Seoul, 28 July 2023 (PNA/Anadolu)

Despite strained relations between Seoul and Pyongyang, locals still long for a united Korea.

Thursday marked 70 years to the end of the Korean War, which began on June 25, 1950. The two sides are technically still at war because, even though the conflict ended in an armistice deal on July 27, 1953, the two nations did not sign a peace treaty.

Um Taek-gu, 86, who was born in Kosong County, southeastern North Korea, escaped to South Korea with his family during the war.

Speaking to Anadolu, Um said he would return to his hometown and see his friends and relatives when the two Koreas reunite.

He added that he missed his birthplace and wished for peace in the Korean Peninsula.

Choi In-seo, 76, was also born in Kosong. He only remembers fleeing to the South at a young age with his family during the armed conflict. According to him, unification is impossible, even though he wants to see “One Korea with all my heart and soul.”

“I am over 70 years old; I don’t think I can see this dream being realized,” he added.

Jang Yong-woo, director of the Korean War Veterans Association, said Koreans see Türkiye as a “blood brother” because of Turkish soldiers’ participation in the Korean War.

Turkish forces served under the UN command during the Korean War, and as many as 774 troops died.

Jang said they launched a campaign and delivered aid to the Turkish Embassy in Seoul after the Feb. 6 earthquakes in Türkiye, which killed more than 50,000 people.

Voice of America reported South Korea recently commemorated 70th anniversary of the Korean War’s outbreak amid the coronavirus pandemic, not an official holiday, but the occasion is often marked with ceremonies, war photography exhibitions and tours to former battlefield sites for visiting foreign veterans.

This year, many public observances have been scaled down or cancelled because of the coronavirus, which health officials say is now in its second wave in South Korea.

Kim Young-ho was among 370 Korean War veterans honoured Thursday morning at a ceremony in Cheorwon County, northeast of Seoul and adjacent to the demilitarized zone that has separated the two Koreas since the early 1950s.

Seoul’s Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs estimates 84,000 Korean War veterans are still alive.

In accordance with physical-distancing regulations, all participants in the event were required to wear masks and were seated a meter away from each other. Guest attendance was more limited than was the case in previous years, local officials said.

Kim said it was inevitable that the commemoration needed to be smaller because of the coronavirus but that he is more disappointed that after 70 years, the standoff between the two Koreas is still not resolved.

“I feel this status quo will last until I die,” the 89 years old said.

Faced with restrictions on in-person observances, some cultural institutions are making their Korean War anniversary exhibitions available online.

The Korean Film Archive is showing five feature-length movies about the war on its YouTube channel and will make several short films available on its video-on-demand service this month, planning official Jeon Min-hwa said, adding the screenings are meant to remind viewers that the conflict is “still ongoing.” A peace treaty to officially end the war has still not been signed.

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul is using its YouTube channel to display around 250 works of art that depict wartime scenes.

Park Yu-lee, a communications official at the museum, told VOA by email the Korean War has gradually become “defamiliarized” in the public memory.

The effect of the global pandemic on commemorations of the war outbreak anniversary is also being felt far beyond the divided peninsula, some historians said.

Andrew Salmon, author of two books on the Korean War, said the coronavirus has added extra urgency to what is normally a “somber remembrance.”

This year’s observances were meant to be a “last hurrah” for many of the conflict’s foreign veterans, who had planned to travel to South Korea for the occasion, the Seoul-based British writer said, adding that all of these men are now in the “twilight of their lives.”

“This was probably the last anniversary that many of these men would have been able to attend,” Salmon said, “The living history of the war is fading.”

On July 27, 1953, military leaders from North Korea, China and the United Nations Command (UNC) led by the United States – the fighting parties in the three-year Korean war – met at Panmunjom as they agreed to a ceasefire deal.

A military armistice commission was set up to negotiate and implement the terms of the agreement.

When the armistice was signed, many Koreans thought it would be temporary and that there would soon be a permanent peace treaty or reunification of the two Koreas.

But 70 years on, the Korean Peninsula remains a finderbox in the absence of a permanent peace treaty.