South Korea softens tone toward North Korea, calls for resumption of dialogue, emphasizes unification as "historic mission"

On August 16, South Korean Unification Minister Kim Yung Ho called on Pyongyang to respond to Seoul's proposal to establish an official dialogue platform and resume suspended inter-Korean communication channels.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol suggested that North Korea establish a dialogue channel to resolve all issues. (Source: AP)

The call came after South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol suggested North Korea establish a working-level dialogue channel to “resolve all issues,” according to Yonhap news agency.

Speaking at a press conference, Minister Kim Yung Ho expressed: "When the President proposed establishing an inter-Korean dialogue channel, I called on North Korea to accept that proposal," and affirmed that South Korea is ready to discuss all topics, including denuclearization, humanitarian issues and exchanges.

To achieve this goal, he said, inter-Korean communication lines and military hotlines that North Korea unilaterally suspended should be reconnected.

Previously, in a speech marking the 70th anniversary of the Liberation Day of Korea on August 15, in addition to proposing a dialogue channel, Mr. Yoon also shared his vision of freedom-based unification with North Korea and pledged to expand the flow of outside information into Pyongyang.

The leader stressed: "We are facing an important historical task that must be carried out. That is unification... if we remain divided, the construction of our independence cannot be completed."

According to him, the freedom that South Korea “enjoys” should be extended to North Korea as well: “Only when a single free and democratic country, a country that legitimately belongs to the people, is formed on the Korean peninsula, will we finally achieve complete liberation.”

President Yoon's vision for inter-Korean unification is an update to the South Korean government 's unification strategy announced in 1994, which called for pursuing reconciliation and cooperation, creating co-prosperity on the Korean Peninsula, and achieving national unification.

However, at a plenary session of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea in December 2023, the country's President Kim Jong Un announced a change in policy towards Seoul, saying: "With this South Korean state, unification will never happen."

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