Division of Korea

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The division of Korea de facto began on 2 September 1945, when Japan signed the surrender document, thus ending the Pacific Theater of World War II. It was officially divided with the establishment of the two Koreas in 1948. During World War II, the Allied leaders had already been considering the question of Korea's future following Japan's eventual surrender in the war. The leaders reached an understanding that Korea would be liberated from Japan but would be placed under an international trusteeship until the Koreans would be deemed ready for self-rule.^[1] In the last days of the war, the United States proposed dividing the Korean peninsula into two occupation zones (a U.S. and Soviet one) with the 38th parallel as the dividing line. The Soviets accepted their proposal and agreed to divide Korea.^[2]

It was understood that this division was only a temporary arrangement until the trusteeship could be implemented. In December 1945, the Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers resulted in an agreement on a five-year, four-power Korean trusteeship.^[3] However, with the onset of the Cold War and other factors both international and domestic, including Korean opposition to the trusteeship, negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union over the next two years regarding the implementation of the trusteeship failed, thus effectively nullifying the only agreed-upon framework for the re-establishment of an independent and unified Korean state.^{[1]: 45–154} With this, the Korean question was referred to the United Nations. In 1948, after the UN failed to produce an outcome acceptable to the Soviet Union, UN-supervised elections were held in the US-occupied south only. Syngman Rhee won the election, while Kim Il Sung consolidated his position as the leader of Soviet-occupied northern Korea. This led to the establishment of the Republic of Korea in southern Korea on 15 August 1948, promptly followed by the establishment of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in northern Korea on 9 September 1948. The United States supported the South, the Soviet Union supported the North, and each government claimed sovereignty over the whole Korean peninsula.

On 25 June 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea in an attempt to re-unify the peninsula under its communist rule. The subsequent Korean War, which lasted from 1950 to 1953, ended with a stalemate and has left Korea divided by the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) up to the present day.

During the April 2018 inter-Korean summit, the Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Reunification of the Korean Peninsula was adopted between Kim Jong Un, the Supreme Leader of North Korea, and Moon Jae-in, the President of South Korea. During the September 2018 inter-Korean summit, several actions were taken toward reunification along the border, such as the dismantling of guard posts and the creation of buffer zones to prevent clashes. On 12 December 2018, soldiers from both Koreas crossed the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) into the opposition countries for the first time in history.^[4][5]

In October 2024, the North Korean constitution was amended to remove references to reunification and labelled South Korea an "enemy state".^[6] This was preceded by the destruction of roads connecting the north to the south in a bid to "completely separate" the two states.^[7]