Sunday marked the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Korean War Armistice.

The truce agreed on July 27, 1953, in Panmunjom between the United States' Lieutenant General William Harrison, Commander-in-Chief of the United Nations Command on the one side, and General Nam Il, the Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army and the Commander of the Chinese People's Volunteers, on the other, spelt the end of three years of bitter fighting on the Korean peninsula.

For half-a-century, the armistice has contributed to maintaining peace and stability on the peninsula as well as Northeast Asia at large.

However, this situation has been constantly challenged by lingering tensions and the volatile international situation which began at the start of the Cold War.

Fifty years on, the Korean peninsula remains divided, a legacy of World War II. American troops are still stationed there, occasional skirmishes between the two Koreas have erupted, and now a nuclear crisis is casting a pall, not only throughout the peninsula, but the entire region.

The peace process on the Korean peninsula since the end of the Korean War has never been a smooth one.

The armistice spells out in clear terms the temporary nature of the agreement that it should only continue "until a final peace settlement is achieved." Fifty years on, mutual distrust has frustrated follow-up diplomatic efforts to work out a permanent peace pact to replace the armistice accord and break the deadlock on the world's last Cold War frontier.

Following the historic summit between the leaders of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Republic of Korea (ROK) in June 2000, there has been a ray of hope for reconciliation between the two, in particular Pyongyang's positive response to the former ROK President Kim Dae-jung's "Sunshine Policy."

But the favourable developments that developed on the peninsula have been reversed as a result of Washington's pressing policy towards Pyongyang since George W. Bush assumed the US presidency in 2001. And the United States' branding of Pyongyang as a part of an "axis of evil" in the wake of September 11, has substantially slowed the pace of exchange and co-operation between Pyongyang and Seoul.

The current nuclear crisis erupted last October when Washington exposed Pyongyang's admission of its clandestine nuclear programme which breached a 1994 bilaterally Agreed Framework. Thereafter the United States refused to hold talks with Pyongyang unless the latter scrapped its nuclear ambitions. The DPRK responded by offering to halt its nuclear programme in exchange for a non-aggression pact with the United States. The situation worsened when the United States suspended fuel deliveries to the DPRK. In response, Pyongyang announced in January 2003 its intention to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while at the same time indicating that it had no intention to build nuclear weapons.

The trading of criticism and conflicting stances between the two sides has pushed the situation nearer to a precarious impasse and pushed the world to the brink of an abyss of uncertainty. This has caused deep concern among the international community, in particular neighbouring Asian countries.

A Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons is crucial not only to the security and stability of Northeast Asia but the whole world. It is in the interests of all parties concerned to resolve this issue as early as possible through peaceful means. Even now, a solution lies within reach, one which can unravel the current stand-off as long as both sides are flexible and sincere. For this process to succeed, the DPRK's concerns for its security should be respected.

The Beijing talks between the DPRK, the United States and China in April heralded a step in the right direction.

It is our implicit hope that all the relevant parties can work together to seek a peaceful resolution to this complex issue and eventually establish a comprehensive security consultation mechanism on the peninsula, and throughout the region.

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