The only way I could see ever holding any joint Korean War ceremony with North Korea is if the Kim regime acknowledges they started the war. Currently they continue to claim the ROK invaded North Korea to start the war despite all the evidence to the contrary. Sadly many South Korean leftists believe this claim:
The Defense Ministry is considering co-hosting a ceremony with North Korea next year to mark the 70th anniversary of the Korean War.
The inclusion of the North in such a ceremony is expected to lead to strong protests by families of soldiers killed during the 1950-53 war, which Pyongyang still insists was triggered by a South Korean invasion. It celebrates Armistice Day on July 27 as “Victory Day.”
In fact North Korean forces invaded the South, and miscalculations on both sides put the border back more or less where it was before after three years of bloodshed. The two Koreas remain technically at war.
A copy of a Defense Ministry report leaked to the Chosun Ilbo details various plans to mark the 70th anniversary. The ministry said the report was put together by a contracted agency and is simply a set of proposals, which it will “selectively consider.”
Korean War anniversaryDefense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo burns incense to pay tribute to South Korean patriotic martyrs and war dead at the National Cemetery in Seoul on June 25, 2019, the 69th anniversary of the outbreak of the 1950-53 Korean War, in this photo provided by the ministry. (Yonhap)
#KoreanHistoryToday: President Syngman Rhee unilaterally releases 27,312 prisoners of war who disavowed communism in 1953. This caused a major disruption in the ongoing armistice talks between the UN forces and the DPRK/PRC pic.twitter.com/EuJT1901fo
Veteran to be buried in S. KoreaSouth Korean Minister of Patriots and Veterans Affairs Pi Woo-jin (R) bows before the remains of Albert Hugh McBride, a Canadian veteran of the 1950-53 Korean War, at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, on June 11, 2019, in this photo provided by the ministry. The remains will be buried at the U.N. Memorial Cemetery in the southern port city of Busan the next day. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
I hope no one really thought a deal on this issue was going to be reached because I never did:
A United Nations Command honor guard prepares to repatriate a casket carrying Korean War remains at Yongsang Garrison in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2018.
In a new sign of troubled relations with North Korea, the Pentagon said Wednesday it has suspended its efforts to arrange negotiations on recovering additional remains of U.S. servicemembers killed in the North during the Korean War.
In a statement Wednesday, the Pentagon’s Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency said it has had no communication with North Korean authorities since the Hanoi summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in February. That meeting focused on the North’s nuclear weapons and followed a June 2018 summit at which Kim committed to permitting a resumption the recovery of U.S. remains, which had been suspended by the U.S. in 2005.
“As a result, our effort to communicate with the Korean People’s Army regarding the possible resumption of joint recovery operation for 2019 has been suspended,” the agency said. “We have reached the point where we can no longer effectively plan, coordinate, and conduct field operations in the DPRK during this fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30, 2019.”
You can read more at the link, but the only way a deal was getting done was if the US paid North Korea an exorbitant amount of money to recover the remains as has been done in the past.
The North Koreans know exactly where the bulk of the remains are because the US military buried a large number of casualties in marked cemeteries before evacuating North Korea after the Chinese intervened in the war.
Cpl. Charles Price sounds “Taps” over the graves of fallen Leathernecks during memorial services at the First Marine Division cemetery at Hungnam, following the division’s heroic break-out from Chosin Reservoir. December 13, 1950. Cpl. W. T. Wolfe. (Marine Corps)
To be able to repatriate these remains to their family members the North Koreans have been demanding inflated prices which just shows how low the Kim regime is willing to go to make money. The work to recover the remains ended in 2005 and so far does not look like it will begin again any time soon.
Every time I watch any Western documentary about Korea – in this case, Netflix's "Street Food" – regardless of the subject matter, people always end up talking about "the tragedy of the Korean War," and it annoys me to no end. Just how many Koreans actually think about the war?!
— John Lee (The Korean Foreigner) (@koreanforeigner) April 28, 2019
S. Korea returns remains of 10 Chinese war deadChinese Ambassador to South Korea Qiu Guohong drapes a Chinese flag over a box containing the remains of a Chinese soldier killed in the 1950-53 Korean War at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, on April 3, 2019. The repatriation is the sixth of its kind since South Korea and China agreed in 2014 to bring back the remains of Chinese soldiers who were killed while fighting alongside North Korean soldiers during the three-year conflict. (pool photo) (Yonhap)
Inchon City Council seeks compensation for victims of the Sept 15, 1950 "Inchon Landing," a turning point in the #KoreanWar, from the #ROK AND the #US & #UN. Why leave out the culprit of the war, the #DPRK? https://t.co/mGBXgW302K
Secretary of State Pompeo is using the term “peace mechanisms” now which is a term the Moon administration often uses:
With the United States and North Korea striving for a give-and-take compromise in their summit next week, a declaration of a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War, or a peace statement, is surfacing as a possible concession from Washington. The North has long eyed such a political declaration, which is not legally binding, to end decades of enmity with the U.S., ensure its regime security and ultimately sign a peace treaty that some say could undercut the rationale for American troop presence on the peninsula. At his second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, slated for Feb. 27-28 in Hanoi, President Donald Trump is expected to discuss the possibility of ending the war that was ceased only with an armistice agreement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last Thursday. “Remember we not only discussed denuclearization, but we talked about creating security mechanisms, peace mechanisms on the Korean Peninsula,” Pompeo told Fox News. “I hope the two leaders have a chance to talk about that as well. I fully expect that they will.”
You can read much more at the link, but the Moon administration has been pushing for a peace mechanism in order to advance their goal of creating a confederation with North Korea. A peace treaty ending the Korean War is one of the first steps to making this happen.
