By Park Tae-woo

I was a little perplexed at Selig S. Harrison and John H. Cushman's little one-sided proposal that the U.S. should redraw the maritime boundary between the two Koreas.

In their opinion piece published in the International Herald Tribune on Dec. 13, with the title of "Drawing the line in the water," both of them strongly argued that "ideally redrawing the line would not only ease present crisis, but also set the stage for negotiations among the United States, North Korea and China on a peace treaty that would replace the temporary armistice and formally end the Korean War."

Harrison, the author of "Korean Endgame" and director of the Asia Program at the Center of International Policy, probably overlooked many important variables in determining peace and stability conditions on the Korean Peninsula. He rather tries to analyze the root causes of the dispute in the Northern Limit Line (NLL) from the one-sided perspective of international nominal law.

He does not seriously consider the very sad fact that it was North Korea who all of a sudden ignited the Korean War in 1953, causing millions of human casualties. He needs to employ the objective historical approach as to why these kind of military clashes, and unilateral provocations, and aggressions are being repeated by North Korea even today.

Only looking into a one-sided aspect of the Korean issue does not give any clear logical picture of the complicated North-South conflict structure.

Especially Harrison argues that things make sense if you look at recent events as merely the latest in a decades-long series of naval clashes between the two Koreas resulting from a disputed sea boundary that was hastily imposed by the United Nations forces ― without North Korean agreement ― after the 1953 armistice that halted the Korean War.

If he wishes to mention North Korea's passive agreement for setting the NLL at the end of the Korean War, the illegal act of aggression against the South for the purpose of communizing the entire Korean Peninsula must be blamed first, and South Korea should be compensated for the criminal act and the enormous suffering and damage caused by the North.

Harrison and Cushman's simple nominal approach to analyze North Korea's military aggression is not desirable. It is true, as they say, that several times the dispute has turned into bloody naval battles, most notably in 1999, when 17 North Korean sailors died, and in 2002, when four South Koreans and at least 30 North Koreans were killed.

However, it is not right to argue that the cycle was broken when the “hard-liner” Lee Myung-bak was elected president of South Korea, promptly disowning an accord, which kicked off the most recent chapter in the dispute. In October 2007 Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader, and then-President Roh Moo-huyn of South Korea pledged to hold talks on a joint fishing area in the Yellow Sea to avoid accidental clashes.

Harrison's contradictory argument to redraw the NLL moving further toward the South, naturally giving up the five islands of South Korea to North Korea, that could pave the basic way for pushing ahead with the trilateral peace treaty among the U.S., China, and North Korea, is not a balanced view at all.

His argument is irrational and prejudiced in that redrawing the line in the water cannot guarantee any commitment to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. His view is clearly pro-North Korean and is not objective. We have to know the fact that the co-writer Cushman recently withdrew his name from the co-authorship of this article, probably for the reason that Harrison's view is too radical and biased.

Jack Prichard, former U.S. special envoy for North Korean affairs also criticized Harrison's radical view as extraordinary. He said in an interview with the Chosun Ilbo, that "The New York Times is irresponsible in that the newspaper carried an article of a biased view whose understanding and analysis on Korean history and policy background is distorted and not fair."

At this critical juncture, South Koreans must be fully aware of the truth; the NLL in the West Sea is the effective maritime border and it is not an issue of compromise between the U.S. and North Korea, excluding South Korea in the process of talks. Defeatism will never guarantee any kind of peace on the peninsula. Only being united around sound patriotism will secure peace and stability.

Let me strongly refute again Harrison's unreasonable logic to propose one possible mechanism to replace the armistice is a trilateral peace regime for the peninsula that was proposed by North Korea. It is too premature to even mention setting up a "mutual security assurance commission."

Dr. Park Tae-woo is a visiting professor at department of diplomacy, National Chengchi University, Republic of China, and honorary consul of East Timor in Korea. He has lectured on international issues in Korea University and Kyung Hee University.