News / Koreas

South, North Korea mark anniversary of 1953 armistice

Monday, 27 July 2020 9:06 AM [ Last Update: Monday, 27 July 2020 9:58 AM ]

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (center) poses for a photograph after conferring “Paektusan” commemorative pistols to army officers on the 67th anniversary of the armistice that ended the Korean War, in Pyongyang, North Korea, on July 27, 2020. (Photo via Reuters)

North and South Koreas have separately marked the 67^th anniversary of an armistice that ended the Korean War.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited a national cemetery to mark the event in the capital, Pyongyang, on Monday. He was surrounded by generals and senior officers, to whom he handed out commemorative pistols.

The generals “made solemn pledges, looking up to the Party flag, to hold close to their hearts the commemorative pistols conferred upon them by the Supreme Leader until their death,” the official news agency KCNA said in a report.

They also pledged to “fight for Kim Jong-un at the cost of their lives” and defend him “despite whatever changes in the world,” it added.

In South Korea, people also marked the armistice in a ceremony in the capital, Seoul.

Scores of war veterans attended the event — dubbed “Days of Glory” — while wearing facial coverings and sitting in socially-distanced seats.

United Nations Command honor guards are seen during the comemmoration ceremony for the UN Forces Participating Day in the Korean War in the border village of Panmunjom, in Paju, South Korea, on July 27, 2020. (Photo by Reuters)

The Korean War came to an end with the armistice agreement on July 27, 1953. Millions of families were split by the Demilitarized Zone that was agreed then.

A formal peace agreement has, however, never been signed between the two Koreas, though they were on a path of rapprochement beginning in January 2018 before hostilities gradually returned in late 2019.

Back in January 2018, the South’s President Moon Jae-in singed an agreement with Kim to take a step closer to peace by turning the Korean Peninsula into a “land of peace without nuclear weapons and nuclear threats.”

‘The Era of no war has started:’ Koreas reach new agreements

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agree to take further steps toward peace between their countries.

Moon, who has so far held three summits with Kim, has also been trying to mediate between the North and the United States.

Last month, he urged US President Donald Trump and Kim — who also have also met three times — to meet once again before the US presidential election in November, in a bid to help resume stalled negotiations over the demilitarization of the Korean Peninsula.

Trump’s meetings with Kim were made possible mainly on Moon’s auspices, but US-North Korea negotiations have gradually halted owing to Trump’s refusal to relieve any of the harsh US sanctions on the North in exchange for goodwill measures by Pyongyang.

Earlier this year, Moon said he was making efforts to arrange a visit by Kim to Seoul, saying that both sides were in “desperate need” to improve relations.

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