North Korea–South Korea relations
Formerly a single nation that was annexed by Japan in 1910, the Korean Peninsula was divided into occupation zones since the end of World War II on 2 September 1945. The two sovereign countries were founded in the North and South of the peninsula in 1948, leading to the formal division. Despite the separation, both have claimed sovereignty over all of Korea in their constitutions and both have used the name "Korea" in English. The two countries engaged in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953 which ended in an armistice agreement but without a peace treaty. North Korea is a one-party state run by the Kim family. South Korea was formerly governed by a succession of military dictatorships, save for a brief one-year democratic period from 1960 to 1961, until thorough democratization in 1987, after which direct elections were held. Both nations claim the entire Korean Peninsula and outlying islands. Both nations joined the United Nations in 1991 and are recognized by most member states. Since the 1970s, both nations have held informal diplomatic dialogues in order to ease military tensions.
In 2000, Kim Dae-jung became the first President of South Korea to visit North Korea, 55 years after the peninsula was divided. Under President Kim, South Korea adopted the Sunshine Policy in pursuit of more peaceful relationships with North Korea. The policy established the Kaesong Industrial Region, among other things. This policy was continued by the next president Roh Moo-hyun who also visited North Korea in 2007 and met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Through this meeting both leaders signed a declaration to pursue peace and recover inter-Korean relations. However, faced with growing criticism, the Sunshine Policy was discontinued under the next two governments. During Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye's presidencies, the relationship between North and South Korea became more hostile.
Under President Moon Jae-in, beginning with North Korea's participation in the 2018 Winter Olympics, the relationship saw a major diplomatic breakthrough and become significantly warmer. In April 2018, the two countries signed the Panmunjom Declaration. The summits between North and South Korea also facilitated positive relationships between North Korea and the United States. However, the negotiations stalled in 2020 and relations deteriorated, particularly during the presidency of Yoon Suk Yeol, with an increase in military tensions.
On 30 December 2023, Kim Jong Un declared peaceful reunification impossible, stating that North Korea was no longer "consanguineous or homogeneous" with South Korea and that the two Koreas had become two separate ethnic nations. Following this declaration, North Korea officially began referring to the South as "Hanguk" and characterizing inter-Korean relations as "Chosŏn-Hanguk relations " rather than the traditional term "North-South relations." This underscores North Korea's departure from its previous South Korea policies that were based on Korean ethnic nationalism, a political and cultural rupture described as "de-ethnification" by the Daily NK.
Division of Korea
The Korean peninsula had been occupied by Japan from 1910. On 9 August 1945, in the closing days of World War II, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and advanced into Korea. Though the Soviet declaration of war had been agreed by the Allies at the Yalta Conference, the US government became concerned at the prospect of all of Korea falling under Soviet control. The US government therefore requested Soviet forces halt their advance at the 38th parallel north, leaving the south of the peninsula, including the capital, Seoul, to be occupied by the US. This was incorporated into General Order No. 1 to Japanese forces after the Surrender of Japan on 15 August. On 24 August, the Red Army entered Pyongyang and established a military government over Korea north of the parallel. American forces landed in the south on 8 September and established the United States Army Military Government in Korea.The Allies had originally envisaged a joint trusteeship which would steer Korea towards independence, but most Korean nationalists wanted independence immediately. Meanwhile, the wartime co-operation between the Soviet Union and the US deteriorated as the Cold War took hold. Both occupying powers began promoting into positions of authority Koreans aligned with their side of politics and marginalizing their opponents. Many of these emerging political leaders were returning exiles with little popular support. In North Korea, the Soviet Union supported Korean Communists. Kim Il Sung, who from 1941 had served in the Soviet Army, became the major political figure. Society was centralized and collectivized, following the Soviet model. Politics in the South was more tumultuous, but the strongly anti-Communist Syngman Rhee emerged as the most prominent politician.
The US government took the issue to the United Nations, which led to the formation of the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea in 1947. The Soviet Union opposed this move and refused to allow UNTCOK to operate in the North. UNTCOK organized a general election in the South, which was held on 10 May 1948. The Republic of Korea was established with Syngman Rhee as president, and formally replaced the US military occupation on 15 August. In North Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was declared on 9 September, with Kim Il Sung as prime minister. Soviet forces left the North on 10 December 1948. US forces left the South the following year, though the US Korean Military Advisory Group remained to train the Republic of Korea Army.
Both opposing governments considered themselves to be the government of the whole of Korea, and both saw the division as temporary. The DPRK proclaimed Seoul to be its official capital, a position not changed until 1972.
Korean War
North Korea invaded the South on 25 June 1950, and swiftly overran most of the country. In September 1950 the United Nations force, led by the United States, intervened to defend the South, and advanced into North Korea. As they neared the border with China, Chinese forces intervened on behalf of North Korea, shifting the balance of the war again. Fighting ended on 27 July 1953, with an armistice that approximately restored the original boundaries between North and South Korea. Syngman Rhee refused to sign the armistice, but reluctantly agreed to abide by it. The armistice inaugurated an official ceasefire but did not lead to a peace treaty. It established the Korean Demilitarized Zone, a buffer zone between the two sides, that intersected the 38th parallel but did not follow it. North Korea has announced that it will no longer abide by the armistice at least six times, in the years 1994, 1996, 2003, 2006, 2009, and 2013.Large numbers of people were displaced as a result of the war, and many families were divided by the reconstituted border. In 2007 it was estimated that around 750,000 people remained separated from immediate family members, and family reunions have long been a diplomatic priority for the South.
Cold War
Competition between North and South Korea became key to decision-making on both sides. For example, the construction of the Pyongyang Metro spurred the construction of one in Seoul. In the 1980s, the South Korean government built a 98m tall flagpole in its village of Daeseong-dong in the DMZ. In response, North Korea built a 160m tall flagpole in its nearby village of Kijŏng-dong.Tensions escalated in the late 1960s with a series of low-level armed clashes known as the Korean DMZ Conflict. During this time North and South Korea conducted covert raids on each other in a series of retaliatory strikes, which included assassination attempts on the South and North leaders. On 21 January 1968, North Koreans commandos attacked the South Korean Blue House. On 11 December 1969, a South Korean airliner was hijacked.
During preparations for US President Nixon's visit to China in 1972, South Korean President Park Chung Hee initiated covert contact with the North's Kim Il Sung. In August 1971, the first Red Cross talks between North and South Korea were held. Many of the participants were really intelligence or party officials. In May 1972, Lee Hu-rak, the director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, secretly met with Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang. Kim apologized for the Blue House Raid, denying he had approved it. In return, North Korea's deputy premier Pak Song Chol made a secret visit to Seoul. On 4 July 1972, the North-South Joint Statement was issued. The statement announced the Three Principles of Reunification: first, reunification must be solved independently without interference from or reliance on foreign powers; second, reunification must be realized in a peaceful way without use of armed forces against each other; finally, reunification transcend the differences of ideologies and institutions to promote the unification of Korea as one ethnic group. It also established the first "hotline" between the two sides.
North Korea suspended talks in 1973 after the kidnapping of South Korean opposition leader Kim Dae-jung by the KCIA. Talks restarted, however, and between 1973 and 1975 there were 10 meetings of the North-South Coordinating Committee at Panmunjom.
In the late 1970s, US President Jimmy Carter hoped to achieve peace in Korea. However, his plans were derailed because of the unpopularity of his proposed withdrawal of troops.
In 1983, a North Korean proposal for three-way talks with the United States and South Korea coincided with the Rangoon assassination attempt against the South Korean President. This contradictory behavior has never been explained.
In September 1984, North Korea's Red Cross sent emergency supplies to the South after severe floods. Talks resumed, resulting in the first reunion of separated families in 1985, as well as a series of cultural exchanges. Goodwill dissipated with the staging of the US-South Korean military exercise, Team Spirit, in 1986.
When Seoul was chosen to host the 1988 Summer Olympics, North Korea tried to arrange a boycott by its Communist allies or a joint hosting of the Games. This failed, and the bombing of Korean Air Flight 858 in 1987 was seen as North Korea's revenge. However, at the same time, amid a global thawing of the Cold War, the newly elected South Korean President Roh Tae-woo launched a diplomatic initiative known as Nordpolitik. This proposed the interim development of a "Korean Community", which was similar to a North Korean proposal for a confederation. From 4 to 7 September 1990, high-level talks were held in Seoul, at the same time that the North was protesting about the Soviet Union normalizing relations with the South. These talks led in 1991 to the Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-Aggression, Exchanges and Cooperation and the Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. This coincided with the admission of both North and South Korea into the United Nations. Meanwhile, on 25 March 1991, a unified Korean team first used the Korean Unification Flag at the World Table Tennis Competition in Japan, and on 6 May 1991, a unified team competed at the World Youth Football Competition in Portugal.
There were limits to the thaw in relations, however. In 1989, Lim Su-kyung, a South Korean student activist who participated in the World Youth Festival in Pyongyang, was jailed on her return.