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  The Korean Peninsula : Prospect of Unification

  Korean peninsula had a long history of unification under Koryo and Chosan Dynasty before she was annexed by the Japanese in 1910. Although Korea was liberated from Japanese rule at the end of World War II, but she became the victim of Cold War ideological conflict that led to the formation of two separate states in 1948 divided along the 38th parallel. In the south, the Republic of Korea was formed while in the north, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was installed.
  
  The division of the peninsula was further consolidated when the North launched an attack to the South, which triggered the Korean War in 1950 and raged until 1953. However, the devastating conflict was ended by an armistice agreement signed on July 27, 1953 which established the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) that now divides the peninsula. As a result, millions of Koreans were separated from their families, enmity and tension within the nation was created and the sense of national community that had been developed over several thousand years was destroyed. The mistrust between the South and the North became far more deeply entrenched.
  
  Since its division, there were numbers of intra-Korean talks, dialogues and negotiation has been put into placed. The first formal agreement, the Joint Communique between South and North Korea dialogue was signed in 1972 to pursue unification through independent effort, peaceful means and great national unity. Then followed by the Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-Aggression and Exchanges and Cooperation (commonly known as Basic Agreement) signed on February 1992 which define intra-Korean relations not being a relationship between states but a special interim relationship stemming from the process towards unification. In the same year also, Joint Declaration of the Denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula was signed as an effort to free the peninsula from any nuclear threat.