Kim Jong-un calls for constitutional change, to define ensure South Korea as 'primary foe'

PYONGYANG: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has urged the revision of the country's Constitution to strengthen "the firm idea that the South Korea is their primary foe and invariable principal enemy," Yonhap News Agency reported.

President Yoon Suk Yeol responded strongly to Kim's hostile rhetoric, pledging to punish North Korea "multiple times" if it provokes South Korea. In a speech delivered during a key parliamentary meeting on Monday, Kim announced a departure from the decades-long policy of seeking reconciliation and unification with South Korea, as reported by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

"In my opinion, we can specify in our Constitution the issue of completely occupying, subjugating and reclaiming the ROK and annex it as a part of the territory of our Republic in case of a war breaks out on the Korean peninsula," Kim stated, using the acronym for South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea.

He emphasised the need to strengthen education programmes to instill in North Koreans "the firm idea that the ROK is their primary foe and invariable principal einstilnemy."

Kim's harsh rhetoric was part of his broader stance, defining relations with South Korea as those between "two states hostile to each other" during a year-end party meeting. Labelling the consideration of Seoul as a partner for reconciliation and unification a "serious anachronistic mistake," North Korea decided to abolish three agencies promoting inter-Korean dialogue and cooperation at the Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) session.

The agencies include the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country, the National Economic Cooperation Bureau, and the Kumgangsan International Tourism Administration.

During the SPA meeting, Kim ordered measures to eliminate symbols of inter-Korean reconciliation, describing them as "remnants of the past era." This includes the physical severance of cross-border railway tracks and the dismantling of a monument in Pyongyang commemorating Kim Il-sung's blueprint for federation system-based unification, according to Yonhap News Agency.

"We should ... take other measures so as to completely eliminate such concepts as 'reunification,' 'reconciliation,' and 'fellow countrymen' from the national history of our Republic," Kim declared.

Amid heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula, triggered by North Korea's recent weapons tests, including a hypersonic missile launch, concerns have risen about suspected arms trade between North Korea and Russia. The North's foreign minister is currently in Moscow for talks, indicating deepening military cooperation.

North Korea is expected to stage provocative acts in the lead-up to South Korea's parliamentary elections in April and the US presidential election in November.

Addressing North Korea's nuclear weapons in his parliamentary speech, Kim asserted that his country would not avoid war but had no intention of unilaterally starting it unless provoked.

"As the southern border of our country has been clearly drawn, the illegal 'Northern Limit Line' (NLL) and any other boundary can never be tolerated, and if the ROK violates even 0.001 millimetres of our territorial land, air, and waters, it will be considered a war provocation," Kim warned.

North Korea does not recognise the NLL, the de facto inter-Korean maritime border, demanding its relocation farther south as it was unilaterally drawn by the US-led UN Command after the 1950-53 Korean War.

The North fired hundreds of rounds of artillery shells near the tense sea border in the Yellow Sea earlier this month, prompting the South Korean military to carry out live-fire drills in response.

"The war will terribly destroy the entity called the Republic of Korea and put an end to its existence. And it will inflict an unimaginably crushing defeat upon the US," Kim emphasized.

During the year-end party meeting, Kim urged heightened war readiness to deter what he referred to as "unprecedented" acts of US-led confrontation against his country. In his recent inspection of munitions factories, he threatened to annihilate South Korea if Seoul attempts to use force against the North.

South Korea's unification ministry suggested that behind Kim's antagonistic messages lies North Korea's anxiety about regime stability and fears of unification by absorption.

"Amid difficulties aggravated by UN sanctions and the COVID-19 pandemic, North Korea may intend to boost its hostility against South Korea to deflect internal complaints to outside," a ministry official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

The official added that North Korea also seems to be engaging in psychological warfare to drive a wedge in South Korean society by shifting the responsibility for heightened security tensions onto the South.

In a Cabinet meeting early Tuesday, President Yoon urged South Koreans to join hands to "defeat" the deceptive tactics and propaganda of the North Korean regime. Yoon also assessed Kim's message as an acknowledgement of the regime's nature as an "anti-national and anti-historical group," Yonhap News agency reported.