Global Courant
Kim Jong-un says his country does not want war, but is not trying to avoid it either.
North Korea has cut several government agencies tasked with promoting reconciliation and reunification with South Korea, after authoritarian leader Kim Jong Un warned that his secretive country is not trying to avoid war.
In a speech before North Korea’s parliament, the Supreme People’s Assembly, Kim said unification with South Korea is no longer possible and called for a constitutional amendment to change South Korea’s status into a separate “enemy country” ‘, the state said. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Tuesday.
“We don’t want war, but we have no intention of avoiding it,” Kim told KCNA.
The Supreme People’s Assembly said in a statement that three organizations involved in inter-Korean reconciliation – the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country, the National Economic Cooperation Agency and the (Mount Kumgang) International Tourism Administration – will close.
“The two most hostile states, which are at war, are now in an acute confrontation on the Korean Peninsula,” the meeting said, according to KCNA.
The decision marks a further deterioration in relations between the Koreas following a series of recent missile tests by Pyongyang.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on Tuesday criticized North Korea’s move to define his country as hostile, saying it showed Pyongyang’s “anti-national and ahistorical” nature.
On Monday, North Korea said it had tested a new solid-fuel missile equipped with a hypersonic warhead, weeks after launching its Hwasong-18 solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile.
Japan, South Korea and the United States have stepped up joint military exercises that Pyongyang sees as rehearsals for a future invasion in response to the weapons tests.
Over the weekend, senior US official for the DPRK (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name), Jung H Pak, joined her South Korean and Japanese counterparts in calling for a condemnation of Pyongyang’s latest missile tests, according to the US Department of State. Monday.
In an analysis for the US-based 38 North Project last week, former State Department official Robert Carlin and nuclear scientist Siegfried Hecker said it was their belief that Kim was really preparing for war.
“We don’t know when or how Kim plans to pull the trigger, but the danger is already far greater than the routine warnings in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo about Pyongyang’s ‘provocations,’” they wrote.
“In other words, we do not see the war preparation themes in the North Korean media since the beginning of last year as typical bluster from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”
Last week, Kim labeled South Korea a “main enemy” and described efforts to reunite with his rival as a “mistake we must no longer make.”
