South Korea's Yoon extends olive branch to North, seeks 'dialogue and path to unification'

Amid the brewing tensions in the Korean peninsula, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol offered to establish a working-level consultative body with North Korea on Thursday. Yeol said that the aim of the body will be to discuss ways to ease tensions between the two nations and resume economic cooperation.

The remarks from the South Korean president came during his address at the 2024 National Liberation Day event which marked the 79th anniversary of the independence of Korea from the Japanese colonial rule which lasted from 1910-45.

Yoon maintained that he is ready to begin political and economic cooperation if North Korea “takes just one step” toward denuclearization, Yonhap reported. The South Korean president emphasised that the speech unveiled a blueprint for unification and made a fresh outreach to Pyongyang.

South Korea extends olive branch 

The speech from Yoon came weeks after the South Korean government offered to provide relief supplies for flood damage in the isolated North. However, the offer was rejected by North Korea.

Hopes for reconciliation also look bleak since the relations between the two nations are at the lowest point in a decade as the North races to advance its nuclear and missile capabilities and takes steps to cut ties with the South. Earlier this year, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called South Korea a “primary foe” and insisted that the unification between the two nations is “no longer possible”.

In the Thursday address, Yoon maintained that launching the “inter-Korean working group” could help relieve tensions between the two countries. He stated that this way, both North and South could deal with any issues ranging from economic cooperation to people-to-people exchanges to reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.

“Dialogue and cooperation can bring about substantive progress in inter-Korean relations,” he averred.

In the speech, Yoon also proposed the idea of launching an international conference on North Korea’s human rights. “If more North Koreans come to recognize that unification through freedom is the only way to improve their lives and are convinced that a unified Republic of Korea will embrace them, they will become strong, friendly forces for a freedom-based unification,” he said.

Yoon faces challenges from within 

The speech from the South Korean president also came at a time when several opposition lawmakers condemned him for appointing what they called a “pro-Japan revisionist”, former professor to oversee a national independence museum. Some of the opposition lawmakers were also uncomfortable with South Korea’s growing ties with Japan.

Amid the chaos, major independence movement groups that had for decades co-hosted the annual National Liberation Day events with the government held a separate ceremony for the first time in protest. Several South Korean opposition leaders took part in the event.

In response to the growing criticism over the appointment of the professor, Yoon’s office has said there were “misunderstandings” about the appointment, and that it is seeking ways to resolve them.

With inputs from agencies.