South Korea’s president Moon Jae-in is pressing ahead with his quest to declare an end to the Korean war despite months of fruitless diplomacy that have exposed divisions between Seoul and Washington.
Moon told the UN General Assembly in September that a formal declaration to end the war, which was fought from 1950 until the signing of an armistice agreement in 1953, would “mark a pivotal point of departure in creating a new order of reconciliation and co-operation on the Korean peninsula”.
But doubts in Washington, Pyongyang and Beijing have frustrated his hopes of securing a long-sought political legacy as a peacemaker, illustrating the complexity of reconciling the competing interests of the four parties to a 70-year conflict.