North Korea slams US for its “lukewarm” attitude toward formally ending war

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo answers reporters’ questions in Tokyo on July 8 regarding his third visit to North Korea. (Pompeo’s Twitter account)

Ending Korean War emerges as major point of contention after Pompeo’s third North Korea visit

The formal declaration of the end of the Korean War has emerged as a “hot potato” in the process of implementing the joint statement produced by the North Korea-US summit in June 12.

Shortly after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo left Pyongyang on July 7, the spokesperson of the North Korean Foreign Ministry released a statement slamming the US for its “wishy-washy, lukewarm attitude toward formally ending the war.”

Declaring the end of the war is on the agenda of South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has taken the lead in pushing for that declaration as a major step toward building a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. As such, South Korea would also be a party in that declaration. That is why the Blue House has been exceedingly circumspect on the matter. “Since North Korea and the US have a serious and sincere stance, we expect this matter will be resolved successfully,” said Blue House Spokesperson Kim Eui-kyum.

During a statement on the evening of July 7, North Korea said that during the high-level talks between Workers’ Party of Korea Vice Chairman Kim Yong-chol and Pompeo, Kim “proposed discussing the issue of declaring the end of the Korean War on the 65th anniversary of the signing of the armistice agreement in order to build a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.”

But North Korea criticized the US for adopting “the stance of imposing conditions and making excuses to further postpone the declaration of the end of the war, which has already been agreed to, without making any mention of the issue of building a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula, which is the fundamental issue for preventing the situation from deteriorating into war.”

“Declaring the end of the war was also specified in the inter-Korean Panmunjeom Declaration, and President Trump expressed even more enthusiasm about it during the North Korea-US summit,” the North Korean statement also reminded readers. Cho Sung-ryul, senior research fellow for the Institute for National Security Strategy, interpreted this as expressing North Korea’s “dissatisfaction with the US for not talking about a security guarantee.”

Children head back to school after paying their respects to statutes of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il at Pyongyang’s Mansu Hill Grand Monument on July 7, the day of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s high-level talks with WPK Vice Chairman Kim Yong-chol as well as the 24th anniversary of Kim Il-sung’s passing. (AP/Yonhap News)

North Korea regards declaring end of Korean War as first measure

North Korea also expressed its official opinion about the significance of an early declaration of the end of the war, the first time it has done so publicly. First, the North said, this would be “the first step toward defusing tensions and establishing a lasting peace regime on the Korean Peninsula”; second, it “constitutes a first factor in creating trust between the DPRK and the US”; and third, it would be “a historical task to terminate the war status on the Korean Peninsula which has lasted for nearly 70 years.”

To sum up, the North regards this as the “first measure” that the US can take to guarantee the security of the Pyongyang regime during the process of converting North Korea-US relations from war to peace.

Moon previously expressed his hope that “arranging a trilateral summit between South Korea, North Korea and the US to formally end the Korean War after a successful North Korea-US summit” could be “a way to resolve the concerns harbored by North Korea in the area of security.”

Trump has also repeatedly made positive remarks about formally declaring the end of the war: “[South and North Korea] are discussing an end to the war. [. . .] They do have my blessing to discuss that.”

But despite pushback from North Korea, Pompeo made no direct mention of formally ending the war during his press conference following his meeting with the South Korea and Japanese foreign ministers in Tokyo on July 8.

“The crux of the dissatisfaction with the US that North Korea raised in the statement was the issue of declaring the end of the war. Paradoxically, making progress on the issue of this declaration could lead to a major breakthrough in North Korea-US negotiations,” said a senior official in the South Korean government who is adept at “reading” North Korea.

Analysts are offering two explanations of the US’s change of attitude in regard to quickly declaring the end of the war. The first is the lack of technical preparations. Since a substantial portion of the US sanctions against North Korea have been in place since the Korean War, the US would have to review portions of domestic legislation (including the Trade with the Enemy Act) that deal with these sanctions, and some analysts believe this technical work has not been done yet.

The second explanation is that the US may be holding back on formally ending the war so that it can use this as leverage in negotiations to push the North toward denuclearization.

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer, and Noh Ji-won and Kim Bo-hyeop, staff reporters

Please direct comments or questions to [[e-mail]]