The Korean Odyssey

  * The joint presidential briefing by the Ministry of Unification, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Ministry of National Defense for the second half of 2026 is being held at the Blue House on August 5, 2026. © Blue House Il Young Jeong Senior Research Fellow_Institute of Social Science_Sogang University On August 5, the Ministry of Unification, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of National Defense jointly presented their policy reports to President Lee Jae-myung for the second half of 2026. Traditionally, presidential policy briefings have been held only once at the beginning of the year. The Lee government, however, added a summer briefing as a midterm assessment of its policies. The occasion also served as an opportunity to evaluate and adjust the government’s policies toward the Korean Peninsula over the past year. In this column, I will examine the Lee Jae-myung government’s policy of peaceful coexistence on the Korean Peninsula, identify its key challenges, an...

  * Participants at the Korea Peace  Rally  chanting slogans “NO WAR! YES PEACE!”   ⓒ Il Young Jeong Il Young Jeong Senior Research Fellow_Institute of Social Science_Sogang University “Are the Two Koreas Still Technically at War?”   Yes. North and South Korea are still in a state of war. The Korean War, which broke out on June 25, 1950, was suspended with the signing of the Armistice Agreement on July 27, 1953. Since then, the war has never officially ended. The Lee Jae-myung government is currently pursuing a “Policy of Peaceful Coexistence on the Korean Peninsula.” In essence, the policy aims to create “a Korean Peninsula where North and South peacefully coexist and grow together.” Compared with the Yoon Suk Yeol administration — which heightened tensions with North Korea through hardline rhetoric symbolized by the slogan “Immediate, Strong, and Until the End” — tensions on the peninsula have clearly eased. Yet few would describe the current situation as...