North Korea’s Constitution now designates South Korea as a “hostile state”, announced KCNA, the official agency of the Pyongyang regime, this Thursday, October 17.
North Korea announced this Thursday, October 17 that its Constitution now designates South Korea as a “hostile state”, confirming for the first time a change promised in January by its leader Kim Jong Un, and justifying the dynamiting of only two roads and railways connecting the two enemy countries.
These lines of communication to the east and west of the Korean Peninsula, which were the only ones to have ever been briefly reopened since the end of the Korean War in 1953, “were completely blocked by means of explosions,” wrote the official KCNA agency, confirming information released this Tuesday by Seoul.
“This is an unavoidable and legitimate measure taken in accordance with the requirements of the Constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea which clearly defines the Republic of Korea as a hostile state,” KCNA said, referring to South Korea. North and South Korea by their official names.
A measure announced by Kim Jong Un
This is the first time that Pyongyang has confirmed the inclusion in its Constitution of the status of “hostile state” for South Korea, a measure announced by Kim Jong Un in January before the Supreme National Assembly, the North Korean parliament. .
“In my opinion, we can specify in our Constitution the question of the complete occupation, subjugation and reconquest of the Republic of Korea and its annexation as part of the territory of our Republic in the event of war in the Korean Peninsula,” he said. He also threatened to go to war for any violation of North Korean territory “even by 0.001 millimeter.”
Previously, under an inter-Korean agreement in 1991, relations with the South were defined as a “special relationship” as part of a reunification process, not as a state-to-state relationship.
The announcement of the constitutional change and the destruction of infrastructure that accompanies it mark a new stage in the radicalization of the policy of the Kim Jong Un regime towards South Korea. In January, the North Korean leader designated the South as his country’s “main enemy”.
