DPRK Foreign Ministry Issues Memorandum on the United Nations Command (UNC)
Pyongyang, January 14 (KCNA) — The Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea released a memorandum on Monday:
It said:
It is now 60 years since the gunfire of war stopped roaring, but the war has not terminated legally. There remains a fragile state of ceasefire of neither peace nor war on the Korean Peninsula which has yet to build up a mechanism to ensure peace.
The U.S. has gone defiant against the DPRK Government in its consistent stand and effort to replace the Armistice Agreement with a peace treaty and tries to maintain the state of ceasefire. Lurking behind this is the ghost of the Cold War- i.e. “UN Command”.
The U.S., according to its new defense strategy, is trying to transform the “UN Command” into a “multinational forces command” which would serve as a matrix of the Asian version of NATO.
The ulterior motive of the new U.S. defense strategy, released for the first time in January 2012, is to encircle and put a military curve on other big power in Asia so that the latter can not grow to make a resistance to it.
The U.S., in order to get round the stiff resistance from the countries concerned, is trying to form combined forces instead of opting for a new one by playing tricks to revive the functions of the “UN Command”, which is nothing more than just the name.
Behind the recent attempts of the U.S. to revive the functions of the “UN Command” lie its strategic self-interests to make south Korea a forward base for the domination of the Asia-Pacific region and hold fast to it as a cannon fodder for an aggressive war under the changed situation.
It is also on a step-by-step basis that preparations have been under way to expand the operational sphere of the “UN Command” to the whole of the Asia-Pacific region.
If any move is allowed to establish a collective military bloc in the Asia-Pacific region, this would inevitably trigger off a countervailing force from other countries which are placed under the target of this bloc. If this is the case, it is par for the course that this region, too, would plunge into a theater to take sides with as in Europe with the revival of the Cold War and increased danger of a thermo nuclear war beyond any measure. Under this worst case of scenario, it is none other than south Korea that would suffer most.
The “UN Command” is primarily an unjust tool which only misused the name of the UN. All this bears no relation with the consensus of the UN member states.
The “UN Command” is all the more a subsidiary organ of the U.S., which bears no relevance with the UN.
The 30th session of the UN General Assembly held in November 1975 adopted two resolutions on the dissolution of the “UN Command”.
If we look at the composition of the then “UN Command”, it was no longer the multinational forces but the U.S. Command which has only the U.S. troops stationed in south Korea.
As soon as the Armistice Agreement was signed, member states of the UN who participated in the Korean War withdrew their forces, to the exclusion only of the U.S.
The U.S. asserted that the dissolution of the “UN Command” would be possible only when another mechanism to maintain the Armistice is set up. But, the current state of ceasefire is not maintained by the “UN Command” in practice.
In March 1991, the U.S. made an unannounced decision of replacing the chief delegate to the “UN forces” at the Military Armistice Commission with the south Korean army general, a post so far occupied by the U.S. army general.
As the “UN forces” lost its power of representation, the Military Armistice Commission was virtually put in a state of paralysis. Eventually, the delegation of the Chinese People’s Volunteers, the member of the Korean-Chinese side of the Military Armistice Commission, withdrew in December 1994 and the DPRK side formed the Panmunjom Mission of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) to maintain the ceasefire on behalf of the former DPRK-Chinese side.
As time passed, the members of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (NNSC) failed to maintain their positions of neutrality which they had at the time of signing the Armistice Agreement. With this, the NNSC could no longer carry out its functions.
This has led to the complete fall of the previous armistice mechanism and the “UN Command” was reduced to a scarecrow with no party left to deal with.
It was since then that all the issues related to the running of the state of ceasefire are discussed and disposed of between the KPA and U.S. military authorities rather than between the DPRK-China and the “UN Forces”.
Both sides of the DPRK and the U.S. have made an effective control of the state of ceasefire for decades of years and this reality proves that there is no longer any reason to withhold the dissolution of the “UN Command”.
Even from the viewpoint of replacing the Armistice Agreement with the peace treaty, the “UN Command” stands in the way as the legacy of the Cold War that would bring no good but only harm.
According to the Armistice Agreement, the issue of ensuring the lasting peace is to be negotiated only at a political conference at a level higher than that of military commanders. The actual political superior of the “UN Command”, a signatory to the Armistice Agreement, is not the UN but the U.S. administration.
As the facts show, there were many discussions and agreements between the concerned parties on changing the state of ceasefire to a durable peace on the Korean Peninsula where we can find no mention of any method which presupposes the existence of the “UN Command”.
Despite that, the “UN Command” still exists today and, on top of that, it is trying to revive as a tool of war to be used by multinational forces. This is an issue that can never be overlooked from the perspective of ensuring the security in the Asia-Pacific region including the Korean Peninsula.
The U.S. is claiming that the DPRK’s effort to bolster its national defensive power is causing tension in the region. This is nothing but an imprudent trick to cover up the aggressive nature of its Asia-Pacific strategy.
Whether the U.S. immediately dismantles the “UN Command” or not will serve as the acid stone in deciding whether the U.S. will maintain or not its anti-DPRK hostile policy, whether it wants peace and stability or the revival of the Cold War in the Asia-Pacific region.
The DPRK will continue to strengthen its deterrence against all forms of war, thereby actively contributing to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the rest of Asia until the U.S. makes a right choice.
Pyongyang, KCNA