Seoul said today that it had agreed “virtually” with Washington on the draft of a declaration to end the Korean War (1950-53), an initiative to which Pyongyang could respond at the end of an important plenary session that it is holding this week.
“Regarding the declaration to end the war, the Republic of Korea (official name of the South) and the US have already agreed on its importance and the two parties have virtually agreed on a draft”Chung said Wednesday when asked at a press conference.
Chung also assured that he and the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, highlighted the progress in the bilateral consultations regarding this statement in the framework of the G7 Foreign Meeting held in Liverpool (United Kingdom). at the beginning of this December.
However, the South Korean foreign minister acknowledged that Pyongyang has not yet shown the enthusiasm that Seoul and Washington seek.
“Although North Korea exhibited a series of quick and positive reactions to the declaration of the end of the war, we hope that it will show a more concrete response.”Chung added during his appearance, in statements collected by the Yonhap agency.
Many analysts doubt the viability of this initiative, recovered last September by South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who put the idea back on the table during the United Nations Assembly.
The proposal is seen as a last-ditch effort to bring Pyongyang back into the denuclearization talks before Moon – who has spent much of his tenure mediating and unsuccessfully trying to get Washington and the North Korean regime to reach an understanding – has to. leave office next May.
The text aims to serve to end the Korean War (1950-1953), which was closed only with a ceasefire, but it has not even been clarified yet who should sign it, since the signatories of the 1953 armistice were the armies North Korean and Chinese, and the UN multinational command still led by the US.
Seoul has assured that both Beijing and Washington support the idea, but both Chinese and US official sources have chosen to maintain an expectant silence.
In turn, the fact that Moon’s proposal is to sign a declaration, and not a peace treaty, underscores that a binding agreement is not actually being signed.
LITTLE HALAGÜEÑA RESPONSE
North Korea’s response on this issue has so far not been very rosy.
Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, considered the statement at the time to be “interesting”But he urged Seoul and Washington to abandon their “hostile policy” toward the regime in order to achieve progress in the dialogue.
Kim Jong-un himself later said that at the moment he was not interested in holding any meeting with the US to try to rekindle the dialogue on denuclearization, bogged down since the failed 2019 Hanoi summit, due to the aforementioned “hostile policy. ”.
For his part, the South Korean Foreign Minister said today that “various ways are being analyzed to advance the talks with North Korea,” and said that Seoul is closely following the plenary session held by the North Korean single party these days.
PROPOSALS ON RURAL DEVELOPMENT
Pyongyang hosted the second day of the aforementioned meeting on Tuesday, the fourth plenary meeting of the current Central Committee of the Workers’ Party, which will serve to draw up diplomatic and economic guidelines for 2022.
In that second session, Kim Jong-un presented proposals to improve rural development at a time marked by the economic hardships that the impoverished country is going through.
In addition to being hemmed in by sanctions and extreme self-imposed isolation from the pandemic, North Korea has suffered major natural disasters in the past two years that have further compromised the production of staple grains for the survival of its 25 million people.
The fact that the conditions of agricultural life have centered the second session of the plenary session seem to endorse what many experts indicate, that in the current situation Pyongyang would be more interested in lifting sanctions than in talking about a declaration of the end of the war and its security guarantees.
In any case, it is expected that at the end of the plenary session, around the New Year, Kim Jong-un will deliver a closing speech that will serve as a message to Seoul and Washington about what the regime’s intentions will be next year and if there is one. or no real interest in that peace proposal.
(with information from EFE)
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Source-www.infobae.com