South Korea's Yoon seeks dialogue and path to unification with North
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol offered to establish a working-level consultative body with North Korea to discuss ways to ease tension.
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol offered on Thursday to establish a working-level consultative body with North Korea to discuss ways to ease tension and resume economic cooperation, as he laid out his vision on unification of the neighbors.
In a National Liberation Day speech marking the 79th anniversary of independence from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule after World War II, Yoon said he was ready to begin political and economic cooperation if North Korea “takes just one step” toward denuclearization.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-Yeol delivers remarks in Seoul, South Korea, on August 15, 2024.Kim Min-Hee / APYoon used the speech to unveil a blueprint for unification and make a fresh outreach to Pyongyang, following his government’s recent offer to provide relief supplies for flood damage in the isolated North that he said had been rejected.
But a unified Korea appears a distant prospect with relations between the neighbors at the lowest point in decades as the North races to advance its nuclear and missile capabilities and takes steps to cut ties with the South, redefining it as a separate, hostile enemy state.
At the start of the year, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called South Korea a “primary foe” and said unification was no longer possible.
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