The Minister of Defense is visiting the buffer zone on the border with North Korea. The German government wants to make a contribution to strengthening the UN command there in the future.
Camp Bonifas – After joining the United States-led UN Command (UNC) in South Korea, Germany is in principle prepared to provide personnel to monitor the ceasefire on the peninsula. The exact contribution and what insights Germany itself wants to gain from the engagement are now being discussed, said Defense Minister Boris Pistorius during a visit to the buffer zone with North Korea. “We will now explore this until the end of the year and then move on to the next phase,” explained the SPD politician at the Camp Bonifas military base, from where he was directly on the demilitarized demarcation line.
“We were photographed from the North Korean side. We photographed the North Korean side,” he said. Soldiers from the other side were about 50 meters away. “For someone who still knows the German-German border, many associations arise and at the same time it is very different because there is this buffer zone, which we do not know from German-German history.” The effort to ensure transparency and prevent an escalation in the situation is “quite oppressive and impressive at the same time.”
On Friday, Germany became the 18th country to join the UN Command. Since the Korean War from 1950 to 1953, the UNC has been responsible for ensuring that the conditions for a ceasefire negotiated at the time are adhered to. It has the say on the South Korean side of the demilitarized zone with North Korea. This military buffer zone was created at the end of the Korean War across the peninsula along the 38th parallel, stretching for around 240 kilometers and now forms the de facto border.
Tensions have recently been growing on the Korean peninsula. North Korea has significantly increased its missile tests in the past two years and has intensified its rhetoric against the USA and South Korea. There is military cooperation with Russia. Ruler Kim Jong Un has repeatedly called for increased preparations for war. dpa
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