Officially, the Korean War never technically ended. Although the Korean Armistice Agreement brought an end to the hostilities that killed 2.5 million people on July 27, 1953, that ceasefire never gave way to a peace treaty. At the time, South Korea’s president refused to accept the division of Korea.

The armistice suspended the Korean War, which had started three years earlier in June 1950. It marked a cessation of combat between armed forces on the Korean Peninsula. However, an armistice does not mean a legal and permanent end to a war, and thus the peninsula has been technically still at war since the 1953 armistice.

The Korean Armistice Agreement was signed to put an end to “all acts of armed violence” but it didn’t actually put an end to the war. Essentially, the agreement was a ceasefire designed to hold the two countries over until they were able to find a peaceful settlement.

The fighting might have ended with a July 1953 armistice agreement between the United Nations forces and communist allies, but the war never really ended. In November 2021, South Korean and American officials announced talks of a deal to finally and formally end the Korean War.