An International Commission on the Korean Peninsula?

The diplomatic environment today offers a narrow but real window of opportunity to reframe diplomacy on Korean terms.

For decades, diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula has been trapped in a rigid and repetitive cycle, largely shaped by the strategic interests of others. American security priorities, Chinese strategic concerns, Russian opportunism, and Japanese anxieties have each carved deep grooves into how the world thinks about Korea.

Meanwhile, Koreans—both North and South—have too often been secondary actors. Too weak, too uninfluential, too restrained, too divided, and too undeveloped. The opportunities to be heard were just not there. This is rapidly changing. There is today space for Korean interests, Korean security, and Korean aspirations to sit at the center of the diplomatic conversation.

An international commission on the Korean Peninsula offers exactly this opportunity. Unlike the endless rounds of crisis diplomacy, which only manage immediate tensions without addressing underlying structures, an international commission would allow Korea to reframe the fundamental questions of peace and security on the peninsula. Rather than being forced to react to the interests of others, Korea could set the agenda.