North Korea to no longer pursue reconciliation with South, calls for change in constitution News
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North Korea to no longer pursue reconciliation with South, calls for change in constitution

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un announced Monday that North Korea will no longer pursue reconciliation with South Korea and called for a constitutional change to identify South Korea as the “number one hostile state,” according to the state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Kim claimed that reconciliation between the two states is not possible as the “Republic of Korea (ROK) clan … adopted as its state policy the all-out confrontation with our Republic, dreaming of the ‘collapse of our government’ and ‘unification by absorption.'”

KCNA also stated that North Korea would close three agencies that oversee unification and inter-Korean tourism, including the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification, the National Economic Cooperation Bureau and the Mount Kumgang International Tourism Administration. Also, North Korea will put three new military spy satellites into orbit in 2024, according to Kim Jong-un.

Kim Jong-un made these announcements at the 10th session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA) held in Pyongyang on Monday. Kim Jong-un also stated:

This is the present situation of the relations between the north and the south today caused by the heinous and self-destructive confrontational maneuvers of the ROK, a group of outsiders’ top-class stooges, and the true picture of the Korean peninsula just unveiled before the world. … As the southern border of our country has been clearly drawn, the illegal “northern limit line” and any other boundary can never be tolerated, and if the ROK violates even 0.001 mm of our territorial land, air and waters, it will be considered a war provocation. … Explicitly speaking, we will never unilaterally unleash a war if the enemies do not provoke us. The enemies should never misjudge this as our weakness.

North Korea and South Korea share a strained relationship and have been separated since 1945. The Korean War between the two nations ended with no formal peace treaty, and the two have still been technically at war with each other since then. In November last year, North Korea ended a military agreement with South Korea aimed at reducing tensions.

South Korean president, Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday criticized North Korea‘s move to define the South as a “hostile country,” saying it showed Pyongyang’s “anti-national and ahistorical” nature.

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