Report on Korean War (2)

Withdrawal of U.S. Hostile Policy towards DPRK - Indispensable Prerequisite for 

Peace and Stability on Korean Peninsula

- Institute for Disarmament and Peace of DPRK Foreign Ministry -

Pyongyang, June 25 (KCNA) -- 70 years have elapsed since the bursts of gunfire of war were heard on this land.

The Korean War forced by the United States inflicted painful scars and tremendous human and material losses upon the Korean people. Continuing into this moment is the suffering of national division whereby kinsfolk of the same blood are compelled to live apart.
    

2. Criminal Acts of U.S. – Systematic Abolition of Armistice Agreement

     
The U.S. hostile manoeuvres towards the DPRK after the Korean War can be characterized in a word as a pursuit of permanent division of the Korean peninsula and ceaseless nuclear threats and blackmail against the DPRK.

The Korean War, which Truman, a war chieftain, described as no less than the World War III, came to a pause with the conclusion of the Armistice Agreement. But it meant neither the end of war nor the conclusion of a peace agreement.

The Armistice Agreement, at the time of its conclusion, constituted no more than a transitional step aimed at withdrawing all foreign troops from the Korean peninsula and establishing lasting peace on it.

No sooner had the Armistice Agreement been signed than the U.S. drove the situation of the Korean peninsula to the brink of war in a flagrant violation of the Armistice Agreement, driven by its wild ambition to make our people its slaves by all means and seize the whole of Korean peninsula.

Around 22:20 p.m. on July 27, 1953, less than half an hour after the Armistice Agreement became effective, the U.S. army fired several machine gun shots towards our side's area and since then, fired shells into our side's area successively for several hours at intervals of tens of minutes.

In disregard of the Paragraph 10, Article I of the Armistice Agreement which stipulates that only pistols and rifles can be carried in Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) including the Joint Security Area (JSA), the U.S. army introduced automatic rifles and machine guns and, moreover, cannons, tanks, flame throwers, helicopters etc., and opened gunfire towards our side's posts and guardsmen indiscriminately almost every day.

Since 1968, the U.S. army mobilized the fully armed troops to repeat the military operations which it had once conducted in the areas along the 38th parallel including Mountain Songak just before the provocation of June 25 War.

The U.S. army committed innumerable acts of provocation in Panmunjom JSA, including Panmunjom incident on August 18, 1976 and the incident of gunfire towards our security personnel on November 23, 1984.

The U.S. ified Paragraph 60, Article IV of the Armistice Agreement which envisages the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Korea and the peaceful settlement of the Korean question.
Paragraph 60 of the Armistice Agreement stipulated that within three months after the Armistice Agreement becomes effective a political conference of a higher level is to be held to negotiate the questions of the withdrawal of all foreign forces from the Korean peninsula and the ways for peaceful settlement of the Korean question.

At the preparatory talks for a political conference that were convened at Panmunjom on October 26, 1953, the U.S. laid artificial obstacles, only clinging to the obstructive manoeuvres, and on December 12 same year, it unilaterally withdrew from the meeting room. Thus the talks didn't proceed to the main conference, but was ruptured in the preparatory stage.

Afterwards, the Geneva Conference was convened for the peaceful settlement of the Korean question, but the U.S. deliberately disrupted the conference.

On August 8, 1953, the U.S. staged the ceremony of signing of what is called a "Mutual Defence Treaty" with south Korea in order to legitimize permanent stationing of U.S. troops in south Korea.

On January 2, 1955, the then Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff made reckless remarks that the U.S. army would station, for an indefinite period, in south Korea which is of great strategic significance in its world hegemony, and that it would continue to hinder the peaceful coordination of the Korean question.

After the UN resolution on dissolution of the "UN Command" for the durable peace on the Korean peninsula was adopted at the 30th session of the UN General Assembly in November 1975, the U.S. clinged more openly to its scheme for the permanent occupation by cooking up the U.S.-south Korea "Combined Forces Command."

In early March 2006, the U.S. worked out the plan and got down to its implementation for expanding and reorganizing the nominal "UN Command" into a permanent organization of multinational forces by way of increasing the role of belligerent states of the Korean War and permitting them to take part not only in the formulation of emergency and operational plans but also in detailed activities.

Thus, the process for converting the Armistice Agreement into a peace agreement miscarried, and the unstable state of neither war nor peace continues on the Korean peninsula.

In August 1953 the U.S. went totally against Sub-paragraph 13(b), Article II of the Armistice Agreement and unilaterally drew the "northern limit line" in the West Sea of Korea, which is an act of illegal and outrageous crime, thereby transforming its surrounding areas into the world's most dangerous hotspot. It is also attempting in every way to impose a blockade on our country under the pretext of "Proliferation Security Initiative", running counter to Paragraph 15, Article II which prohibits any kind of blockade against the DPRK.

The U.S. nullified Sub-paragraph 13(d), Article II of the Armistice Agreement which called for a complete cessation of introduction of all military materiel from outside of the Korean territory and turned south Korea into a world's weapons exhibition hall.

The U.S. incessantly threatened and blackmailed the Inspection Teams of Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission which were mandated according to Sub-paragraph 13(c), Article II of the Armistice Agreement to supervise and inspect the introductions of military materiel from outside of the Korean territory, and eventually expelled them from south Korea in June 1956, thereby paralyzing their inspection functions.

In May 1957, the then U.S. State Secretary openly stated in public that "the U.S. should consider sending more modern and effective weapons to south Korea," and on June 21 same year, the U.S. Army side that attended the 75th meeting of the Military Armistice Commission(MAC) announced its unilateral abrogation of Sub-paragraph 13(d) of the Armistice Agreement.

The U.S. shipped into south Korea more than 1,000 nuclear weapons during the period between the late 1950s and the 1980s. As a result, south Korea was converted into the most highly deployed area of nuclear weapons in the world, their number being over 4 times that of "NATO" member states, and into an advanced outpost for outbreak of a nuclear war. The U.S. also formalized the provision of nuclear umbrella to south Korea at the 14th session of the U.S.-south Korea Annual Security Consultative Meeting held in March 1982.

South Korea Honest John Rocket - AP  Archive

At the dawn of the 21st century, the U.S. designated our country as a target for preemptive nuclear strike in its "Nuclear Posture Review" and shipped into south Korea the warfare equipment worth an astronomical amount of money, along with nuclear weaponry.

The U.S. deployed in south Korea all sorts of ultra-modern offensive arms such as "F-117" stealth fighter, "F-15" and "F-16" fighters, "Shadow 200" tactical reconnaissance drones, Apache, new-type "Patriot" missiles, "Stryker" armored vehicles, guided missile destroyers, "Abrams M1-A2" tanks, "ATACMS" ground to ground missiles, Mine-Removing Armor-Protected(MRAP) special vehicles, and even introduced the THAAD system.

And recently, the U.S. introduced to south Korea "F-35A" stealth fighters, "Global Hawk" high-altitude reconnaissance drones, AWACS and many other ultra-modern offensive weapons, thus transforming south Korea into literally a showcase of lethal weapons.

The U.S. went to the length of abolishing the MAC and the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (NNSC), the only remaining supervisory bodies for implementing the Armistice Agreement.

In the 1950s, it dissolved the Neutral Nations Inspection Teams under the NNSC and the Joint Observer Team under the MAC which were provided for by Paragraph 23, Article II of the Armistice Agreement. On March 25, 1991, it staged a farce of designating as a senior member of the U.S. Army side to the MAC a puppet army officer of south Korea which is not a signatory to the Armistice Agreement and therefore does not have any qualifications or authority to handle issues relating to the Armistice Agreement.

With this, the MAC, which had functioned for more than four decades, ceased its existence, and the NNSC, too, having lost its counterpart, withered away by itself.

The U.S. also abrogated the Preamble and the Paragraph 12 of the Armistice Agreement, which provides for a complete cessation of hostilities and of all acts of armed force in Korea.

Since 1954, when it staged "Focus Lens", the first joint military exercise with south Korea, the U.S. has ceaselessly conducted all kinds of war drills so far, to include "Freedom Bolt", "Team Spirit", "Ulji Focus Lens", "Joint Wartime Reinforcement Exercise", "Key Resolve", "Foal Eagle" and "Ulji Freedom Guardian."

These exercises far exceeded any other war exercises taking place in different regions of the world in terms of frequency and scope, and all of strategic nuclear triad such as nuclear aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and nuclear strategic bombers were mobilized in its nuclear war drills aimed at the DPRK.

The nature of the exercises became more aggressive and provocative by changing their masquerades into "decapitation operation", "precision strike", "invasion of Pyongyang", etc. throwing off the "annual" and "defensive" veneer.

The pre-emptive nuclear strike scenarios were further specified into "OPLAN 5026", "OPLAN 5027", "OPLAN 5029", "OPLAN 5030", "OPLAN 5012", "OPLAN 5015", "OPLAN 8044", "OPLAN 8022", "OPLAN 8010", "tailored deterrence strategy" and "OPLAN 4D."

As is evident from the above, the U.S. left no stone unturned in abrogating each and every article and paragraph of the Armistice Agreement which consists of 5 Articles and 63 Paragraphs in total and as a consequence, the Armistice Agreement was dumped like a scrap of waste paper.

Owing to the hostile policy of the U.S. and its endless nuclear threats and blackmail towards the DPRK, the Korean peninsula has turned into the world's hottest spot, where a nuclear war could spark off at any moment.

If we had not considerably strengthened our self-defensive deterrence, the Korean peninsula would have fallen into the ravages of war more than hundreds times and a catastrophic third world war would have already started.