Saturday marks the 60th anniversary of the armistice that put an end to the three-year Korean War. But the cease-fire has been a precarious one, with armed conflict intermittently flaring up across the border between South and North Korea. With the armistice agreement not replaced with a peace treaty yet, the two sides still remain deadly adversaries.

This has to change. Peace must be made permanent on the Korean Peninsula. With the Oriental calendar coming full circle every 60 years, the anniversary is an auspicious occasion for South and North Korea to make a fresh start to free the Korean people from the fear of another fratricidal war. To Koreans, whether in the South or in the North, the 60th anniversary means the completion of one life cycle and the start of another.

A most plausible scenario for peace on the Korean Peninsula is for North Korea to abandon its desire to arm itself with nuclear weapons in exchange for economic aid from abroad, mostly from South Korea. The next step would be to replace the armistice agreement with a peace treaty.

North Korea agreed to pursue the proposed peace process when it decided to participate in the six-party talks on its nuclear program in 2003. But the North, which deserted the multilateral nuclear talks within several years, has since conducted nuclear tests on three occasions.

The offer of massive aid is still on the table, with President Park Geun-hye committing herself to keeping a promise to reward the North if it decides to dismantle its nuclear program. She says South Korea is ready to promote coprosperity with the North and pursue a peaceful reunification.

The armistice anniversary is also a proper occasion to renew its thanks to the United States and 15 other nations that contributed to the U.S.-led U.N. forces, which helped South Korea fight back the invading North Korean and Chinese troops. Had it not been for their help, it would not have been possible for South Korea to rise from the ashes of war. After the war, it continued to receive aid from the United States and other countries.

Thanks to their support, South Korea, once one of the poorest aid recipients in the world, has turned itself into a well-to-do industrialized nation over the past 60 years. Its volume of external trade ranks eighth in the world, and its gross domestic product 15th ― no small achievement for a natural resources-poor country.

North Korea is no match for South Korea. It is listed by the United Nations as the poorest country among the 57 Asian-Pacific countries. Feeding the starving people, not the development of nuclear weapons, should be the priority issue of concern to the North Korean leadership.

For South Korea, it is now time to pay back. The South, which spent $1.55 billion in official development aid last year, an amount equal to 0.14 percent of its gross national income, will have to strive to meet the U.N.-set goal of 0.7 percent of GNI before long. It also needs to help promote world peace by contributing troops to U.N. peacekeeping forces.