North Korea remains elusive on denuclearization, but on Tuesday showed its desire for a formal peace treaty with South Korea by destroying 10 guard posts in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the heavily armed no man’s land that has divided North from South since the Korean war was frozen by an armistice in 1953.
The guard posts were “exploded” as part of an inter-Korean agreement reached during high-level military discussions between the two nations that have been ongoing in the backdrop of the Trump administration’s pursuit of nuclear talks with North Korea.
South Korea’s Yonhap New Agency reported Tuesday that the North had notified the South on Sunday of the demolition plan, which fits with an agreement each side has made to destroy 10 guard posts while retaining one each that has historical or other value.
North Korea plans to finish the destruction of its guard posts by the end of this month and verify it in December, according to Yonhap, which framed the demolition as part of the September military agreement that included a series of confidence-building and conventional arms control measures.
In addition to disarming the DMZ, the measures also find the two sides conducting a joint project to excavate Korean War troop remains in the border region and setting up air, maritime and ground buffer zones.
Such activity comes as Washington’s push to get North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to abandon his nuclear weapons program — a program built up over decades worth of violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions — has struggled to show progress since President Trump met with Mr. Kim in Singapore in June.
Administration officials say Mr. Trump is hoping for a second summit with the North Korean leader in early 2019.
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.
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