South Korea: US, North Korea may declare end of war in Vietnam

South Korean President and North Korean President in a meeting. Photo: Sputnik

According toYonhap, South Korean presidential spokesman Kim Eui Kyeom shared in the daily press conference on February 25:

"I believe this possibility is possible. There is no way to know what kind of declaration it will be, but I believe the US and North Korea can reach an agreement on an end-of-war declaration at any level."

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump will have their second summit on February 27-28 in Hanoi.

Flags of Vietnam, the US and North Korea are decorated in Hanoi. Photo: Sputnik / Taras Ivanov

The Korean War (1950-1953) has only technically ended with an armistice agreement. Seoul has previously insisted that a declaration ending the Korean War must at least involve the presence of both Koreas and the United States.

Mr. Kim said the two Koreas had effectively ended the war after the two countries' militaries signed an agreement to abandon all hostile acts after South Korean President Moon Jae-in visited Pyongyang for the third inter-Korean summit, which took place in September 2018.

The Blue House spokesman added that Seoul and Beijing had also effectively ended the war when the two countries established diplomatic relations, along with Beijing's normalization of relations with Washington in 1979. China fought on the North Korean side in the war.

"So the only parties left are North Korea and the US. If North Korea and the US declare the end of the war, that will lead to the de facto end of the war," Kim said.

"What is more important is to ensure the smooth denuclearization of North Korea through declaring an end to the war and speeding up the denuclearization process."

Photo: AP Photo / Hau Dinh

However, a spokesman for South Korea's presidential office said that replacing the Korean War armistice with a peace treaty would take time, and it would have to be a multilateral effort involving both Koreas and China.

“A peace treaty must include complex and systematic criteria. And a peace treaty needs to come in the final stage of denuclearization,” Mr. Kim said.

“Since a peace treaty must include a security commitment by multilateral countries, our government believes that concluding a peace treaty must be a multilateral process,” Kim concluded.