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Commander-in-chief, United Nations Command, and U.S. Army Gen. Mark W. Clark signs the Military Armistice agreement at a base camp at Munsan-ni, Korea on July 30, 1953. The 1953 Korean armistice agreement did stop the fighting, but it didn't start the peace. Now the last generations to remember the "great toil" may see their war truly come to an end, if the two Koreas achieve the peace settlement proposed last week by their leaders. /AP Photo
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The U.S. is sitting on the fence over the question of the parties to the Korean War meeting to declare the war over after more than 50 years, apparently from strategic considerations. The U.S. was briefed by senior South Korean presidential security secretary Yun Byung-se about a declaration on the matter at the end of the inter-Korean summit last week, but failed to clarify its position in response.
U.S. officials on Thursday instead stressed that more formal improvement of bilateral ties, including removal of North Korea from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, a full peace treaty ending the Korean War and normalization of ties would depend on the North abiding by its pledge to dismantle its nuclear weapons program. Those steps are "all conditioned on action-for-action" progress on the denuclearization deal, said U.S. security spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
The Bush administration is apparently uneasy that the leaders of the two Koreas are talking about a summit of the signatories to the armistice -- which also include China -- to declare the war formally over at a time when North Korea has yet to start disabling its nuclear facilities and reporting all its nuclear programs. It worries that any positive remarks by U.S. President George. W. Bush on the matter could send the wrong signal.
Most observers believe that any such multilateral summit will happen only once North Korea completes the denuclearization process. Prof. Victor Cha of Georgetown University, a former Asia director at the U.S. National Security Council, said there will be no four-way summit unless the denuclearization process is ¡°complete and irreversible.¡±
Some analysts also believe a multilateral summit that includes Bush and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il will be impossible without improvements in human rights in the North and a positive change in the general image of the communist country. Michael Green, another former Security Council director for Asia, told the Chosun Ilbo in August that Washington in 2005 rejected the suggestion of a four-way summit by Lee Jong-seok, then deputy head of South Korea¡¯s National Security Council. After the latest joint statement last week, Green said he could not imagine Bush accepting the proposal for a four-way summit now.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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