70 year since the armistice in the Korean peninsula: Diections for peace and unification
Main Article Content
Keywords
Armistice, unification, inter-Korean relations, agency, structure, security, power, Northeast Asia, stability
Abstract
In July 2023, the seventieth anniversary of the signing of the armistice that paused the Korean War was commemorated. This fratricidal conflagration began as an internal conflict, but became international when the disputing parties looked abroad for support for their causes, which gave rise to the intervention of foreign interests after the liberation in 1945. The common cause was the formation of a single Korea, although there was more than one vision about the configuration of the political economy of the new nation-state. This article agrees with the argument that the division of the Korean Peninsula is not only the result of external processes, but that the governments and dominant elites in both Koreas are co-responsible. Due to the agency of the protagonists and their interest in survival as the ultimate objective, it is argued that the idea of reunification has a counterproductive impact on the peace process on the Korean Peninsula and is an explanatory variable of the difficulties in changing the regional security structure.
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