Page 4 - 2020 Defence White Paper

Special
Appendix Significance and Results of the Comprehensive Military Agreement
01

1. Significance

The Comprehensive Military Agreement (CMA) is
an addendum to the Pyongyang Joint Declaration.
It was signed and concluded by the defense
ministers of the two Koreas in Pyongyang on
September 19, 2018 in the presence of the leaders
from both sides to fulfill the historic Panmunjom
Declaration in detail.
CMA aims to remove the risk of war on the Conclusion of the CMA (September 2018)
Korean Peninsula through the reduction of military
tensions and confidence building between the two Koreas. The agreement includes measures to militarily
support the spirit of the Panmunjom Declaration and the Pyongyang Joint Declaration.
CMA still remains binding on both sides as the most effective and ground-breaking agreement since
the Armistice Agreement signed in July 1953.
Unlike the ten other military agreements signed by the military authorities of the two Koreas in the past,
CMA goes beyond the declaratory meaning and clearly contains actual implementation measures for
military tension reduction and confidence building between the ROK and North Korea, such as measures
to prevent accidental clashes at contact areas. The agreement also specifies the verification procedure
for each issue that have been agreed to thereby enabling the implementation and verification of the
agreement in a sound manner.
Since the conclusion of the CMA, the ROK and North Korean military authorities have ceased hostile
activities against each other and completed the reciprocal withdrawal of guard posts (GP) inside the
DMZ and the demilitarization of the Joint Security Area (JSA), and continues to make efforts to fulfill the
agreed-upon issues such as the joint recovery of remains and joint use of the Han River estuary.
Especially, the military authorities of both sides have remained faithful in implementing the measures to
cease hostile activities against each other, thereby reducing military tensions; as a result, the military
situation in the contact areas on the ground, at sea, and in the air has been kept stable.
In addition, through the JSA demilitarization measures, the first-ever meeting among the leaders of the
ROK, North Korea and the US was made possible at Panmunjom on June 30, 2019, and the withdrawal
of GPs in the DMZ has been selected by the UN as a leading example of military confidence-building and
conventional arms control.
As such, the CMA lays the foundation for transforming the long-standing hostility and confrontation on
the Korean Peninsula into a new order of peace and cooperation. This has been made possible by the

2020 Defense White Paper