S. Korea considers cultural heritage status for guard post
South Korea is considering registering a disarmed guard post as a cultural heritage site, as part of “symbolic efforts” to preserve the nation’s oldest front-line military surveillance facility in accordance with an ongoing peace mood on the Korean Peninsula, the Ministry of National Defense said Thursday.
The post was established in 1953 when the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed. But firearms and troops were withdrawn last year from the facility in Goseong, Gangwon Province, following the Comprehensive Military Agreement agreed to by defense chiefs of the two Koreas.
The agreement mandated Seoul and Pyongyang to each destroy 10 guard posts along the border area. They also agreed to leave intact one post on each side intact as a symbolic indicator of the legacy of the tensionridden border area.
The Cultural Heritage Administration from Seoul expressed its request to the Army recently, the ministry said. “The administration requested the plan and officials there intend to visit the post sometime next month,” a military official said.
There still remains a hurdle to make the plan actually happen, as the Army cannot make its own decision without consent from the United Nations Command (UNC) as it has authority regarding inter-Korean affairs in the border area.
The Army aims to discuss the idea with the UNC and will be reviewing the request in a positive manner.
The request has little to do with any potential security threats to the military, ministry officials added.
The defense ministry and the Army did not elaborate regarding other details of the plan.
President Moon Jae-in met with with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un last September in Pyongyang, during which their defense chiefs signed the agreement on a string of inter-Korean tension-easing steps, such as the withdrawal of guard posts and the disarmament of the Joint Security Area (JSA).