Overview
- The Unification Ministry's annual white paper, released Monday, recasts inter-Korean ties as a “peace-oriented two-state relationship” that still targets eventual unification.
- Following Tuesday's rebuke from the opposition People Power Party, officials said the wording is an implementation strategy rather than legal recognition, with critics invoking constitutional Articles 3 and 4.
- In a Wednesday parliamentary session, Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said the Koreas are each sovereign yet not foreign to each other and rejected claims the approach breaches the Constitution.
- The paper sets three principles that include respecting the North's system, rejecting unification by absorption, and avoiding hostile acts, and it cites steps to stop leaflet launches and border loudspeakers and to revive the 2018 military accord.
- The document greatly increases references to peace and dialogue and trims mentions of North Korean human rights and defectors, while noting five years without exchanges and the North's May removal of unification from its constitution.