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Following - in my opinion - very interesting, if not to say significantly ('cause it's complete without nationalist, pro-NK stuff) article has been published in yesterday's Hankyoreh:

How can a peace be achieved on the Korean Peninsula?

Building a permanent peace regime on the Korean peninsula is long-cherished dream of Koreans who underwent terrible sufferings and devastating damage during the Korean War which broke out in 1950. Permanent peace is considered to be the only way to avoid another war on the Korean peninsula. If war breaks out again, the consequences would be disastrous. The existence in Korea of a national consensus on the need for a solid peace framework, a consensus that supersedes political affiliations, is indisputable.

Even though more than five decades have passed since the Korean War ended, the two Koreas are still technically at war each other. Three countries signed the armistice; North Korea, the U.S. and China. South Korea did not join in. Then South Korea President Syngman Rhee refused to sign the document, arguing that an armistice would remove the chance to reunify Korea.

Since then, it is North Korea which has consistently been calling for negotiations for a peace treaty with the US. The main goal of North Korea's peace initiatives was eventual withdrawal of the U.S. forces from South Korea. North Korea perceived that the military presence of the U.S. in South Korea posed a serious threat. But North Korea's demands were simply rejected by the United States because North Korea insisted that South Korea be excluded from the peace treaty negotiations. North Korea argued that south Korea is not entitled to join peace negotiations because South Korea was not a signatory to the armistice. North Korea has not changed its stubborn position on who should be the principal participants in the peace talks.

When the four-party talks convened in 1994 to discuss North Korea's nuclear program, North Korea reiterated its position that South Korea shoud be excluded. As North Korea's nuclear disputes intensified, South Korea and the US reversed their position on peace talks. The two countries are very eager to embark on talks even though they attach preconditions for them. One precondition is North Korea's repudiation of nuclear weapons programs. Top leaders of the two countries emphasize that they are ready to start peace talks if North Korea would abandon its nuclear ambitions. The US links the denuclearization of North Korea to the peace agreement. On the other hand, South Korea was greatly anxious to reach a peace agreement as part of its efforts to avoid war on the Korean peninsula and to pursue stability and co-prosperity.

When tensions over North Korea's nuclear program escalated, support for peace regime gained momentum among decision-making circles in both South Korea and the United States. The peace mechanism is considered useful in diffusing tensions on the Korean peninsula. South Korean leaders seemed to have the view that North Korea's nuclear disputes could be resolved only in the context of a comprehensive peace framework. From this viewpoint, the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula could be realized only through establishment of the permanent peace mechanism.

In the United States, officials at State Department and the White House began to pay attention to the effectiveness of the peace regime on the Korean peninsula. They realized that the peace regime could serve as another multilateral forum to persuade North Korea to give up the nuclear weapons program. Philip Zelikow, foreign policy consultant to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is known to play a leading role in conceptualizing the peace regime. Zelikow reportedly advised Secretary Rice to push ahead with the peace formula.

It was again this backdrop that South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and US President George W. Bush agreed in a summit held Nov 17 2005 in Gyeongju, a city of southeastern Korea, "to make common efforts to develop a regional multilateral dialogue and a cooperation mechanism so as to jointly respond to regional security issues."

The two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to the peace regime when they met on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Hanoi in November 2006, a month after North Korea conducted a nuclear test on October 9, 2006. At the meeting, Bush disclosed that he has the intention to sign an agreement officially declaring the end of the Korean War together with South Korean President Roh and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

Since then, the peace regime has gained momentum. In the six-party talks, agreement was reached twice (in September 19, 2005 Joint Statement and in the February 13, 2007 Agreement) to set up a separate forum to discuss a permanent peace mechanism on the Korean peninsula.

At this point, the separate peace forum remains to be launched due to the tug-of-war over North Korean money frozen at the BDA account in Macau. When the follow-up working group negotiations start, the peace forum will get started.

Before moving on to how to build a permanent peace regime on the Korean peninsula, let us talk about what major source of tensions and hostilities which could imperil the peace on the Korean peninsula?

Fundamentally, the division of the Korean peninsula after World War II is often cited as a primary source of tensions and hostilities on the Korean peninsula. Two Koreas fought each other in the Korean War. For a long time, North Korea's military threat has been considered as a major factor in tensions. In this context, reunification of the divided Koreas would lead to peace on the Korean peninsula.

However, the security situation in Korea underwent a sharp change after the end of Cold War, symbolized by the dramatic collapse of the Soviet Union and a number of East European communist countries. Since then, the threat from the isolated and poor North Korea has diminished significantly. Even though North Korea now posseses nuclear weapons (or devices), few South Koreans feel the North is a serious threat.

The North is widely believed to be incapable of sustaining warfare even though it strikes first against South Korea. North Korea's long-time ally, China, is unlikely to support North Korea's possible war against South Korea. In view of its poor economic performance and sheer diplomatic isolation, North Korea is unlikely to turn to military adventurism. Launching war on South Korea would be military suicide.

Rather, North Korea seemes to worry about the possible military attacks by the United States since President George W. Bush took power in 2001. In particular, North Korea appeared to feel a serious threat from the U.S. since President Bush branded it a member of the "Axis of Evil" in his 2002 State of the Union address. As a matter of fact, the U.S. did not rule out the possibility of a "preemptive strike" against North Korea as part of its efforts to remove nuclear facilities in North Korea. Top leaders of the US made it public that "all options are on the table" to resolve the North Korean nuclear cirsis. In this sense, hostile relations between the US and North Korea constituted a major source of deteriorating instability and growing tensions in the Korean peninsula.

The primary motivation behind the Bush administration's hostile policy toward North Korea during its first term rested with its repudiation of Clinton's engagement policy toward North Korea. President Bush's North Korea policy, which was dominated by hawkish key figures like Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, was characterized as ABC(Anything But Clinton). The Bush administration had been pursuing eventual regime change of North Korea until it finally decided to start one-on-one negotiations with North Korea in Berlin in January of this year.

Tensions culminated in North Korea's nuclear test which was conducted on Oct 9, 2006. To sum up, hostilities and distrust between North Korea and the US combined to escalate tension in the Korean peninsula. There is no doubt that North Korea's nuclear weapons are escalating tensions in the Korean peninsula and East Asian region. Japan may feel tempted to develop nuclear arms to have a deterrent against North Korean nuclear weapons. Taiwan will continue to observe what's happening with the North's nuclear program. These scenarios are the worst ones China could possibly imagine. Sometime in the future, South Korea may try to possess nuclear weapons as well. A nuclear arms race will be inevitable if North Korean nuclear weapons are left unchecked.

Another source of tension in the Korean peninsula is the Sino-Japan rivalry in East Asia. Mindful of rapid rise of China's influence in the region, Japan has been building up its military power. Japan may justify its military buildup as self-defense against North Korea's nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. Japan has been exploiting North Korea's nuclear threat as a pretext for rearming itself as well as pushing for a revision of Article 9 of its constitutional to allow it the right to wage war and maintain legitimately armed forces. But it is widely believed that Japan's military buildup is aimed at its archrival China.

How can peace be achieved on the Korean peninsula? Considering the fact that hostile relations between North Korea and the US constitute a major obstacle to the peace in the Korean peninsula, normalization between the two countries would be indispensable. The North Korean nuclear crisis grew critical as the Bush Administration engaged in explicitly hostile posture against North Korea.

The Atlantic Council peace regime report released on April 13 this year deserves attention. The report is credited with a comprehensive approach to the blueprint for the peace framework. It includes five major points for the peace formula.

First, the report calls on the Bush administration to agree to a "denuclearization agreement." Second is to replace the armistice of 1953 with a "four-party" agreement between the two Koreas, the US and China. Third is for the US to sign a bilateral agreement with Pyongyang to settle outstanding legal and political issues. Fourth is to negotiate a trilateral agreement with both Koreas for the sake of confidence-building measures between the military forces, as a step toward the four-party agreement. Fifth is to work on establishing a multilateral organization for security cooperation in Northeast Asia modeled after Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The report is the first of its kind to present detailed and concrete steps to reach a full-fledged peace framework on the Korean peninsula rather than focusing entirely on the North Korean nuclear issue. In the past, former President Kim Dae-jung also proposed the peace formula shortly after he took office in 1998. His main concept was for both Koreas to sign a peace treaty with full supports from the U.S. and China.

Both South and North Korea have been seeking to diffuse tension and achieve national reconciliations. This effort dates back to 1972 when the two sides declared historic 'July 4 Declaration' which set out broad principles of Korean reunification. The three main pillars of the Declaration were national self-determination, peace, national solidarity.

The July 4 declaration came in the wake of the so-called Nixon shock. President Nixon's surprise visit to Beijing and the historic Shanghai Communique which paved the way for normalization between the U.S. and China shook the whole world. In particular, South and North Korean leaders were greatly astonished by detente and subsequent cross-recognitions between the US and China.

From this viewpoint, the July 4th Declaration was a response to the sudden Sino-US detente. However, inter-Korea detente did not last long. Each side exploited it as a chance to strengthen autocratic rule in each country. North Korean leader Kim Il-sung was able to become ruler for life. In the South, Park Chung-hee established himself the unchallenged dictator with the Yushin Constitution, allowing himself limitless power. Unfortunately, the first inter-Korea detente led to more harsh authoritarian rule in each side.

About two decades later, South and North Korea reached a historic peace pact known as "Basic Agreement" on December 13, 1991, which became effective in February 1992. It called for both governments to endeavor together to transform the present state of armistice into a solid peace between the two sides. Unlike the 1972 pact, the Basic Agreement outlined a number of security-related CBMs (confidence-building measures) as well as various measures concerning North-South reconciliation, non-aggression, exchange of people and economic cooperation. Together with the Basic Agreement, two Koreas created the "Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula." It forbade both sides to test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deploy, or use nuclear weapons and forbade the possession of nuclear reprocessing and uranium enrichment facilities. A procedure for inter-Korean inspection was to be organized and a North-South Joint Nuclear Control Commission (JNCC) was mandated with verification of the denuclearization of the peninsula.

How to build a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula? What is a peace regime? Is it simply to end the state of war officially by replacing 1953 armistice with a peace agreement(treaty)? A peace agreement alone would not end hostile relations and possibilities of war. The peace regime should involve a whole set of country-to-country and people-to-people relationships, by which peaceful coexistence and co-prosperity could be achieved on the Korean peninsula.

Both South and North Koreas have already produced a significant peace mechanism 15 years ago, 1992, widely known as Basic Agreement. The Basic Agreement contains almost everything when it comes to peace frameworks on the Korean peninsula. The basic spirit is reconciliation, peace and exchanges. It deserved to be called as textbook of Korean peace mechanism.

However, it lacks one crucial element. It did not secure full support from key stakeholder countries which affect the security of the Korean peninsula, that is the U.S. and China. The two countries were entangled in the Korean War and fought against each other. As a matter of fact, the Basic Agreement was invalidated when the first North Korean nuclear crisis surfaced in 1994. The first North Korean nuclear crisis could be settled down when the U.S. and North Korea reached the Agreed Framework in 1995. However, the Agreed Framework was also nullified when the Bush Administration killed it in 2002, alleging that North Korea had not live up to the Agreed Framework by seeking to operate covert highly enriched uranium (HEU) program. The foiled Agreed Framework left a valuable lesson: peace frameworks would work only when revelent countries like the U.S. and China are involved as principal partners.

What shoud be done for a permanent peace on the Korean peninsula? As many experts and scholars point out, it is no doubt that improved ties between the U.S. and North Korea would be a first step toward the full-fledged peace regime on the Korean peninsula. In this context, the peace mechanism would require "grand bargain" package.

Measures that would be included in the package are:

1. To replace the 1953 war armistice with a peace treaty (or peace agreement). The principal partners would be the two Koreas, the U.S. and China.

2. To normalize relations between North Korea and the U.S. Hostile relations between the two countries have been a major source of tensions and instability on the Korean peninsula.

3. To achieve nuclear disarmament on the Korean peninsula. The first step would be North Korea's abandonment of nuclear programs.

4. To carry out confidence-building measures such as redeployment of forwardly deployed ground forces along the Military Demarcation Line which divides South and North Korea. Reduction of conventional forces are also followed as part of confidence-building measures.

5.To set up a multilateral security and cooperation organization in Northeast Asia.

6.To build a Northeast Asia Nuclear-Free Zone.

7.To establish an energy-cooperation mechanism under which Russia's natural gas is supplied to both Koreas, China and Japan through pipelines to be built to connect these countries.

In the context of Northeast Asia's regional security, a multilateral security organization and a Nuclear-free Zone are vital. In view of the fact that regional security could not come automatically even when North Korea dismantles its nuclear facilities fully.

What's needed to take place is a new approach to a permanent peace framework for the Korean peninsula as well as regional stability in Northeast Asia. The two goals cannot be separated. In particular, the economy of Northeast Asian countries are highly interdependent. The security of the region is also closely linked as well.

For its part, North Korea needs to change. As long as the so-called "military-first" ("Songun") structure of North Korea remains unchanged, it would be highly difficult, if not impossible, for North Korea to give up the nuclear weapons it might have produced.

Militaries always tend to maintain tension and military confrontation. North Korean leaders should realize that the time when military power alone is enough for defense is gone. History shows that military power cannot guarantee its survival. It should adapt to the global trend, which calls for a more open society and higher standards of human rights.

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_editorial/208361.html

Somehow(^^) related:

☞ Two Koreas agree on rail test, tension-reducing measures (Yonhap, 5.11)

☞ Two Koreas agree on train crossing, but just this once (JoongAng Ilbo)

☞ South Korea, US Differ Over Peace Treaty Timeline (Korea Times)