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| See also: | Other events of 2015 Years in South Korea Timeline of Korean history 2015 in North Korea | ||||
The following lists events that happened in 2015 in South Korea .
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| See also: | Other events of 2015 Years in South Korea Timeline of Korean history 2015 in North Korea | ||||
The following lists events that happened in 2015 in South Korea .
The Korean War was a war between North Korea and South Korea. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following clashes along the border and insurrections in the south. The war ended unofficially on 27 July 1953 in an armistice.
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is a country in East Asia constituting the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. The country is bordered to the north by China and by Russia along the Amnok and Tumen rivers, and to the south by South Korea, with the heavily fortified Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two. North Korea, like its southern counterpart, claims to be the legitimate government of the entire peninsula and adjacent islands. Pyongyang is the country's capital and largest city.
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea, is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula, and sharing a land border with North Korea. 25 million people, around half of the country's population of more than 51 million people, live in the Seoul Capital Area, the fifth-largest metropolitan area in the world.
Note: "Total U.S. casualties" includes wounded, combat and non-combat deaths but not missing in action. "Deaths – other" includes all non-combat deaths including those from accidents, disease, suicide, and murder.
An estimated 84,532 South Koreans were taken to North Korea during the Korean War. In addition, South Korean statistics claim that, since the Korean Armistice Agreement in 1953, about 3,800 people have been abducted by North Korea, 489 of whom were still being held in 2006.
Missing in action (MIA) is a casualty classification assigned to combatants, military chaplains, combat medics, and prisoners of war who are reported missing during wartime or ceasefire. They may have been killed, wounded, captured, executed, or deserted. If deceased, neither their remains nor grave has been positively identified. Becoming MIA has been an occupational risk for as long as there has been warfare.
Paju is a city in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. Paju was made a city in 1997; it had previously been a county (gun).
Human rights in North Korea are extremely limited. North Korea's human rights record is often considered to be the worst in the world and has been globally condemned, with the United Nations, the European Union and groups such as Human Rights Watch all critical of the country's record. Most international human rights organizations consider North Korea to have no contemporary parallel with respect to violations of liberty.
The Joint Security Area is the only portion of the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) where North and South Korean forces stand face-to-face. The JSA is used by the two Koreas for diplomatic engagements and, until March 1991, was also the site of military negotiations between North Korea and the United Nations Command (UNC).
The Korean diaspora consists of around 7.4 million people, both descendants of early emigrants from the Korean Peninsula, as well as more recent emigres from Korea. Around 84.5% of overseas Koreans live in just five countries: China, the United States, Japan, Canada, and Uzbekistan. Other countries with greater than 0.5% Korean minorities include Russia, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia. All these figures include both permanent migrants and sojourners.
Since the division of Korea after the end of World War II and the end of the Korean War (1950–1953), North Koreans have defected for political, ideological, religious, economic or personal reasons. Such North Koreans are referred to as North Korean defectors. Alternative terms in South Korea include "northern refugees" and "new settlers".
Mark William Lippert is an American diplomat who has worked as the vice president for international affairs at Boeing since 2017. He previously served as the United States Ambassador to South Korea from 2014 to 2017. Prior to his tour as an ambassador, Lippert had served as Chief of Staff for Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Chief of Staff for the National Security Council, and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs in the Department of Defense. On March 5, 2015, he was attacked by a man wielding a knife in South Korea.
Tens of thousands of South Korean soldiers were captured by the North Korean and Chinese forces during the Korean War (1950–53) but were not returned during the prisoner exchanges under the 1953 Armistice Agreement. Most are presumed dead, but the South Korean government estimates some 560 South Korean prisoners of war still survive in North Korea. The issue of unaccounted South Korean POWs from the Korean War has been in dispute since the Armistice in 1953. North Korea continues to deny it holds these South Korean POWs. Interest in this issue has been renewed since 1994, when Lt. Cho Chang-ho, a former South Korean soldier presumed to have been killed in the war, escaped from North Korea. As of 2008, 79 former South Korean soldiers have escaped from North Korea.
The Korean Armistice Agreement is the armistice that brought about a complete cessation of hostilities of the Korean War. It was signed by U.S. Army Lieutenant General William Harrison, Jr. representing the United Nations Command (UNC), North Korean General Nam Il representing the Korean People's Army (KPA), and the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (PVA). The armistice was signed on 27 July 1953, and was designed to "ensure a complete cessation of hostilities and of all acts of armed force in Korea until a final peaceful settlement is achieved."
Events in the year 2014 in China.
Cemetery for North Korean and Chinese Soldiers located in Jajang-Ro, Papyeong-myeon (파평면), Paju, South Korea, is a burial ground for North Korean casualties of the Korean War and North Korean agents killed in South Korea since the end of the war. The cemetery formerly contained the remains of 437 Chinese People's Volunteer Army soldiers but these were all repatriated in March 2014.
Events from the year 1950 in South Korea.
South Korean defectors are South Korean citizens who have defected to North Korea. After the Korean War, 333 South Korean prisoners of war detained in North Korea chose to stay in the country. During subsequent decades of the Cold War, some people of South Korean origin defected to North Korea as well. They include Roy Chung, a former U.S. Army sergeant who defected to North Korea through East Germany in 1979. North Korea has been accused of abduction in the disappearances of some South Koreans.
