Despondency and Disappointment are Beyond Expression

On June 12, 2018 in Singapore the historic summit between the President of the United States, Donald Trump and the leader, Kim Jong Un of the DPRK was televised live throughout the world.

For more than 65 years the citizens of South Korea have long witnessed countless provocations committed by North Korea as known as the world’s most repressive state. South Koreans with our eyes carefully glued to our various devices watched this summit with anticipation.

Yet, we were perplexed by an improbable fact that the joint agreement signed after the summit between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un did not include any clause to force NK to dismantle their nuclear arsenals complying with Complete Verifiable Irreversible Dismantlement agreement (CVID).

What is worse, President Trump further shocked his long time allies in the Republic of Korea by disclosing that he would suspend joint US-ROK military exercises. President Trump even called the exercise “provocative” borrowing North Korea’s own rhetoric.

What would be one of the reasons why Trump would suspend these military exercises? According to Trump, cancelling these drills would save a lot of money.

With this event, would it be a foreshadower of the withdrawal of the US troops from South Korea in the near future? We hope not, this would leave South Korea vulnerable. If we trace and study our history we know what happened during the Korean War with the invasion of North Korea. Anything is possible.

Further, we can also learn and glean from the 1973 the Paris Peace Treaty that finally led to South Vietnam’s collapse in just two years since the treaty was actually inked.

At the same time, we would like to believe that President Trump and his cabinet made these decisions strategically, so that North Korea shall have to abide by all the clauses of the agreement signed without failure.

In conclusion, no matter what the present situation is, South Koreans would like to firmly trust that the United States will, in no circumstances, adopt a policy that may deteriorate ROK’s security and alienate the 70-year-long alliance relationship.

Characteristically, South Koreans have been unequivocally aware of the fact that South Korea’s liberty and advancement would have not been possible without the countless sacrifice of the 1,798,000 US men and women in uniform who fought in the bitter battlefield of the Korean War in order to protect South Korea’s freedom.

For this very reason, the United States and South Korea must continue to work together to preserve regional peace to maintain South Korea’s freedom for the future.

God bless America and the Republic of Korea!