SEOUL: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol known as on Friday (Mar 1) for the worldwide group to again “unification efforts” after Pyongyang earlier this 12 months declared Seoul its “principal enemy”.
Ties between the 2 Koreas have been in a deep freeze as Pyongyang accelerates its weapons growth programmes and Seoul ramps up navy cooperation with Washington and Tokyo.
Yoon, who has persistently taken a agency stance towards nuclear-armed North Korea, has not often mentioned the subject of unification since assuming workplace in 2022.
“Our unification efforts should change into a supply of hope and a beacon of sunshine for the folks of North Korea,” he stated at a ceremony marking the anniversary of Korea’s 1919 rebellion towards Japanese colonial rule.
“We should come collectively on a path that leads in the end to unification” of the Korean peninsula, he stated, stressing that the worldwide group “should pool its power in a accountable method”.
Yoon emphasised higher ties with Tokyo had been serving to to counter the North’s ever-increasing navy threats.
“The safety cooperation between the 2 nations towards North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats has been strengthened additional,” he stated, including that the nations had been “working collectively to beat the painful previous”.
Final month, the North Korean chief’s highly effective sister Kim Yo Jong stated her nation could be open to bettering ties with Tokyo, even hinting at a potential future invitation to Pyongyang for Japan’s chief.
Her feedback got here after Kim Jong Un stated in December that he would now not search reconciliation and reunification with the South, blaming Seoul and Washington for creating an “uncontrollable disaster”.
This 12 months, North Korea performed live-fire drills close to the contested maritime border, prompting counter drills by the South and evacuation orders on two islands.
Pyongyang additionally declared South Korea its “principal enemy” and threatened warfare over “even 0.001 millimetres” of territorial infringement.
Yoon responded by telling his navy to “act first, report later” if provoked by Pyongyang.
Within the occasion of an assault, he stated Seoul will hit again “a number of occasions stronger”.
The remoted North has shut businesses devoted to selling reunification and fostering communication with Seoul.
“The tyranny and human rights abuses of the North Korean regime deny the common values of humanity,” Yoon stated on Friday.
South Korea is gearing up for an important election on Apr 10, with Yoon’s conservative occasion hoping to regain a parliamentary majority for the primary time since 2016.