South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol detailed a vision for unification with North Korea on Thursday and offered to form a working group for talks, despite the fact that tensions with Pyongyang remain high.
Yoon put out his plan in an address celebrating South Korea’s independence Day, which commemorates the end of Japan’s colonial control in 1945, stating that “complete liberation remains an unfinished task for us.”
Yoon’s plan for unification includes instilling change in North Korea through human rights improvements and more access to information from outside sources.
The South Korean president called for building international support for unification among allies and proposed establishing an “Inter-Korean Working Group” for dialogue with the North.
The initiative comes at a time when the prospects for unification appear to be at their lowest.
In February, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared the South to be the “principal enemy” and publicly called for a constitutional revision that rejected the long-standing official goal of reunification.
Analysts said that Seoul’s offer was unlikely to entice North Korea to the discussion table.
Pyongyang has kept up a steady stream of weapons tests and hostile rhetoric over the past three years, while back-and-forth Cold War-style psychological warfare has emerged in border areas in recent months.
North Korea has sent thousands of balloons carrying scrap paper, shredded clothing and manure into the South since early June, including one that spilled trash on Yoon’s presidential compound.
Earlier this week, North Korean state-run media decried the growing trilateral security relationship among the United States, South Korea and Japan, warning that the Asian allies would become “cannon fodder” for a nuclear attack.
