Division of Korea (1954–present)
What date did North Korea say that it's not following the North-South declaration on non-aggression?
Korean War
Division of Korea (1954–present). The Korean Armistice Agreement provided for monitoring by an international commission. Since 1953, the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (NNSC), composed of members from the Swiss and Swedish Armed Forces, has been stationed near the DMZ. In April 1975, South Vietnam's capital was captured by the North Vietnamese army. Encouraged by the success of Communist revolution in Indochina, Kim Il-sung saw it as an opportunity to invade the South. Kim visited China in April of that year, and met with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai to ask for military aid. Despite Pyongyang's expectations, however, Beijing refused to help North Korea for another war in Korea. Since the armistice, there have been numerous incursions and acts of aggression by North Korea. In 1976, the axe murder incident was widely publicized. Since 1974, four incursion tunnels leading to Seoul have been uncovered. In 2010, a North Korean submarine torpedoed and sank the South Korean corvette ROKS "Cheonan", resulting in the deaths of 46 sailors. Again in 2010, North Korea fired artillery shells on Yeonpyeong island, killing two military personnel and two civilians. After a new wave of U.N. sanctions, on 11 March 2013, North Korea claimed that it had invalidated the 1953 armistice. On 13 March 2013, North Korea confirmed it ended the 1953 Armistice and declared North Korea "is not restrained by the North-South declaration on non-aggression." On 30 March 2013, North Korea stated that it had entered a "state of war" with South Korea and declared that "The long-standing situation of the Korean peninsula being neither at peace nor at war is finally over." Speaking on 4 April 2013, the United States Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, informed the press that Pyongyang had "formally informed" the Pentagon that it had "ratified" the potential usage of a nuclear weapon against South Korea, Japan and the United States of America, including Guam and Hawaii. Hagel also stated that the US would deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-ballistic missile system to Guam, due to a credible and realistic nuclear threat from North Korea.