In the following article you can find summary of the relationship between North Korea and South Korea. The countries are technically still at war and tensions were raised as North Korea sunk the Cheonan ship in March. During this hostile action 46 South Korean sailors were killed.
North Korea said it will sever all ties with South Korea and expel the South’s workers from a joint industrial zone as “punishment” for accusing it of sinking a warship and killing 46 South Korean sailors.
South Korea announced plans this week for joint military exercises with the U.S. off the west coast of the Korean peninsula, where a warship was sunk on March 26. North Korea warned of military action in the area after accusing the South of violating its territory in the disputed zone.
The following is a timeline of relations between North Korea and South Korea.
August 1910: Japan annexes Korea, beginning a 35-year occupation.
August 1945: Japan surrenders, marking the end of World War II. Korea is divided into two areas, with the U.S. administering the southern half of the peninsula and the Soviet Union taking over the northern half in an arrangement intended to be temporary.
August 1948: The Republic of Korea is established in the southern half of the peninsula.
September 1948: The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is established in the northern half with backing from the Soviet Union.
June 1950: North Korea invades South Korea, marking the start of the Korean War. The United Nations Command, a 16-member coalition led by the U.S., sends troops to battle the North Koreans. Almost 933,000 troops are stationed in the peninsula at the height of the conflict.
July 1953: Military commanders from the North Korean People’s Army, Chinese volunteer forces and the United Nations Command sign an armistice agreement at Panmunjom. The two countries remain technically at war since the conflict ends without a peace agreement.
August 1971: North and South Korea hold talks through their Red Cross societies, aimed at reuniting families separated after the division of the two countries.
September 1984: South Korea accepts North Korea’s offer to provide relief goods to flood victims.
December 1985: North Korea accedes to the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty.
January 1986: North Korea unilaterally suspends talks with South Korea on reuniting separated families as well as on economic and trade issues.
November 1987: North Korean agents are implicated in the bombing of a South Korean airliner that killed all 155 people on board. The incident puts the communist nation on the U.S.’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.
July 1988: South Korean President Roh Tae-Woo calls for new efforts to promote relations between the two nations.
September 1991: North and South Korea join the United Nations.
January 1992: North Korea signs a nuclear-safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, allowing inspections to begin in June.
February 1993: Kim Young Sam becomes South Korea’s first civilian president following 32 years of military rule.
March 1993: Two months after refusing IAEA inspectors access to two suspected nuclear waste sites, North Korea announces its intention to withdraw from the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty.
July 1994: North Korean President Kim Il Sung dies. He is succeeded by his son, Kim Jong Il.
October 1994: The U.S. and North Korea sign an accord known as the Agreed Framework, under which the communist nation says it will freeze the operation and construction of nuclear reactors suspected of being part of a covert nuclear arms program in exchange for fuel-oil shipments and two reactors, developed with help from South Korea, to produce electricity.
February 1998: Kim Dae Jung takes office as South Korea’s president and outlines his “Sunshine Policy,” attempting to defuse tensions on the peninsula.
June 2000: Kim Dae Jung meets with Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang during the first inter-Korean summit.
January 2002: U.S. President George W. Bush calls Iran, Iraq and North Korea an “axis of evil” during his first State of the Union speech, saying the countries are threatening world peace by seeking to develop weapons of mass destruction.
January 2003: The U.S. and its allies suspend fuel-oil shipments to North Korea after the communist nation says it has a nuclear weapons program and withdraws from the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty.
February 2003: Roh Moo-Hyun is inaugurated as South Korean president and continues Kim Dae Jung’s policy of engaging its neighbor to the north.
April 2003: North Korea meets with China and the U.S. to discuss the country’s nuclear program.
August 2003: North Korea agrees to six-party talks aimed at ending its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
October 2006: After boycotting the six-party talks for most of 2005 and 2006, North Korea tests a nuclear bomb. The country later agrees to return to negotiations on the condition the U.S. agrees to discuss lifting financial sanctions.
October 2007: A second inter-Korean summit is held in Pyongyang.
February 2008: Lee Myung-Bak takes office as South Korea’s president. October 2008: North Korea is removed from the U.S.’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.
March 2009: North Korea and the United Nations Command hold their first talks in six years.
May 2009: North Korea conducts its first nuclear test in three years, leading the UN Security Council to adopt a U.S.- backed resolution seeking to curb loans and money transfers to North Korea and increase inspection of cargo that may contain material for nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles.
March 26, 2010: An explosion sinks South Korea’s 1,200-ton Cheonan patrol boat near the maritime border with North Korea.
May 20, 2010: South Korea releases a report tying North Korea to the sinking of the Cheonan, the deadliest attack blamed on the communist country in more than two decades.
May 24, 2010: South Korea announces plans for joint military exercises with the U.S. in the area where the ship sank.
May 25, 2010: North Korea says it will sever all ties with South Korea and expel the South’s workers from a joint industrial zone.
Sources: Bloomberg News; U.S. State Department website; CIA Factbook.
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