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China-Japan-Koreas
Korean leaders agree to end war
2007-10-05
NORTH Korean leader Kim Jong-il and the South's President, Roh Moo-hyun, have ended their summit, agreeing to seek a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War after a 54-year armistice, along with a Seoul-funded development package for the economically moribund North.
Major milestone here, I'd say.
Mr Kim and Mr Roh ended their ballyhooed North-South summit, only the second in history, promising the divided nation's leaders would "meet together often". The peace undertaking is the symbolic centrepiece of the North-South new deal which Mr Roh and Mr Kim signed yesterday in Pyongyang and then celebrated with a clasped-hands salute and a champagne toast.

Like most of the eight-point agreement, the peace plan and proposed ongoing leaders' meetings are open-ended and deliberately vague. The development proposals were not costed in yesterday's documentation. However, if Mr Kim keeps faith with the new reconciliation pact, as he did not with much of the agreement he and then-president Kim Dae-jung signed in 2000, this week marks a potentially significant turning point in the tortured relationship between the two Koreas and between Pyongyang and the US, the adversary the isolated regime most distrusts.

On Wednesday, North Korea agreed in the Beijing six-party negotiations to begin dismantling nuclear facilities, principally at Yongbyon, used to create the North's atomic weapons program. The Beijing interim agreement followed four years of escalating crisis until the dangerous dispute over Pyongyang's alleged highly enriched uranium project boiled over last August when the North exploded a plutonium bomb - its first known nuclear test.

The agreement in Pyongyang for the two Koreas "to closely co-operate to end military hostility and ensure peace and easing of tension on the Korean peninsula" depends ultimately on US co-operation. The US, North Korea and China signed the 1953 armistice agreement and Mr Kim's regime is absolutely set on Washington signing a peace treaty before it normalises relations with the South. So far, the George W.Bush administration is insisting North Korea make substantial progress towards dismantling its nuclear weapons before Washington signs any permanent peace deal.

As well as agreeing to work jointly to bring the US and China to a peace treaty conference, Mr Roh and Mr Kim undertook their governments would "put an end to hostile military relations and ensure detente and peace", particularly across the Demilitarised Zone and the adjoining disputed waters of the West Sea. "Two Koreas agreed not to antagonise each other but to ease military tension and settle disputes through dialogue and negotiations," the agreement states. "Both sides agreed to oppose any war on the peninsula and faithfully honour the commitment of non-aggression."
Posted by:Fred

#15  Hillary's ASS (not bill)

Drink alert, Sarge!
Posted by: lotp   2007-10-05 21:11  

#14  Well, so much for good astronomical viewing in NK.

The World Atlas of the Artificial Night Sky Brightness
Posted by: KBK   2007-10-05 18:36  

#13  Fred,

Since your still without a job and need some financial support, have you ever considered letting the world know that you have a few centrifuges in the basement and the missile technology to reach Sacremento or Berkeley?
Posted by: Jack is Back!   2007-10-05 16:45  

#12  LOL Lil Kim would NEVER EVER sign a "Peace Treaty" with the south. I would look at the fine print if I were you. He has an escape clause and you can bet that he has already enforced it. If not I will Kiss Hillary's ASS (not bill) at high noon on the steps of the capital.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge   2007-10-05 16:38  

#11  Kimmie and the Norks are pathological liars with a 60 year history of same. Making deals with them is a fool's game. And it does not help the North Korean people, just Kimmie, Chicoms and the SKor politicians. F*ck them and the horse they rode in on.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2007-10-05 15:41  

#10  No way, sinse. Not until they all hold hands and sing Kumbayah. Not as long as there is a NORK army.
Posted by: Abu Uluque6305   2007-10-05 12:53  

#9  Shieldwolf, your reasoning seems sound and I really hope you're right. So far North Korea has baffled all my attempts at predicting anything. They are just so... different.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2007-10-05 12:26  

#8  Well, considering who you're dealing with here, I wouldn't be jumping all up and down about this just yet.
Posted by: tu3031   2007-10-05 11:27  

#7  "if Mr Kim keeps faith with the new reconciliation pact, as he did not with much of the agreement he and then-president Kim Dae-jung signed in 2000"
Nuff said.
Posted by: Darrell   2007-10-05 10:06  

#6  does this mean we can pull our troops from South Korea then
Posted by: sinse   2007-10-05 07:16  

#5  24-month rule? :-)

I thought W had planned it so this would happen closer to election time? Or does he have some more surprises up his sleeve between now and then?

$5 says the moonbats start talking about how he's going to produce UBL a week before the election.
Posted by: gorb   2007-10-05 05:11  

#4  The Axis of Evil is getting thin, Iran is the only threat left. I'm shocked, I mean shocked that the Dems haven't found something wrong with Bush's handling of North Korea. They'll probably give the credit to their friends the Chinese.
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC   2007-10-05 04:57  

#3  This is the deal that I had been predicting for the past several months when I kept saying that the ChiComs were going make sure that Kimmie and his clique were not a problem for the Beijing Olympics : Kimmie makes nice with the corrupt SoKor President and stays in power; his nukes and other WMD go away in a supervised manner; the SoKors do NOT inherit an immediate basketcase of an economy due to a NorKor collapse; Kimmie gets to die as the Dear Leader; and the Politburo, the secret police, and the military all get to be cut in on the upcoming resource development deals that will be signed with South Korea at the formal end of the war.
China needs all the mineral wealth that North Korea can send north to them, to help keep the Chinese economy growing. North Korea has large known deposits of iron, coal, uranium, nickel, and other minerals; the South Koreans have the wealth and expertise to efficiently develop them; and the Chinese represent a guaranteed market for same. Expect to see China getting 30-40% of all the new mineral exports from North Korea as the South Koreans develop them.
This way, the Chinese have a win-win, the NorKors have a win-win, and the South Korean conglomerates have a win-win. Only the poor bastards that have to suffer through the nightmare existence of the average North Koreans loses.
Posted by: Shieldwolf   2007-10-05 01:39  

#2  If real, Kim may have saved the tiny portion of the soul he has left. He is toast anyway. Many want him alive for some strange reason.
Posted by: newc   2007-10-05 01:06  

#1  USA > links denuclearization to aid and formal end of Korean War.
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2007-10-05 00:52  

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