Kim Jong-un Suggests Declaring South Korea as ‘Main Enemy’

Chairman Kim Jong-un of North Korea instructed on the 15th that the constitution should stipulate that South Korea is considered the “most hostile country” and an “immutable enemy.” North Korea has also taken steps to reorganize its South-facing organizations, including the abolition of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, the National Economic Cooperation Agency, and the Geumgangsan International Tourism Bureau, which have been in charge of inter-Korean talks and exchange tasks.

Chairman Kim said in a policy speech at the Supreme People’s Assembly held in Pyongyang on the 15th that the constitution needs to be amended to reflect the territorial clause, according to the Korean Central News Agency on the 16th.

Chairman Kim said, “It is necessary to have legal measures to accurately define the area of sovereignty exercise as we have completely erased the existing concept that the Republic of Korea is a counterpart of reconciliation and unification and a compatriot and strictly regulated it as a foreign country, the most hostile country.” He added, “It is right to stipulate in the relevant clause that we will strengthen the education and cultivation project to firmly regard South Korea as the most hostile country and an immutable enemy.”

In addition, he said, “Expressions in the constitution such as ‘northern half,’ ‘autonomy, peaceful unification, national unity’ should now be deleted,” and “These issues should be reflected and the constitution of the Republic should be amended, and it should be deliberated at the next Supreme People’s Assembly.” Chairman Kim said it is important to reflect in the constitution the issue of “completely occupying, pacifying, and recovering South Korea and incorporating it into the territory of the Republic” in case of war, and that the amended constitution should be deliberated at the next Supreme People’s Assembly.

In addition, North Korea has decided to abolish organizations that existed for dialogue, negotiations, and cooperation between the South and the North, such as Jo Pyeong-tong. In a ‘decision’ announced at the meeting, North Korea argued, “We can never achieve unification with South Korea, which has set ‘absorption unification,’ ‘system unification’ as a national policy, which is contrary to our national unification line based on one nation, one state, two systems over the long period of nearly 80 years.”

It continued, “It is a serious historical error to consider South Korea, which declares us as an ‘enemy,’ colludes with foreign forces to constantly maintain a crisis out of control on the Korean Peninsula, and only waits for the opportunity of ‘regime collapse’ and ‘absorption unification,’ as a counterpart of reconciliation and unification any longer.”

Meanwhile, at this Supreme People’s Assembly, last year’s budget execution settlement and this year’s budget composition were unanimously adopted. This year’s expenditure will increase by 3.4% from last year, and 44.5% of the total expenditure will be used for economic development and improvement of people’s living standards.

Chairman Kim said, “The most important task for the party and the government to prioritize and cherish is to improve people’s lives as soon as possible.” He added, “The most important issue is to overcome the difference between the capital and the provinces, the regional imbalance.” To achieve this, he announced that he would push for a ’20×10 policy for local development,’ which aims to improve the living standards of all cities and counties within 10 years by building 20 modern factories in each region every year.

By. Dae Han Jung