A Barrier to National Reunification

A Barrier to National Reunification Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, in his New Year Address for 2018, noted that the north and the south of Korea should work together to ease the acute military tension and create a peaceful environment on the Korean Peninsula.   Now broad segments of south Korean people fully support the historic New Year Address made by the Supreme Leader who set forth ways and means to improve the relations between the north and the south and take decisive measures for achieving a breakthrough for independent reunification without being obsessed by bygone days. Through its commentary, the Headquarters of the South Side Committee for Implementing June 15 Joint Declaration noted that it offers positive support to Chairman Kim Jong Un’s New Year Address in which he said on joint efforts for détente and peace on the Korean Peninsula. It continued that it gives full support to north Korea’s proposal that makes it possible to mend frozen inter-Korean ties and create atmosphere of reconciliation, cooperation and peace. Defusing military tension and removing the danger of a war from the Korean Peninsula at present are an essential issue for achieving the national unity and reunification. As long as unstable situation, which is neither wartime nor peacetime, persists on the Korean Peninsula, it is injurious to the north and the south of Korea. With constant military tension, the north and the south of Korea neither remove distrust and friction nor achieve national reunification. Last year, the U.S. worked out “maximum pressure and engagement” policy hostile to the DPRK and massively introduced its nuclear strategic assets into south Korea and its vicinity to conduct drills for nuclear preemptive strike.    The arms buildup and the large-scale joint military exercises with foreign forces aimed at threatening and invading the other partner are key factors straining the military tension between the north and the south and driving the situation on the Korean Peninsula to unpredictable phase of danger. If the south Korean authorities sincerely wish détente and peace of the Korean Peninsula, they should cancel all military actions against the fellow countrymen with foreign forces and stop introducing nuclear hardware and troops of the U.S. The north and the south can certainly defuse the military tensions and create a peaceful atmosphere on the Korean Peninsula if they make up their mind to. The pro-reunification organizations and civic groups of south Korea are launching action against the arms buildup and north-Korea-targeted war games, saying they should make efforts to repair inter-Korean relations and open up an era of peaceful reunification.