Context: Recently, the South Korea’s President announced a formal end to the Korean War.

• Similar declaration in an address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September, calling on the belligerents to "come together and declare that the war on the Korean Peninsula is over." 
• Doing so would allow the two Koreas "to make irreversible progress in denuclearization and usher in an era of complete peace.

Current Scenario

• It comes amid repeated test launches of what Pyongyang has described as "advanced" new missiles and intelligence reports that North Korea continues to develop nuclear warheads at its Yongbyon atomic facility.

Impact of this annoncement as per Expert

• It carries significant political and security risks for Korea and the wider region as it creates a false sense of security and permits North Korea to make demands, such as the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the peninsula and the abolition of the U.N. Command.

How did it end?

• Technically, the Korean War did not end.
• The fighting stopped when North Korea, China and the United States reached an armistice in 1953.
• But South Korea did not agree to the armistice, and no formal peace treaty was ever signed.
• Since 1953 there has been an uneasy coexistence between North and South Korea.

Korean War
History

• The Korean peninsula was ruled by the Joseon Dynasty from 1392 to 1897.
• By signing the treaty of Shimonoseki, Japan formed the Korean Empire after defeating China in the Sino- Japanese war of 1895.
• Korea was effectively under the rule of the Japanese during the World War II and after the fall of Japan, Korean War started.

Causes

• The present-day Korean conflict is born primarily from the seeds sown during Cold War – between USSR and USA.
• Korea was occupied by the United States and the Soviet Union at the end of World War II.
• The United States proposed temporarily dividing the country along the 38th Parallel as a way to maintain its influence on the peninsula, which bordered Russia.
• In 1948, the American-backed, anti-communist southern administration declared itself the Republic of Korea.
• Soon after, the Soviet-backed, communist northern administration, based in Pyongyang, declared itself the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Who were the combatants?

• The war pitted South Korea and the United States, fighting under the auspices of the United Nations, against North Korea and China.
• The Soviet Union supported North Korea at the beginning of the war, giving it arms, tanks and strategic advice.
• But China soon emerged as its most important ally, sending soldiers to fight in Korea as a way to keep the conflict away from its border.