Korean War Armistice Agreement, 1953
Summer 2003, Vol. 35, No. 2 | Pieces of History
Gen. William K. Harrison, Jr. (at left table) and Gen. Nam Il (at right table) sign the Korean Armistice Agreement, July 23, 1953. When the signing ceremony began, the documents were first placed on the small center table, then delivered to each side to sign. After each delegate was finished, the documents were returned to the center table.
Fifty years ago, on July 27, 1953, the longest negotiated armistice in history came to an end. After 158 meetings spread over two years and seventeen days, the representatives of the United Nations Command and the Korean People’s Army reached agreement for an armistice, calling a halt to hostilities in Korea.
The Korean War had been raging since June 25, 1950, when the North Korean forces crossed the thirty-eighth parallel and invaded South Korea. A year later, both sides had agreed to cease-fire talks and worked out the basic terms of an armistice. But disagreement over repatriation of prisoners of war prolonged the negotiations over the next two years.
At the end of three years, after UN forces, then North Korean and Chinese forces, pushed their adversaries across that line of demarcation, the political borders of the Korean peninsula remained virtually the same.
At last, at 10 a.m. on July 27, 1953, representatives of the UN forces and the North Korean army entered a specially built room in Panmunjom. Scarcely acknowledging each other, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. William K. Harrison, Jr., senior delegate for the UN Command, and Gen. Nam Il, senior delegate for the Korean People's Army and the Chinese People's Volunteers, took ten minutes to sign eighteen official copies of the tri-language Korean Armistice Agreement.
That evening at 10 p.m. the truce went into effect. The armistice, while it stopped hostilities, was not a permanent peace treaty between nations. It is somewhat exceptional in that it is purely a military document—no nation is a signatory to the agreement.
The Armistice Agreement suspended open hostilities and withdrew all military forces and equipment from a four-thousand-meter-wide zone, establishing the Demilitarized Zone. It further prevented both sides from entering the air, ground, or sea areas under the control of the other. Both sides agreed to release and repatriate prisoners of war and displaced persons. The agreement established the Military Armistice Commission and other agencies to discuss any violations and to ensure adherence to the truce terms.
No clear-cut victor emerged out of the war. Although there were minor changes in territorial boundaries, North and South Korea were still essentially divided along the thirty-eighth parallel and remained politically distinct nations.
Since 1953, border skirmishes have claimed more lives, and the border has become one of the most dangerous areas on earth. Today, about thirty-six thousand U.S. troops remain stationed in South Korea, and the Korean peninsula remains as much a challenge for the United States as it did fifty years ago.
