Desolate truce village symbolizes latest rift between two Koreas

South Korean soldiers stationed on the southern side of the Joint Security Area on Feb. 7, 2023. Korea Times photo by Jack Lau

North Korean soldiers shun in-person talks due to COVID-19

By Jack Lau

PAJU, Gyeonggi Province ― The Imjin River, near the heavily guarded Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) serving as a buffer zone between the two Koreas, was frozen on Feb. 7. Flowing from the North to the South, the river is a chilling reminder of the confrontation between the two Koreas that has continued for seven decades.

Rice paddies tended by villagers of Daeseong-dong in the border city of Paju surrounded the road towards the 245-kilometer Military Demarcation Line. The border marked the battlefront in 1953, when an armistice to end the three-year Korean War was signed between North Korea, China and the U.S.-led United Nations Command. Layers of ice had formed in the furrows of barren fields, where rare cranes foraged and fed in the landmine-filled DMZ, which has become a wildlife sanctuary.

North Korean troops have become somewhat of a rare sight. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, North Korean soldiers have avoided showing themselves in public to ward off the disease, at the cost of suspending in-person talks with the U.N. Command about upholding the armistice.

"They no longer meet with us face to face," said Lt. Col. Griff Hofman of the U.N. Command Military Armistice Commission behind the sky-blue conference huts at the Joint Security Area in Panmunjom managed by the commission.

"It's all done via the hotline, and they generally stay in Panmungak," he said, referring to the main building on the North Korean side of the area that is also known as the Phanmun Pavilion. "If North Korean troops needed to go outdoors, they wore hazmat suits."

Lt. Col. Griff Hofman (left) and his interpreter talk to reporters in a conference hut located in the Joint Security Area between North and South Korea on Feb. 7, 2023. Korea Times photo by Jack Lau

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North Korea claimed in July last year that its first coronavirus outbreak was caused by civilians who touched "alien things" near its border with South Korea and warned people to be vigilant when dealing with balloons and other objects along the demarcation line.

Pyongyang has never confirmed the number of North Koreans that caught COVID-19, but began to report "fever patients" in May last year. About 4.8 million people have had "fever," it said, which represents a fifth of its population of 25 million. It has not reported daily case tallies since July 29, 2022, and said in August that it had overcome the virus.

In 2018, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un met with then South Korean President Moon Jae-in in the Joint Security Area, summits that paved the way to?a short-lived optimism for peace that collapsed on disagreements over demands for Pyongyang to denuclearize. By 2020, North Korea severed hotlines with the South and blew up a joint liaison office in the North Korean border town of Kaesong.

Mountains and vegetation in North Korea seen from the southern side of the Joint Security Area on Feb. 7, 2023. Korea Times photo by Jack Lau

South Korean troops stationed in the Joint Security Area were staring into the air on Tuesday, when there were no signs of North Korean soldiers on their side of the heavily guarded truce village. No villagers or troops were seen in the North Korean fields overlooking a 70-meter metal tower fitted with cameras to observe movements of the North Korean military and unusual activities such as an amassing of resources in the area.

The fog reduced visibility to little more than 10km from the base of the tower, located a few minutes' walk from the conference huts. However, although partially obscured by fog, the vantage point still offered a view of Kaesong Heights that is home to long-range artillery and rocket systems hidden inside its mountains, which Hofman said threaten the safety of Seoul. Those systems could be brought out on railways, fired from there and retracted into the hillside.

No one could be seen roaming in the foreground of North Korea's Kijong-dong village, which merely keeps a pretense of civilian life under a 160-meter-tall tower flying the country's flag.

A North Korean flag flutters in the wind on top of a 160-meter-tall tower situated in Kijong-dong village on Feb. 7. Yonhap-AP

Hofman said the North Korean military has been "very, very concerned" about COVID-19 risks. No in-person meetings in the conference huts had been held with the North Koreans since the general officer talks between the U.N. Command and North Korea in 2018 to negotiate the return of 55 sets of remains from the North to the South. Tours run by the North were also suspended.

The U.N. Command has to rely on the 24/7 hotline on the South side of the Joint Security Area to pass messages to the North Korean People's Army to prevent any surprises, which Hofman said are not well received by the North.

"The more communication that we have and let them know what's going on, we would vastly reduce the chance of something untoward happening," he said, adding that the area was intended for neutral dialogue with North Korea to create opportunities to de-escalate tensions and prevent hostilities from breaking out.

None of the signers of the Korean War armistice in 1953 knew the agreement would last to the present day. The agreement brought on 70 years of precarious peace between North and South Korea and the creation of a tense 250km DMZ and a de facto border that is the Military Demarcation Line.

"Our job is to make sure that hostilities don't break out again so that we can continue to work towards a permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula," Hofman said. "I believe the 70th anniversary of the armistice is a very important commemoration of that."

Jack Lau is a reporter with the South China Morning Post. He is currently based in Seoul, writing for both The Korea Times and the South China Morning Post under an exchange program.