By Ankit Panda
South Korea spurned a peace proposal by the North ahead of Xi Jinping’s trip to Seoul.
On Monday, North Korea’s National Defense Commission (NDC), the highest military body in the country, called for a cessation of “all hostile military activities” on the Korean peninsula. The NDC did not make the offer unconditionally, however. It is requesting that Seoul cease “attracting” U.S. military hardware, according to the CNN. Additionally, the NDC’s proposal is contingent on South Korea “stopping the intrusions into waters being escalated by South Korean navy warships recently and the frequent firing of bullets and shells in the waters around the five islands,” according to a press release by KCNA, North Korea’s official news agency. Aside from the heavily militarized land border between the two countries, the two Koreas have been sparring across the disputed Northern Limit Line (NLL), the effective maritime boundary between them.
The press release and the proposal are replete with KCNA‘s typical florid ideological prose. The proposals are highly unlikely to be taken seriously by Seoul, not in the least due to the fact that North Korea has not curried any credibility with the South after reneging on several conciliatory measures in the past. The proposal specifically demands “an end to the acts of blackmailing and threatening the fellow countrymen by introducing U.S. nuclear strike means such as nuclear-capable strategic bombers and super-large nuclear-powered carriers into south Korea and its vicinity and immediately cancel its plan for the joint military exercise Ulji Freedom Guardian to be staged with the U.S. in August this year so as to create in advance the atmosphere of various exchanges and contacts to be brisk between the north and the south including the Inchon Asian Games.”
Read the full story at The Diplomat