South Korean President Urges Replacing Korean DMZ With ‘Peace Zone’

Speaking at the UN General Assembly, South Korean President Moon Jae-in called for the international community to commit to a peace process in Korea which would provide guarantees for North Korean security, and more significantly, replace the existing demilitarized zone (DMZ) with what he is calling an “international peace area.”

Exactly what the practical difference would be is unclear, but Moon said it would be a peace zone “in name as well as substance,” and would evolve into its own “bridge nation that connects the continent and the ocean and facilitates peace and prosperity.”

Moon suggested this would be a good way to get the stalled peace process moving again, and incentivize North Korea’s denuclearization process. South Korean officials also suggested North Korea’s Kim Jong Un might visit the South Korean city of Busan in November.

The Busan visit could be proposed but not confirmed yet, and might also be related to another Trump-Kim summit being held later this year. It would be unlikely for the summit to be in South Korea, but a Kim visit to the south could be a huge step forward in diplomacy.