The question of Korea first came before the General Assembly in 1947. United Nations efforts to re-establish a unified Korean state through nationwide elections were not successful, and separate governments came into being in north and south Korea in1948-the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), and the Republic of Korea (South Korea). That same year, the General Assembly created the United Nations Commission on Korea to seek the objectives laid out by the General Assembly in November 1947, namely the re-establishment of the national independence of Korea and the withdrawal of all occupying forces.
On June 25, 1950, the United States and the United Nations Commission on Korea informed the United Nations that South Korea had been attacked by North Korea's forces. The same day, the Security Council called for a cease-fire and withdrawal of North Korea forces to the 38th parallel. As fighting continued, the Security Council recommended that United Nations Member States furnish the necessary assistance to South Korea to repel the attack and restore stability on the peninsula. In the meantime, the United States announced that it had ordered its air and sea forces to give cover and support to the troops of South Korea. The United States later authorized the use of ground forces.
In July, the Security Council asked Member States providing military forces in accordance with earlier resolutions to make them available to a unified command under the United States. Sixteen nations made troops available to the unified command; this force was not, however, a United Nations peacekeeping operation placed under the command of the Secretary-General, but an international force acting under the unified command.
The Soviet Union, which had been absent from the Security Council for six months in protest against the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek representing China at the United Nations, considered the Council's decision illegal. The Soviet Union stated that the resolutions were invalid because they were adopted in the absence of two permanent members. The People's Republic of China also rejected the Council's decisions as invalid, and in November 1950, a Chinese volunteer force entered the fighting on the side of North Korea. Fighting continued until July 27, 1953 when an Armistice Agreement was signed. A Military Armistice Commission was established to supervise the implementation of the agreement and to settle any violations through negotiations.
The United Nations Commission for the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea replaced the United Nations Commission on Korea in 1950 and remained in the country until it was dissolved by the General Assembly in 1973. The Assembly, in a unanimous decision, considered the Commission's mandate fulfilled when a joint communiquÄ was issued by North Korea and South Korea in July 1972, stating that their common aim was to promote national unity and seek reunification through peaceful means.
In 1974, the General Assembly urged North Korea and South Korea to further their dialogue to expedite reunification. North Korea and South Korea became Members of the United Nations in September 1991.
In December 1991, two agreements were signed: The Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-Aggression, Cooperation and Exchange between the North and the South and the Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula-an agreement to ensure a nuclear-weapons-free peninsula through inter-Korean inspections.
From United Nations: The First Fifty Years, by Stanley Meisler. Copyright 1995 by Stanley Meisler. Used by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
