May 6, 2026, 6:47 am05/06/2026, 08:47
North Korea has removed all references to reunification with South Korea in a revised constitution. This emerges from a document that South Korea’s official news agency Yonhap was able to view at the Unification Ministry in Seoul.
Since the founding of the state in 1948, the North Korean government has made it its goal to work towards political unification with the South. North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un rhetorically moved away from this goal for the first time at the end of 2023, declaring South Korea the “main enemy”. In January 2024, the government also had the symbolic monument to reunification, a 30-meter-high monument in the south of the capital Pyongyang, torn down.
The move away from reunification with South Korea, which has now been written into the constitution, is interpreted differently by experts. Political scientist Lee Jung Chul from Seoul National University, quoted by Yonhap, believes the new policy could create a basis for “peaceful coexistence” between both Korean states. Other experts, however, see the risk of a potential military conflict between the two countries as increasing.
Since the Korean War (1950-53), the Korean peninsula has been divided into a communist north and a democratic south. The war ended with a ceasefire, but to date both countries have not signed a peace treaty. (sda/dpa)