North Korea in the Korean War parallel boundary, but they could not agree on whether prisoners of war should be forcibly "repatriated." Finally, after around more than two years of negotiations, the adversaries signed an armistice on July 27, 1953. The agreement drew a new boundary near the 38th parallel that gave South Korea an extra 1,500 square miles of territory; and created a 2-mile-wide "demilitarized zone" that still exists today in the North and South Korean borders, in the bottom and top, respectively. The Korean War was relatively short but exceptionally bloody compared to other wars. Nearly 3 million people died. More than half of
Australia in the Korean War and by South Korean, American and UN troops on the other. The DMZ runs north of the parallel towards the east, and to the south as it travels west. The site of the peace talks, Kaesong, the old capital of Korea, was part of the South before hostilities broke out but is currently a special city of the North. North Korea and the United States signed the , with Syngman Rhee refusing to sign. After the war ended, Australians remained in Korea for four years as military observers. Australia gained political and security benefits, the most important being the signing