North Korea will no longer pursue reconciliation with South, Kim Jong Un says
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country would no longer pursue reconciliation with South Korea, state media said Tuesday.
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country would no longer pursue reconciliation with South Korea and called for rewriting the North’s constitution to eliminate the idea of shared statehood between the war-divided countries, state media said Tuesday.
North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un at a session of the Supreme People's Assembly (National Assembly) at the Mansudae Assembly Hall in Pyongyang, on Jan. 15, 2024.KCNA via KNS/AFP - Getty ImagesThe historic step to discard a decades-long pursuit of unification, which was based on a sense of national homogeneity shared by both Koreas, comes amid heightened tensions where the pace of both Kim’s weapons development and the South’s military exercises with the United States have intensified in a tit-for-tat.
North Korea also abolished the key government agencies that had been tasked with managing relations with South Korea in a decision made during a meeting of the country’s rubber-stamp parliament on Monday, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said.
The Supreme People’s Assembly said the two Koreas are locked in an “acute confrontation” and that it would be a serious mistake for the North to regard the South as a partner in diplomacy.
“The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country, the National Economic Cooperation Bureau and the (Diamond Mountain) International Tourism Administration, tools which existed for (North-South) dialogue, negotiations and cooperation, are abolished,” the assembly said in a statement.
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