President Moon Jae In's upcoming summit with Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang (Sep. 18-20) will follow yesterday's military working level talks between North and South Korean military representatives at Panmunjum who discussed an agreement to withdraw 10 guardposts on a trial basis from the Joint Security Area (JSA) in an initial effort to demilitarize the heavily armed border area. The planned third summit also will follow yesterday's opening of the joint liaison office between North and South Korea in Kaesong, North Korea, to facilitate communications on a 24 hour basis between the two governments. Officials in the US and conservatives in South Korea are concerned that the opening of the Kaesong office was supported by the export of prohibited materials from South Korea, including construction materials, fuel and generators to facilitate the opening and operation of the office. South Korea responded that there is no economic benefit to North Korea, and the effort represents no more than the presence of other foreign diplomatic delegations present in Pyongyang. Coinciding with the opening, the US treasury office imposed additional sanctions on Russia and China related to alleged cyber hacking by a North Korean individual, facilitated by two enterprises in China and Russia. The timing of the sanctions is considered inopportune in North and South Korea. In an earlier Channel A News report, a previously undisclosed English translation of the North South Panmunjum declaration of April 27, called for the adoption of a declaration to end the Korean War before the end of the year.
The well known defector Tae Yong Ho, is a former North Korean diplomat who defected from the North Korean Embassy in London. He has warned the South Korean public that the proposed declaration of the end of the Korean War, undermines the United Nations Command, (UNC) the international security structure in Korea and Northeast Asia which binds the former allied nations in the Korean conflict, to the Armistice Agreement. As reported by Channel A News Top Ten today, Tae regards the South Korean negotiations to demilitarize the Joint Security Area, as beginning a tangible preparation for the eventual declaration of the end of the Korean conflict, and the elimination of the UNC from the Korean peninsula. At that point, the unilateral alliances between the United States and Korea, and Japan and the US are the remaining defensive alliance structures in the region. Channel A Top Ten analysts took Tae's arguments a step further and argued that a declaration of the end of the Korean conflict could arguably require the US forces to leave Korea. This argument proposed that denuclearization of the Korean peninsula called for in the US North Korean Singapore Summit Declaration could result in the withdrawal of US forces from the peninsula on the grounds that the US is a nuclear power. The Channel A news analysis suggested that the elimination of the UNC could result in a reduction of one half of the forces necessary to defend South Korea in a time of invasion of South Korea. Tae regards the withdrawal of US forces as Kim's ultimate ambition. There is little question that dissolving the UNC could make timely participation of allies in the event of any prospective defense of South Korea problematic. Kim Jong Un addressed the issue of the US Korean alliance directly recently with the delegation who made the arrangements for President Moon's upcoming summit, when Kim reportedly said, there was absolutely no relationship between a declaration to the end the Korean War and the US South Korean alliance.
Very good coverage here, sir.
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