s biggest arms buildup in history and continuing joint military exercises with the US?

According to the government’s explanation, an end-of-war declaration is a political declaration under which the Armistice Agreement would be legally maintained. How can that awkward coexistence be resolved?

Any quick resolution would require the end-of-war declaration to contribute to denuclearization. Is North Korea likely to be keen about denuclearization while the arms race is intensifying?

To tackle those issues, why don’t South Korea and the US quickly announce a suspension of their joint military exercises scheduled for March 2022 and propose dialogue with North Korea?

Why don’t we move forward with denuclearization talks while making an end-of-war declaration that includes initiating negotiations for a peace treaty?

By Cheong Wook-Sik, director of the Hankyoreh Peace Institute and director of the Peace Network

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]