Thread by @BonicMichael

Historical backdrop to the “Korea Question” still unanswered today
[From MAY 26, 2009]
Are We at War With North Korea?
Um, sort of, in a way …
slate.com/news-and-polit…
“Sort of. The 1953 Korean War Armistice Agreement, signed by the United Nations Command, North Korea, and China,

2/“ended the conflict in a practical sense. It set up a system for exchanging prisoners of war, created a north-south boundary within a demilitarized zone, and marked the suspension of all open hostilities. It was not, however, intended as the final say on the matter. In fact,

3/“Article IV of the Armistice recommends that “the governments concerned on both sides” convene a conference within three months of signing to organize the withdrawal of foreign forces from the peninsula and settle the “Korea question”—roughly, who would rule over a reunited

4/“Korea. Talks did take place in Geneva in 1954, but they broke down over how, exactly, to hold fair elections for a unified government.”

When a question hasn’t found an answer 7 decades after it was first asked, maybe it was the wrong question. If in 1950 someone asked: “Can

5/we put a man on the Moon?”, look where we are today as the US, China & other countries focus on Lunar & Space exploration. We answered that question.

“Who will rule over a reunited Korea” is the question asked in Article IV of the Armistice. It still hasn't been answered 68

6/years later. There's a reason for that. The Korean War started as an attempt to answer that question. When it wasn’t answered on the battlefield it was put in writing in Article IV, couldn't be resolved then, and still isn't resolved now. Clearly the question was more relevant

7/at the time b/c it was the Armistice that established the Korean DMZ or demarcation line, the new border b/t the two nations. But was it the right question? Even though DPRK was getting smashed there was no TKO. No one was declared the "winner". The
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Ar…

8/Armistice brought the War to a stalemate. How then do you answer that original question over tables?: "Who will rule over a reunited Korea?" 68 years later the "Korea question" should be resolved by getting North & South Korea to coexist peacefully as separate sovereign nations

9/who respect the sovereignty of the other. Coexist peacefully. Live and let live. That should be written into the peace settlement that formally ends the Korean War. The didn't answer the question. The fighting stopped. Scrap the question!! 1948 to today says that two Koreas

10/inhabit the Korean Peninsula, and IMO two Koreas should always - peacefully, in peacetime.