Leader Kim Jong-un has called for amending Pyongyang’s constitution to classify South Korea as the “No. 1 hostile country”

North Korea has followed through on leader Kim Jong-un’s conclusion that peaceful reunification with Seoul is impossible, scrapping the government agencies that were involved in such efforts and preparing to constitutionally brand South Korea as Pyongyang’s archenemy.

Speaking to North Korea’s parliament on Monday, Kim called for changing South Korea’s constitutional status to the “No. 1 hostile country.” The parliament immediately agreed to scrap the agencies involved in promoting reunification with the South and inter-Korean tourism, Pyongyang’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Tuesday.

Kim reiterated his conclusion that reunification of the two Koreas is no longer possible, citing claims that Seoul seeks to force the collapse of Pyongyang to gobble up North Korea. His comments followed a statement in late December that Pyongyang’s approach to reunification based on “one state with two systems” was diametrically opposed to Seoul’s goal of “unification by absorption.”

The North Korean leader has claimed that the US is seeking a military confrontation on the peninsula and has essentially turned South Korea into a military base and “colonial subordinate state.” He warned on Monday that military conflict may be inevitable.

“We don’t want war, but we have no intention of avoiding it,” KCNA quoted Kim as saying. “We will never unilaterally unleash a war if the enemies do not provoke us,” he added, warning that the “enemies should never misjudge this as our weakness.”

The US and South Korea have ramped up joint military exercises in the past year, while North Korea has carried out a series of missile tests. Pyongyang reportedly tested a solid-fuel ballistic missile armed with a hypersonic warhead on Sunday. The South Korean Defense Ministry condemned the launch and vowed an “overwhelming response” if Pyongyang commits a “direct provocation.”

(Non-archived link: https://www.rt.com/news/590709-north-korea-abolishes-reunification-agencies/ )

  • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
    ·
    10 months ago

    You mean that time the USA told Japan to not vacate the peninsula until the USA military arrived, took over the imperial colony of Japan on the peninsula, created an artificial border in the middle of a sovereign nation, and then used a crossing of that fake border to justify bombing nearly every single structure in the North until the military had to acknowledge there were no more targets left to hit, so instead they amped up their napalm campaign and Koreans needed to live in caves to survive while the USA occupation of South Korea was a racial and sexual domination playground until eventually they found enough compradors in South Korea to build a government with an air of legitimacy to provide cover for essentially turning the entire Southern portion of the peninsula into a USA military base and industrial base? That Korean War? The one that killed millions of civilians?

    • s_s@lemm.ee
      ·
      10 months ago

      I know this is lemmygrad, but seeing people stan for North Korea never stops being wild.

      • Rom [he/him]
        ·
        10 months ago

        Do you have an actual argument to anything the above user said or are you just here to get mad that we're defending countries you don't like?

        • s_s@lemm.ee
          ·
          10 months ago

          Have you ever researched the DPRK independently?

          What would "independent research" of the DPRK be exactly?

          • ExotiqueMatter@lemmygrad.ml
            ·
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            Stop uncritically listening to media beholdent to political and economic forces who are doing everything in their power to destroy it and open history books, and by history books I don't mean popular books you buy at your local thrift store I mean academic history books that has been peer reviewed, have a bibliography and are published by an editor specialised in academic wrighting.

            If you'd stop uncriticaly throwing every "this country is litteraly 1984, everyone know it" onthology you know of and try to ask for reading recomendations we'll gladly give you some.

            Here is one to start: Patriots, traitors and empires

          • Kuori [she/her]
            ·
            10 months ago

            baseline minimum, how about not regurgitating state dept propaganda about a country from places that have committed genocide in that country?

                • Kuori [she/her]
                  ·
                  10 months ago

                  no, phone and be bisexual are both illegal. if they catch you they will put you and everyone you have ever looked at in labor camp for 10,000 years

                  • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
                    ·
                    10 months ago

                    That just shows you the lack of imagination. If you were the DPRK and really wanted to punish someone, you'd send them to work 70-hour weeks in the South, with a week off every year to try to have a baby. Absolutely no idea what the difference is supposed to be between a DPRK labor camp and an ordinary job in SK.

          • Frank [he/him, he/him]
            ·
            10 months ago

            Watch some videos of people visiting. You can literally travel there, and they have a semi-open border with China. Just gotta step out of your bubble.

          • GarbageShoot [he/him]
            ·
            10 months ago

            I don't exactly know what they mean either, but a good start is actually looking things up yourself and not relying on cultural osmosis. The second step is looking at sources and considering vested interests.

      • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        "My country's media tells me they're the bad guys, don't you know they're the bad guys?"

        Like dude we committed a genocide there and leveled every building, they would be stupid not to focus on military deterrents after that.

        Consider the way western media is covering the Yemeni resistance to the genocide in Gaza (a bunch of angry terrorist pirates who just hate boats!) and then compare that to all the absurd orientalist red scare nonsense we've heard about the DPRK. We've been marinating in that propaganda our whole lives, of course it's going to feel weird for you to see people pushing back against it.

      • Kras Mazov@lemmygrad.ml
        ·
        10 months ago

        Funny how your response to claims of a war perpetuated by the US that took the life of millions is to call us "stans" and point that we are the ones with the wild takes uh.

        Either engage in good faith and at least try to understand what is being talked about or get your liberal lemm.ee ass out of here.