South Korea, US tag 70th anniversary of Korean War
25 June, 2020
South Korea and the United States on Thursday (Jun 25) reaffirmed their determination to defending "the hard-fought peace" on the divided peninsula while the allies marked the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean Battle.
Communist North Korea invaded the US-backed South in Jun 25, 1950, triggering a three-year battle that killed millions.
The fighting ended with an armistice that was never replaced by a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula divided by the Demilitarized Zone and the two Koreas still technically at war.
"Upon this day in 1950, the US-ROK military alliance was born necessarily and forged in blood," US Secretary of Defence Tag Esper and his South Korean counterpart Jeong Kyeong-doo stated in a joint statement.
The two paid tribute to the "sacrifice, bravery, and legacy of these who laid down their lives in defence of a free of charge, democratic, and prosperous" South, the statement read.
Seoul's defence ministry sets the conflict's military fatalities at 520,000 North Koreans, 137,000 Southern troops and 37,000 Americans.
Seoul's relationship with Washington provides been strained in recent years by the Trump administration's demands that it again pay even more towards the expense of keeping 28,500 US troops on the peninsula to safeguard the South from its nuclear-armed neighbour.
However the allies "remain firmly focused on defending the hard-fought peace on the Korean Peninsula," the statement added.
The anniversary comes as inter-Korean ties stay in a deep freeze following a rapid rapprochement in 2018 that brought three summits between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the South's President Moon Jae-in.
Kim on Wednesday suspended strategies for military moves aimed at the South, following the North raised tensions last week by demolishing a good liaison workplace on its side of the border that symbolised inter-Korean cooperation.
New events showed that inter-Korean relations "can turn into a house of cards at any time", the South's JoongAng Daily said within an editorial Thursday on the anniversary.
The South Korean government has "persistently turned a blind eye" to Pyongyang's provocations, it said, producing a "slackening sense of security".
"There is no free ride in keeping peace," the editorial reading, adding: "We anticipation the federal government and defence ministry deeply reflect on the lesson of 70 years ago."
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