Korea's Demilitarized Zone is supposed to be a point of confrontation between South Korea and North Korea. Increasingly, however, it is becoming a flash point between South Korea and the United States — the blood allies forged through the Korean War.
South Korea wants a greater say in its management, while the US insists on maintaining full control of the border as mandated by the 1953 Armistice Agreement. For Seoul, the issue is one of national pride and state sovereignty; for Washington, it is about ensuring stability through unified control.
The issue has existed for years, but since the arrival of President Lee Jae Myung's liberal and nationalistic government last June, it has resurfaced with renewed intensity. Late last year, Unification Minister Chung Dong-young complained that the US-led United Nations Command, which has jurisdiction over the DMZ, denied high-ranking South Korean officials access to the area.
"As a sovereign state, it is humiliating to be denied access to our own territory," Chung lamented. Since then, the ruling Democratic Party of Korea has moved to enact the Law on the Peaceful Use of the DMZ, which would make it easier for Seoul to access the area for nonmilitary purposes such as cultural, environmental or ecological events.
In response, the UNC issued an unusually strong statement last month opposing the bill, arguing that it would violate the armistice agreement and "undermine the armistice system."
The agreement — signed by the United Nations, China and North Korea after three years of war, without South Korea's participation — grants full control of the southern side of the DMZ to the UNC. The command has long maintained that the armistice system and its unified control of the DMZ have been instrumental in preserving relative peace in the area. It warns that fragmented control could complicate coordination and increase the risk of accidental clashes between the two Koreas.
The DMZ is one of the most dangerous places in the world. More than a million heavily armed troops are deployed along the border, as well as thousands of artillery pieces and other heavy weapons. Millions of anti-personnel and anti-tank mines are also planted in the supposedly weapons-free zone. There have been a series of skirmishes over the decades, resulting in casualties, though none escalated into full-scale conflict. Most notably, two US officers were killed by ax-wielding North Korean soldiers in 1976 inside the Joint Security Area. Several underground tunnels dug by North Korea for surprise infiltrations have also been discovered along the border.
For Seoul's reconciliation-minded government, however, the DMZ represents a space where the two Koreas can reconnect through exchange and cooperation. The historic summit between President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in 2018 at the truce village — followed by Kim's meeting with President Donald Trump there the following year — symbolized the DMZ's peace potential. Under previous liberal administrations in Seoul, a range of cooperative projects, including ceremonies marking the reconnection of railroads, were held in the area.
In this sense, the debate is not merely about the management of a 4-kilometer-wide, 248-kilometer-long strip of land. It reflects a broader and more consequential disagreement between Seoul and Washington over the future of their 75-year-old alliance. Having long operated as the junior partner, South Korea increasingly believes it is time for a more equal partnership in matters concerning the peninsula's security.
The issue is closely tied to the larger question of transferring wartime operational control of the joint forces from the US-led command to the South Korean military. South Korea already exercises operational control in peacetime, and the two sides have agreed in principle to transfer wartime control once South Korea's military capabilities are deemed sufficient. The Lee government now wants to accelerate this transfer to reduce its dependence on Washington.
Conservatives in Seoul, along with some in Washington, argue that advancing the transfer would be unwise given the superior capabilities of the US military and the rapid advancement of North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. They question whether South Korea is fully prepared to assume wartime control and contend that maintaining the current structure allows for more effective US nuclear deterrence. In this view, the issue is increasingly framed as a choice between sovereignty-driven autonomy and security-based pragmatism.
Ironically, President Lee's government has made "pragmatic diplomacy" its top foreign policy priority. Under that banner, South Korea has repaired strained ties with Japan and worked closely with Washington on security and other issues. Yet the renewed push for greater control over the DMZ appears to sit uneasily with that approach.
If Seoul's demands are met, they would bolster national pride and dignity as a sovereign state. At the same time, they could risk undermining border stability by increasing the possibility of unintended clashes. A truly pragmatic approach, therefore, would be for Seoul to pursue incremental adjustments to DMZ governance rather than attempting to dismantle the armistice framework that has prevented another war on the Korean Peninsula for seven decades.
Lee Byung-jong
Lee Byung-jong is a former Seoul correspondent for Newsweek, The Associated Press and Bloomberg News. He is a professor at the School of Global Service at Sookmyung Women's University in Seoul. The views expressed here are the writer's own. — Ed.
khnews@heraldcorp.com
