South Korea: Unification minister nominee says North Korea is ‘threat’

SEOUL: Unification Minister nominee Chung Dong-young on Monday said he does not agree with the view that North Korea is South Korea's "main enemy," instead calling the North a "threat.

Chung made the remarks during a parliamentary confirmation hearing as the former conservative Yoon Suk Yeol administration defined the North Korean regime and military as the South's "enemy" in the 2022 defence white paper.

"I don't agree," Chung said when asked by an opposition lawmaker if he concurs with the view that North Korea is the South's main enemy. "(The North) is a threat."

South Korea defined North Korea as its main enemy for the first time in the 1995 defence white paper. In the 2004 version, the expression was replaced by a "direct military threat" amid a conciliatory mood between the two Koreas. The former Yoon government referred to North Korea as an "enemy" for the first time in six years in the 2022 defence white paper, after the liberal Moon Jae-in administration dropped the labelling in the 2018 and 2020 editions.

In late 2023, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un defined inter-Korean relations as those between "two states hostile to each other," vowing not to seek reconciliation and unification with South Korea. He also called the South his country's "primary foe."

On a now-suspended inter-Korean military tension reduction pact, Chung said he thinks the government will be able to approve its restoration in a Cabinet meeting, reported Yonhap news agency. (IANS)

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