[FOCUS] Koreas discuss project to make Panmunjom free of weapons

By Lim Chang-won Posted : June 15, 2018, 11:19 Updated : June 15, 2018, 14:37

[Joint Press Corps]


SEOUL -- The truce village of Panmunjom, which saddles across the heavily armed inter-Korean border, grabbed the global spotlight when South and North Korean leaders shook hands across a concrete curb that serves as the borderline in their historic rendezvous for their summit in April.

The scene was watched by millions of people via Twitter across the world and Panmunjom emerged as the hall of peace,  blurring its image as the symbol of division and acute Cold War confrontation that began after the 1950-53 Korean War ended with a fragile armistice with no peace treaty signed.

The truce village, surrounded by minefields, has been guarded jointly by North Korean and American soldiers carrying pistols, not heavy weapons, to prevent conflicts under the armistice accord. But it has been married by sporadic armed clashes, including an incident in 1976 when two American officers cutting down a poplar tree were killed by North Korean soldiers wielding axes.

The 1976 incident triggered a tense military standoff.  American and South Korean forces launched an operation to cut down the tree with a show of force. Among South Korean soldiers who participated in the operation was President Moon Jae-in who opened a new era of inter-Korean rapprochement through his historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on April 27.

Now, the two Koreas are trying to "demilitarize" Panmunjom under an agreement between Moon and Kim to cease all acts of hostilities against the other side, work on establishing a permanent peace regime, and turn the demilitarized zone, which bisects the peninsula, into a genuine peace zone.

As a first step, the issue of transforming Panmunjom into a symbol of peace "on a trial basis" was discussed at inter-Korean military talks which took place in the truce village on Thursday.

For more than six decades, Panmunjom has served as the only inter-Korean contact point inside the DMZ. The U.S.-led United Nations Command still controls Panmunjom because troops from the U.S. and other countries fought alongside South Korea under a U.N. flag to repel North Korea's invasion.

Historically, Panmunjom has been a potential flashpoint as both sides keep armored vehicles, machine guns and other heavy weapons in nearby field camps for a quick counterattack. 

On November 13 last year, a North Korean soldier defected through Panmunjom, triggering a volley of gunshots by his colleagues that once created a dangerous situation. The soldier was shot five times during his dramatic run, but South Korean border guards saved him. Security camera footages showed North Korean soldiers carrying guns and rifles to stop the defection with some bullets straying into the southern side.

At Thursday's military talks, the two Koreas also agreed to completely restore their military communication lines across the border and continue talks on solving other issues.

Relations were strained in 2010 when Seoul blamed a North Korean submarine for torpedoing the warship Cheonan. The incident froze cross-border exchanges and trade.  In February 2016, North Korea cut off cross-border hotlines in Panmunjom and other areas after South Korea shut down an inter-Korean industrial estate in retaliation for the North's ballistic missile and nuclear tests.

Under Kim's sudden peace overture that began in January,  Pyongyang reopened cross-border hotlines, including one in Panmunjom and a military line on the west coast, but another military line on the east coast has remained blocked.

In April, South and North Korean leaders opened a direct hotline between them, a week before their summit. The line carried great symbolic meaning because the two Koreas can avoid accidental conflicts or discuss crucial security issues at any time between their leaders.

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