The North Korean leader insisted his country would not recognize the Northern Limit Line, the de facto maritime border between the two countries, and called for constitutional changes allowing Pyongyang to “occupy” South Korea in the event of war, the North’s news agency reported. KCNA.
In Seoul, President Eun Suk Yeol responded that South Korea would retaliate “hundredfold” to any provocation from the North, emphasizing the “overwhelming response capabilities” of the South Korean military.
“Most Enemy Country”
The verbal escalation follows a deterioration in relations between the two Koreas, which are at their lowest level in decades, particularly after Pyongyang’s launch of a spy satellite in November and Seoul’s suspension of a 2018 military agreement aimed at ‘quietly reducing tensions’.
The dissolution of several agencies working on reunification with South Korea has been approved by the North Korean parliament. According to KCNA, North Korea’s parliament underlined that the two countries “are in intense confrontation on the Korean Peninsula” and that “the reunification of Korea with the Republic of Korea can never be completed”. While the neighboring countries are technically still at war since 1953, the war was stopped by an armistice and not a peace treaty.
In a speech to the Supreme People’s Assembly, the North Korean leader called for new measures to define South Korea as the “most hostile country,” KCNA reported. “In my opinion, we can specify in our constitution the question of complete occupation, subjugation and reconquest of the Republic of Korea, and the question of its annexation as part of the territory of our Republic in the event of war on the Korean Peninsula,” Kim Jong. Un said.
“If the Republic of Korea violates even 0.001 mm of our territory, airspace or maritime space, it will be considered a provocation for war,” he asserted. Kim Jong Un confirmed in early January that South Korea is the North’s “main enemy” and that efforts at reunification are a mistake “not to be repeated.” In their respective constitutions, South and North Korea claim sovereignty over the entire Korean Peninsula. They consider each other as an illegal organization.
“Reckless” measures
Minor contacts between the two countries, which served as diplomatic relations, were run by the South Korean Ministry of Unification and the North Korean Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of North Korea, an organization closed by Pyongyang, until the dissolution of North Korean agencies.
North Korea’s new moves toward Seoul are “reckless” and break the approach observed over the years, analysts said. “Now (Kim Jong Un) rejects everything his predecessors did,” noted Cho Han-bum, a researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, referring to the country’s founder.
