The British government announced on Tuesday that South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol will be visiting Britain this week, and as part of that visit, the two countries will sign a defense agreement to work together to enforce UN sanctions against North Korea.
The agreement will work towards closer relations between Britain’s Royal Navy and the South Korean navy to keep vigil on smuggling in the East China Sea that is aimed at bypassing international sanctions, Britain said.
The Korean Peninsula was once a single country that Japan seized in 1910. Since the end of World War II on September 2, 1945, the peninsula has been divided into North Korea and South Korea. The division was solidified in 1948 when the two governments were established in the two regions. The Korean War, fought between the two nations between 1950 and 1953, resulted in an armistice but no peace treaty.
The Kim family is in charge of the one-party totalitarian state that is North Korea. Except for a brief one-year democratic phase in 1960–1961, South Korea was ruled by a series of military dictatorships until complete democratisation in 1987, at which point direct elections were conducted. Each country claims the whole Korean Peninsula and the islands. Both nations joined the UN in 1991 and are recognised by most member states.
Since the 1970s, both nations have held informal diplomatic dialogues in order to ease military tensions.