North Korea Wants to Talk Peace Treaty: U.S. Should Propose a Time and Place

Doug Bandow

Security, Northeast Asia

North Korea is dangling talks for a peace treaty.  The U.S. should take them up on the offer.

The Korean War ended more than 62 years ago, but not really. The warring parties only agreed to an armistice. Technically everyone still is at war.

Of course, no one wants to start fighting again. Not even the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which would lose badly since its erstwhile ally China wouldn’t again intervene to save the North.

Indeed, North Korea has proposed negotiations over a formal peace treaty. In October Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong used the UN as a platform to urge the U.S. and DPRK to agree to a treaty ending the conflict. North Korean television reiterated the call a few days later.

In the past Pyongyang’s proposals appeared pro forma. But now might be different. Cha Du-hyeogn, national security adviser to the previous South Korean president, suggested that the repetition was “a possible sign that North Korea is serious about holding a conversation with U.S.”

Washington’s official position is that a peace treaty is possible only when the North “takes irreversible steps toward denuclearization.” Which likely is never. Instead, the Obama administration should respond yes, proposing a time and place. Let the talks begin.

Of course, no one should have any illusions about how smoothly such a process is likely to go. Or how much practical difference a signed piece of paper would make so long as the DPRK maintains oversize military forces in advanced attacking positions along the Demilitarized Zone. Or whether the North would follow a peace treaty with an agreement limiting conventional or nuclear arms.

Nevertheless, the advantages of talking are several.

First, the status quo benefits no one, especially the U.S. Three recent article headlines ran: “South Korea, U.S. Write Plan to Combat Guerrilla Warfare Waged by Pyongyang,” “U.S. Says Ready to Defend Against North Korean Nuclear Threat,” and “U.S. Bolsters Missile Defense with N. Korea in Mind.” America is greatly concerned about the DPRK, but only because Washington still is involved in the peninsula as a potential combatant defending the South. The U.S. had geopolitical and security reasons growing out of the Cold War to intervene in 1953. It has no such reasons today.