Both the UNC and the Undying Monitoring Commission could play an important and valuable role in supporting and implementing these agreements. However, given that THE unC`s task stems from a 1950 Security Council resolution and the NNSC mission of the 1953 ceasefire agreement, a statement specifying the role and responsibility of UNC and, if necessary, the NNSC in the new agreement would be welcome. South Korean conservative opinion has criticized the agreement for several reasons. Some, stuck in a Cold War mentality, believe that North Korea is still planning a military invasion of the South, which means that the agreement is merely an infiltration. Others complain that Pyongyang and Seoul are treated equally, as if the history of the North`s deadly military provocations would somehow amount to the verbal hostility sometimes expressed by the South and that they were both guilty of escalating military tensions. Another objection concerns the future of the long-standing U.S. alliance: Pyongyang has always tried to widen a gap between Seoul and Washington, and there is currently a huge gap between the perception of North Korean intentions in the United States and South Korea. The United States is only interested in rapid denuclearization, while South Korea has focused on confidence-building measures and many ordinary people view the North with tolerant benevolence. So is the whole process a trap set by North Korea for the ultimate goal, namely the withdrawal of American forces from the Korean Peninsula? Certainly, the period of routine denial of the United States by the North Korean media has continued unabated.
Many other questions will have an impact on the implementation of the agreement: how to achieve North Korean denuclearization? when operational control will be transferred from USFK to South Korea during the war; how to ensure civilian control of the military in response to changing political and social conditions in South Korea; how conventional arms reductions between the two Koreas, taking into account comparative GDP, population, economic structure and future threat perception, can end. Of course, the geopolitical context should not be overlooked – the Korean peace initiative must be supported, or at least not rejected, by China, Russia and Japan. The first meeting at the Inter-Korean Liaison Office took place on October 22, 2018 between delegates from the two Koreas. The meeting focused, among other things, on cooperation between the two Koreas in the field of forestry. [83] [84] Collaboration with forest ecology was one of the commitments of the Pyongyang Declaration. [15] Subsequently, a meeting was held at the office between South Korea`s Deputy Minister of Culture, Sport and Tourism, Roh Tae-kang, and North Korea`s Deputy Minister of Body Culture and Sports, which was won by Kil U on November 2, 2018, and discussions in the office resulted in agreements for a unified Korean team at the 2020 Olympic Games and the 2032 Summer Olympics in the Two Koreas. [85] [86] A new meeting was held on November 2, 2018 between South Korean Vice Minister of Unity Chun Hae-sung and his North Korean counterpart, Jon Jong-su. [87] [88] The two men are co-heads of the office and are both liaison heads for their country of perspective. [87] [88] Chun and Jon both discussed cooperation in various Korean joint projects. [87] [88] Following the meeting, it was reported that on-site inter-Korean railway inspections and a presence of a Pyongyang artistic force in Seoul were unresolved issues.
[88] A North Korean artistic force occurred just before the 2018 Winter Olympics in Seoul and another South Korean city. [89] [90] Despite the issues, the agreement should be welcomed, including by the United States. A second important area of the agreement is the creation of several common functions.