S. Korea marks 62nd anniversary of Korean War Armistice Day 정전기념일 역사 패키지

Today， July 27th 2015，... marks the sixty－second anniversary of the Korean War armistice. The South Korean government has long commemorated the occasion，... but since 2013，... it has also used the day to honor veterans from the 21 UN member states that supported South Korea during the war. Our Park Ji－won tells us more about the day and its history. The more than three years of bloodshed that began with the communist North′s invasion of the democratic South on June 25th， 1950，... officially ended with the signing of the Korean War Armistice Agreement on July 27th， 1953. It was one of the longest cease－fire negotiations in history involving 158 meetings... over a span of two years and 17 days... between the U.S.－led UN Command and the North Korean－Chinese coalition. The first round of negotiations was held in Kaesong in July 1951，... but the talks were later moved to Panmunjom，... near the present－day border between the two Koreas. By then，... the war had already fallen into a bloody stalemate，... with a growing number of casualties on both sides，... after Chinese Communist forces， backing the North Koreans， conducted a massive offensive against the South Korean Army，... backed by the U.S. and 15 other UN member states，... including the UK and Canada. Agreement on the armistice was finally reached when both sides accepted the terms for a system of voluntary repatriation for prisoners of war... and when South Korean President Rhee Syngman，.. who was against the armistice，... finally accepted it，... though only after receiving a promise from the U.S. for a mutual security treaty and a major aid deal for the South. With the signing，... in July 1953， all military actions were immediately halted，... ending the war that had killed and wounded roughly three million civilians and soldiers on all sides. The armistice created the Demilitarized Zone，... a 4－kilometer－wide buffer zone that is now the de－facto border between the two Koreas. It′s not much different from the 38th parallel，... which divided the two Koreas before the war. But now， 62 years after the signing，... the main goal of the Korean Armistice Agreement still has not yet been achieved. The preamble states that the purpose of the agreement is to ensure a ″complete cessation of hostilities ... until a final peaceful settlement is achieved.″ But that final peace treaty has not yet materialized，... leaving the important task still to be done. Park Ji－won， Arirang News.