North Korea is calling for military talks with the United States under the auspices of the United Nations. [The Australian]
The Korean version of the North Korean military statement — partially run by Yonhap — is actually a bit interesting, including North Korea’s expressions of respect for the Armistice Agreement and the UN Security Council.
Of course, the problem — noted rather irritatedly by some of the netizens at Naver.com — is that once again, North Korea is treating South Korea like it doesn’t exist.
But then again, with South Korea beginning shipments of oil to the North, I guess there’s no real reason for Pyongyang to talk to Seoul. Or at least not until it needs another fix.
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what’dya expect when South Korea constantly bends over and takes it? The South acts like a love-sick woman willing to do anything to please the North no matter how badly it treats her or anyone else.
Reminiscent of the pre-Sunshine days of the DPRK only wanting/willing to speak with the US.
I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop and the nK’s falling back into brinksmanship form, but so far this looks encouraging for peace.
If would could only free the people at the same time…
Maybe the U.S. should conclude a Korean War peace treaty - with China.
The tiger only talks to the rabbit they hunt in folktales and this southern rabbit isn’t as wise as the one in folktales either.
I think the U.S. could really use this to its advantage by granting the request this time.
Things seem to be going pretty well right now as far as apparent progress towards denuclearization… which means the next thing will be for the North to find some excuse to point at the U.S. for hurting its feelings and scrapping the entire deal while keeping all the South’s aid and whispering in the South’s ear “oh, they just don’t understand us.”
Of course, if the U.S. did this, it’d piss off the South mightily. Perhaps that’s a good thing, and the U.S. could use it as a teaching point that it’s better for SK and the U.S. to be on the same sheet of music and working together on their engagement policy towards the North, instead of using the old “we’re Korean, so you can’t understand” excuse.
It wasn’t until I started frequenting this board and getting back into Korean war history that I realized that the South had refused to be a party to the armistice agreement of July 1953.
Last Chinese troops left North Korea in 1958 (?); not sure when their generals stopped attending Panmunjon meetings.
A “de facto” peace treaty was essentially concluded long ago, symoblized by the Albright visit of 98 and the Kim Dae Jung visit of 2000. It’s long past time to end the farcical pretense of a continuing “armistice” and just sign a peace treaty; let the South once again choose whether or not to be a formal party to it, they’ve essentially already chosen informally anyway.
And don’t bother “negotiating” any conditions with the North. As one astute commenter here pointed out, on a long-ago thread (wish I could remember who it was): the North won’t honor any conditions anyway, so why bother? Just sign it, do the appropriate toasts/fireworks etc etc, and get on with whatever’s going to ultimately happpen as regards the move of USFK south (subject to the normal ROK vacillating etc).
North Korea and the US has been talking and will continue to talk till the following things happen:
1. The official ending of the Korean War
2. USFK withdrawal
This is what China and South Korea want as well. Japan is the only one which does not want this.
After a couple of years after 2, all hell will break loose in Korean peninsula. That is what China wants. NK may attack SK. Or, NK may attack Japan to incite Commies inside SK to join it. In either case, SK will fall.
South Koreans, with all their professed learning and sophistication, will fall just like VietNam.
I retract part of my earlier post above. It didn’t click in my head that it was the MPAF that was calling for direct talks with the U.S. As far as inter-military talks go, things should stay the way they are.
If the NK Ministry of Foreign Affairs (or whatever it’s technically called, the name escapes me at the moment) wants to hold direct DIMPLOMATIC talks with the U.S., I say go for it, for the same reasons I noted above. Maybe SK will learn that when it gives NK a bunch of aid and NK turns around and says “I want to talk to the U.S. alone, without you” that something might not be right with SK’s sunshine engagement policy.
diplomatic
I would like to say “Yes, go ahead and have bilateral ‘military’ talks,” but unfortunately such talks will have legal consequences that aren’t so good for SK or US.
And…yeah, such a demand seems out of sync with the times, like “pre-sunshine days,” as above posting-han saram said.
What such de-coupling could end up meaning is the de facto separation of military and political talks. If that happens then all sorts of other military talks can be brought up on a track distinct from political talks, including US or SK troop numbers, exercises, anything, say the ‘withdrawal of US forces’ before a peace treaty can be signed, anything.
It is unfortunate that not more foreigners (read: on this blog) dont give support to sunshine. But be that as it may, we likely see more back and forth for years as we inch toward peace and reconciliation. Regardless of how belicose NK or the US get, the SK FP status quo is working, just perhaps not as fast as is desirable. And the critics of sunshine on the right are slowly proven wrong.
Happy Consitution Day!