'3 candidates for DMZ peace park mulled'

By Park Sae-jin Posted : August 16, 2013, 16:53 Updated : August 16, 2013, 16:53
South Korea is studying a plan to make three border cities an international peace zone envisioned by President Park Geun-hye, a government source said Friday.

The three are Paju near the truce village of Panmunjeom, Cheorwon in Gangwon Province and Goseong on the east coast, the source said, asking not to be identified. Paju, north of Seoul, serves as a gateway to a joint industrial park in the North Korean border city of Gaeseong.

On Thursday, Park renewed her proposal to establish an international peace park in the heavily-fortified Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a day after the two Koreas reached an agreement to reopen the Gaeseong industrial complex which has been shut down since early April.

In her Liberation Day speech to mark Korea's liberation from Japan's colonial rule (1910-45), Park said, “I propose to the North the creation of an international peace park at the DMZ, which is a legacy of division and confrontation between the two Koreas.

"By turning the DMZ into a peace zone. I hope that our memories of war and threats of provocations that linger in our minds will be removed and that efforts to make the Korean Peninsula a land of trust, harmony and collaboration will be newly made."

The DMZ, a buffer zone which is four kilometers wide and 250 kilometers long, is a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War. The two Koreas remain technically at war as the Korean War ended in an armistice agreement, not a peace treaty.
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