South Korea's President Yoon proposes new working group with DPRK

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
15 Aug 2024 08:30
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South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol recently outlined an initiative aimed at easing tensions and fostering cooperation with DPRK.

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Undated image of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol (AFP/Getty Images)

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol proposed the formation of an "Inter-Korean Working Group" to address escalating tensions with Pyongyang and to explore potential economic cooperation.

Unveiling his "unification vision" during a Thursday event commemorating the nation's liberation from Japanese rule, Yoon stated, "As long as the state of division persists, our liberation will remain incomplete."

"The freedom we enjoy must be extended to the frozen kingdom of the North, where people are deprived of freedom and suffer from poverty and starvation," he stressed, advocating for the creation of a new Inter-Korean Working Group.

The body "could take up any issue ranging from relieving tensions to economic cooperation, people-to-people and cultural exchanges, and disaster and climate-change responses," Yoon added.

Yoon also contended the "need to change the minds of the North Korean people to make them ardently desire a freedom-based unification."

"Even though the North Korean regime rejected our offer (to provide flood relief supplies) yet again, we will never stop making offers of humanitarian aid," Yoon said.

Why it matters

The relationship between the two Koreas is currently at one of its lowest points in years. The two Koreas have sought to creatively disrupt and provoke each other via various methods, including the deployment of loudspeakers that play K-Pop and flying hot balloons that carry garbage and excrement over to the other side.

Behind these provocations lies a much deeper division between the two governments that stems back to the 1950s Korean War, in which the United States and its allies supported the South Korean government against the DPRK's growing influence and advance across the Korean peninsula.

Attempts to soothe ties between the two Koreas have ended in failure as the US and South Korea take a more aggressive approach against the DPRK, launching wide-scale military exercises throughout the past two years, while Seoul continues to threaten Pyongyang with military action.