KELLY OLSEN
Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea – The two Koreas commemorated the 60th anniversary Friday of the outbreak of the Korean War, promoting vastly different views of the origins of the conflict that still divides their peninsula.
The war started in the early hours of June 25, 1950, with an attack by North Korean troops. The Korean peninsula had been divided in 1945 after colonial ruler Japan’s defeat in World War II.
The United States and 15 other countries sent troops to aid South Korea under the fledgling United Nations, while Chinese soldiers came in to fight with the North and the Soviet Union provided air support and advisers. Three years of combat devastated both sides. The fighting ended with an armistice, not a permanent peace treaty, leaving the peninsula in a technical state of war.