{"id":121126,"date":"2026-08-16T09:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T09:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/121126\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T09:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T09:59:09","slug":"president-lee-jae-myung-brought-up-the-discussion-of-the-end-of-the-korean-war-card-at-the-liberat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/121126\/","title":{"rendered":"President Lee Jae Myung brought up the “Discussion of the End of the Korean War” card at the Liberat.."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"President \uc0ac\uc9c4 \ud655\ub300 President Lee Jae Myung and First Lady Kim Hea Kyung are singing the Liberation Day song waving the Korean national flag with attendees including Lee Jong-chan (third left of the front row) at the 81st anniversary of Liberation Day celebration held at Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in Jongno-gu, Seoul on the 15th. Reporter Kim Ho-young
\nPresident Lee Jae Myung brought up the “Discussion of the End of the Korean War” card at the Liberation Day celebration ceremony in his second year in office as a solution to break through the prolonged crunch on the Korean Peninsula.<\/p>\n

While North Korea refuses to engage in any inter-Korean dialogue and strengthens solidarity with China and Russia, the parties to the Korean Peninsula issue have proposed to gather at a wider table to discuss the Korean Peninsula issue in a forward-looking manner. As a result, attention is being paid to how North Korea, as well as the U.S. and China, will react to President Lee’s proposal.\n<\/p>\n

President Lee did not explicitly mention “denuclearization” in his Liberation Day speech, but he also expressed his willingness to continue the three-step approach of “stop (freeze) \u2192 reduction \u2192 dismantlement” regarding the North Korean nuclear issue.\n<\/p>\n

At the Liberation Day celebration held at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in Jongno-gu, Seoul on the 15th, President Lee announced the idea of multilateral discussions on the issue of the end of the war, saying, “Let’s start discussions between the parties to end the very old war.” He also said, “Through this, effective measures to stop the advancement of North Korea’s nuclear capabilities can be discussed.”\n<\/p>\n

\u25c6 Lee’s Forward-Looking Card to Resolve Conflict on the Korean Peninsula\n<\/p>\n

This is the first time President Lee has mentioned the “end of war” issue in such a clear tone regarding the Korean Peninsula issue. This is a clear difference in temperature compared to the ‘passive’ stance toward North Korea shown in the recent work report of the Ministry of North Korea and Foreign Affairs and Security.\n<\/p>\n

At the time, President Lee actually expressed “premature theory” about the official name of North Korea (North Korea) reported by the Ministry of Unification and the preemptive restoration of the September 19 inter-Korean military agreement, and ordered Unification Minister Chung Dong-young to take a cautious attitude. In particular, he showed a lukewarm response to Minister Chung’s report that he would push for four-way dialogue between South Korea, North Korea, the U.S. and China on the occasion of the U.N. General Assembly in September and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in November. Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Hyun also exposed his differences without filtering, saying, “It was an ideal statement, so please discount it.”\n<\/p>\n

In his Liberation Day speech, however, President Lee changed his mind, saying that he would solve the problem by elevating the situation on the Korean Peninsula to a multilateral security issue rather than a bilateral issue between the two Koreas.\n<\/p>\n

Instead of spending time squabbling over “hostile” and “peaceful” relations between the two countries, the U.S. and China, as well as Japan and Russia, which are parties to the armistice agreement, participated to discuss the end of the war and the North Korean nuclear issue together.\n<\/p>\n

On this day, President Lee also presented the vision of inclusive, stable, and responsible peaceful coexistence toward North Korea. Regarding inclusive peaceful coexistence, he explained, “The two Koreas should respect each other and stop unnecessary confrontation,” adding, “We should reduce each other’s hostility one by one from awareness, norms, and systems.” Stable peaceful coexistence focused on easing military tensions.\n<\/p>\n

President Lee said, “We must prepare multiple layers of safety devices to prevent crises and escalation.” Finally, he emphasized responsible peaceful coexistence, saying, “Peace on the Korean Peninsula will promote stability and cooperation in Northeast Asia and be a milestone toward a nuclear-free world.”\n<\/p>\n

\u25c6 Reaffirming the theory of phased denuclearization\n<\/p>\n

President Lee did not explicitly mention the denuclearization issue in his congratulatory speech. This is interpreted as a result of the judgment that it is realistic to focus on halting nuclear activities for now in a situation where North Korea maintains its position to never give up its nuclear weapons.\n<\/p>\n

In response, opposition parties raised the level of the offensive, saying, “There was no mention of denuclearization in President Lee’s congratulatory speech.” Jang Dong-hyuk, the representative of the People’s Power, criticized on Facebook on the same day, saying, “I did not say a word about North Korea’s nuclear development and missile tests, saying, “President Lee’s August 15 congratulatory speech is a declaration of national security and abandonment of the people.” He added, “Preemptive and continuous peace measures mean that only we will disarm in the end.” The next day, Choi Bo-yoon, a senior spokesman for People’s Power, pointed out, “It is a pathetic peace begging that only we disarm ourselves,” adding, “It has shown the peak of the regime’s security incompetence.”\n<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, President Lee also announced his vision for Korea-Japan relations in his Liberation Day speech. “Trust comes from the sincerity of understanding the pain of the other person and empathizing with each other,” he said, pointing out that Japan should face its past history. He pointed out that Japan’s Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae and Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi paid tribute to Yasukuni shrine, which symbolizes “Military Japan,” respectively, but expressed their willingness to continue the stance of Korea-Japan cooperation.\n<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, President Lee also drew attention in his congratulatory speech by emphasizing his commitment to innovative growth and integration. President Lee said, “We need a new liberation that will take the Republic of Korea to the next level,” and promised, “We will increase economic growth potential by actively investing in the future and return the fruits evenly to all people across the country.” “Differences should not be hostile and hate, exclusion, and conflict should not prevent the country from advancing,” he said. “The people, the government, central and local governments, businesses, and workers are all one team in front of a national competition in which the topography of the global economy is reversed.”\n<\/p>\n

[Reporter SUNG SEUNG HUN \/ Reporter Lee Hyo Seok]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\uc0ac\uc9c4 \ud655\ub300 President Lee Jae Myung and First Lady Kim Hea Kyung are singing the Liberation Day song…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[62756,21945,62759,62762,62761,62755,15180,62754,62763,62753,31,4924,146,62752,62757,62758,17699,62760,53806,49986,33],"class_list":["post-121126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-south-korea","tag-25-war","tag-apec","tag-asia-pacific-economic-cooperation","tag-bilateral-talks","tag-continuing","tag-crunch-phase","tag-facebook","tag-four-way-dialogue","tag-future-oriented","tag-inter-korean-conflict","tag-korea","tag-korean-war","tag-lee-jae-myung","tag-multilateral-discussion","tag-pacemaker","tag-parties","tag-project","tag-safety-device","tag-sejong-center-for-the-performing-arts","tag-senior-spokesperson","tag-south-korea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}