On July 27, 1953, representatives of the UN Command, North Korean Army, and the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army signed the Korean Armistice Agreement, which ended fighting in the Korean War which had begun on June 25, 1950. South Korea, led by president Syngman Rhee, refused to sign but promised to observe the armistice agreement. President Rhee was determined to reunify Korea under his rule and wanted the UN Command to force an all-out war against China, even at the risk of provoking the Soviet Union into entering the conflict on the side of North Korea. As such, he strongly opposed the armistice negotiations and even demanded that UN troops withdraw from South Korea to allow only his forces to continue the war.
Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim Il-sung had also desired Korean unification under his authority. But after armistice negotiations commenced, he was prevailed upon by his backers China and the Soviet Union to tone down his hard-line stance. He subsequently changed his motto of “drive the enemy into the sea” to “drive the enemy to the 38th parallel.”
(Taken from Korean War – Wars of the 20th Century – Twenty Wars in Asia)
Aftermath of the Korean War Meanwhile, armistice talks resumed, which culminated in an agreement on July 19, 1953. Eight days later, July 27, 1953, representatives of the UN Command, North Korean Army, and the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army signed the Korean Armistice Agreement, which ended the war. A ceasefire came into effect 12 hours after the agreement was signed.
War casualties included: UN forces – 450,000 soldiers killed, including over 400,000 South Korean and 33,000 American soldiers; North Korean and Chinese forces – 1 to 2 million soldiers killed (which included Chairman Mao Zedong’s son, Mao Anying). Civilian casualties were 2 million for South Korea and 3 million for North Korea. Also killed were over 600,000 North Korean refugees who had moved to South Korea. Both the North Korean and South Korean governments and their forces conducted large-scale massacres on civilians whom they suspected to be supporting their ideological rivals. In South Korea, during the early stages of the war, government forces and right-wing militias executed some 100,000 suspected communists in several massacres. North Korean forces, during their occupation of South Korea, also massacred some 500,000 civilians, mainly “counter-revolutionaries” (politicians, businessmen, clerics, academics, etc.) as well as civilians who refused to join the North Korean Army.
Under the armistice agreement, the frontline at the time of the ceasefire became the armistice line, which extended from coast to coast some 40 miles north of the 38th parallel in the east, to 20 miles south of the 38th parallel in the west, or a net territorial loss of 1,500 square miles to North Korea. Three days after the agreement was signed, both sides withdrew to a distance of two kilometers from the ceasefire line, thus creating a four-kilometer demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the opposing forces.
The armistice agreement also stipulated the repatriation of POWs, a major point of contention during the talks, where both parties compromised and agreed to the formation of an independent body, the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission (NNRC), to implement the exchange of prisoners. The NNRC, chaired by General K.S. Thimayya from India, subsequently launched Operation Big Switch, where in August-December 1953, some 70,000 North Korean and 5,500 Chinese POWs, and 12,700 UN POWs (including 7,800 South Koreans, 3,600 Americans, and 900 British), were repatriated. Some 22,000 Chinese/North Korean POWs refused to be repatriated – the 14,000 Chinese prisoners who refused repatriation eventually moved to the Republic of China (Taiwan), where they were given civilian status. Much to the astonishment of U.S. and British authorities, 21 American and 1 British (together with 325 South Korean) POWs also refused to be repatriated, and chose to move to China. All POWs on both sides who refused to be repatriated were given 90 days to change their minds, as required under the armistice agreement.
The armistice line was conceived only as a separation of forces, and not as an international border between the two Korean states. The Korean Armistice Agreement called on the two rival Korean governments to negotiate a peaceful resolution to reunify the Korean Peninsula. In the international Geneva Conference held in April-July 1954, which aimed to achieve a political settlement to the recent war in Korea (as well as in Indochina, see First Indochina War, separate article), North Korea and South Korea, backed by their major power sponsors, each proposed a political settlement, but which was unacceptable to the other side. As a result, by the end of the Geneva Conference on June 15, 1953, no resolution was adopted, leaving the Korean issue unresolved.
Since then, the Korean Peninsula has remained divided along the 1953 armistice line, with the 248-kilometer long DMZ, which was originally meant to be a military buffer zone, becoming the de facto border between North Korea and South Korea. No peace treaty was signed, with the armistice agreement being a ceasefire only. Thus, a state of war officially continues to exist between the two Koreas. Also as stipulated by the Korean Armistice Agreement, the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (NNSC) was established, comprising contingents from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Sweden, and Switzerland, tasked with ensuring that no new foreign military personnel and weapons are brought into Korea.
Because of the constant state of high tension between the two Korean states, the DMZ has since remained heavily defended and is the most militarily fortified place on Earth. Situated at the armistice line in Panmunjom is the Joint Security Area, a conference center where representatives from the two Koreas hold negotiations periodically. Since the end of the Korean War, there exists the constant threat of a new war, which is exacerbated by the many incidents initiated by North Korea against South Korea. Some of these incidents include: the hijacking by a North Korean agent of a South Korean commercial airliner in December 1969; the North Korean abductions of South Korean civilians; the failed assassination attempt by North Korean commandos of South Korean President Park Chung-hee in January 1968; the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel, the ROKS Cheonon, in March 2010, which the South Korean government blamed was caused by a torpedo fired by a North Korean submarine (North Korea denied any involvement), and the discovery of a number of underground tunnels along the DMZ which South Korea has said were built by North Korea to be used as an invasion route to the south.
Furthermore, in October 2006, North Korea announced that it had detonated its first nuclear bomb, and has since stated that it possesses nuclear weapons. With North Korea aggressively pursuing its nuclear weapons capability, as evidenced by a number of nuclear tests being carried out over the years, the peninsular crisis has threatened to expand to regional and even global dimensions. Western observers also believe that North Korea has since been developing chemical and biological weapons.