Published January 15, 2024
The Monument to the Three-Point Charter for National Reunification (Arch of Reunification) near Pyongyang, North Korea.
Seoul, South Korea CNN — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Monday vowed to remove a massive monument to the possible reunification of the Korean Peninsula that his father constructed in Pyongyang, calling it an “eyesore.”
Kim’s call during a speech at a Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA) meeting in Pyongyang was the latest in a string of recent bellicose statements from the North Korean leader, including a New Year’s declaration that the North was ending a policy of seeking reconciliation with South Korea.
North Korea has also been active militarily in recent weeks, firing hundreds of artillery rounds into waters near a disputed border between North and South and testing what it said was a ballistic missile topped with a hypersonic glide vehicle.
Besides calling for the destruction of the reunification monument, Kim on Monday also said Pyongyang was abolishing all agencies for promoting cooperation with Seoul. At the same time, he called the South the North’s “primary foe and invariable principal enemy.”
While the North Korean leader’s rhetoric is strong, backing it up with the destruction of a symbolic structure constructed by his father Kim Jong Il – and one that represents the principles of his grandfather Kim Il Sung – shows decades of North Korean policy is being abandoned, experts said.
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SOURCE: www.edition.cnn.com
RELATED: North Korea’s Kim shuts agencies working for reunification with South Korea
Kim Jong Un says his country does not want war but does not seek to avoid it.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un says reunification with South Korea is no longer possible [Ahn Young-joon/AP]
Published January 15, 2024
North Korea has scrapped several government bodies tasked with promoting reconciliation and reunification with South Korea as authoritarian leader Kim Jong Un warned that his secretive country does not seek to avoid war.
In a speech to North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament, the Supreme People’s Assembly, Kim said unification with South Korea is no longer possible and called for a constitutional amendment to change the status of South Korea to a separate, “hostile country”, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Tuesday.
“We don’t want war but we have no intention of avoiding it,” Kim was quoted as saying by KCNA.
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SOURCE: www.aljazeera.com
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Published January 15, 2024
SEOUL, Jan 16 (Reuters) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Monday called for the constitution to be changed to ensure that South Korea is seen as the “primary foe” and warned his country did not intend to avoid war should it happen, state media KCNA reported on Tuesday.
In a speech to the Supreme People’s Assembly, North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament, Kim said he had concluded that unification with the South was no longer possible, and accused Seoul of seeking regime collapse and unification by absorption.
Kim said the constitution should be amended to educate North Koreans that South Korea is a “primary foe and invariable principal enemy” and define the North’s territory as separate from the South.
“We don’t want war but we have no intention of avoiding it,” Kim was quoted as saying by KCNA.
North Korea should also plan for “completely occupying, subjugating and reclaiming” South Korea in the event of a war, and South Koreans should also no longer be referred to as fellow countrymen, Kim added, calling for the severing of all inter-Korean communication and the destruction of a monument to reunification in Pyongyang.
