Continuing a long-standing effort to reduce military presences along the demilitarized zone, North and South Korea spent the weekend taking apart a series of guard posts, with 22 posts along the front-lines being totally disarmed, removing all troops and equipment.
Following this, 20 of the 22 posts were totally destroyed, with each side keeping a single, empty guard post. This apparently was at the behest of North Korea, as they wanted to keep a post that Kim Jong-un had visited in 2013.
Both sides have been greatly reducing the amount of weaponry they possess along the demilitarized zone, as diplomats work to find new ways to further reduce tensions. The goal is to ultimately prepare for a peace treaty, ending the generations-long Korean War, and readying the dismantling of the DMZ entirely.
US officials have largely opposed these moves to reduce military forces along the tense border, mostly because they are resisting pushes by both Koreas to quickly finalize a peace treaty. The Trump Administration has argued North Korea must totally dismantle its nuclear program before any such deal.
Wow this seems to have the big MO….
Peace will come, no matter how hard the US tries to stop it.
Wish it were so.
The Korea situation is headed south, and Trump has ceded military command.
Pyongyang Joint Declaration of September 2018
The two leaders reaffirmed the principle of independence and self-determination of the Korean nation, . . . agreed to expand the cessation of military hostility in regions of confrontation such as the DMZ into the substantial removal of the danger of war across the entire Korean Peninsula
Trump: “We are going to get out of the war games that cost so much money, because number one I think it’s very provocative. I want to do it and I think they’re [North Korea] very happy about it because it is so provocative.”
SEOUL, Nov. 4 (Yonhap) — South Korea and the United States will this week resume battalion-level marine exercises that have been suspended as part of efforts to help facilitate a detente with North Korea, Seoul military officials said Sunday. The two marine forces will begin joint training lasting two weeks around the southeastern port city of Pohang on Monday. It will involve 500 troops from the South Korean Marine Corps and the U.S. III Marine Expeditionary Force stationed in Okinawa.
South Korea’s resumption of small-scale military drills with the United States violated a recent agreement aimed at lowering tensions on the Korean peninsula, North Korean state media said on Monday. “Seoul and Washington should stop such a military act and remain consistent in the ongoing tension-easing on the peninsula by stopping any military exercises,” Rodong Sinmun, the North’s official mouthpiece, said Monday.
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