SEOUL: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has proposed an “Inter-Korean Working Group” aimed at relieving soaring tensions with North Korea and exploring avenues for economic cooperation.
Ties between South Korea and North Korea are at one of their lowest points in years, with the North Korea recently announcing the deployment of 250 ballistic missile launchers to its southern border, AFP reported.
North Korea has also sent thousands of trash-filled balloons southward since May, prompting South Korea to resume propaganda broadcasts along the frontier and also suspend a 2018 agreement aimed at lowering temperatures between the two militaries.
Declaring his unification vision on Thursday at an event celebrating the country’s liberation from Japanese rule, he said that as long as the state of division persists, their liberation will remain incomplete.
He said that the freedom they enjoy must be extended to the frozen of the North, where people are deprived of freedom as well as suffer from poverty and starvation,” he said, calling for the formation of a new Inter-Korean Working Group.
North Korean leader declared the South Korea its principal enemy earlier this year, and North has not responded to inter-Korean liaison hotline calls since April 2023.
