South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol offered on Thursday to establish a working-level consultative body with North Korea to discuss ways to ease tension and resume economic cooperation, as he laid out his vision on unification of the neighbors.
In a National Liberation Day speech marking the 79th anniversary of independence from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule after World War II, Yoon said he was ready to begin political and economic cooperation if North Korea "takes just one step" toward denuclearization.
Yoon used the speech to unveil a blueprint for unification and make a fresh outreach to Pyongyang, following his government's recent offer to provide relief supplies for flood damage in the isolated North, which he said had been rejected.
But a unified Korea appears a distant prospect with relations between the neighbors at the lowest point in decades as the North races to advance its nuclear and missile capabilities and takes steps to cut ties with the South, redefining it as a separate, hostile enemy state.
At the start of the year, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called South Korea a "primary foe" and said unification was no longer possible.
Yoon said launching the "inter-Korean working group" could help relieve tensions and handle 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 said.
His speech came amid a dispute with opposition lawmakers over Yoon's appointment of what they view as a pro-Japan, revisionist former professor to oversee a national independence museum, another sign of divisions and political polarization over Yoon's efforts to boost security ties with Tokyo.
Major independence movement groups which had for decades co-hosted the annual National Liberation Day events with the government held a separate ceremony for the first time in protest, joined by opposition lawmakers.
Yoon's office has said there were "misunderstandings" about the appointment and was seeking ways to resolve them.
Conference on human rights
Yoon, in the speech, also raised the idea of launching an international conference on North Korea's human rights and a fund to promote global awareness on the issue, support activist groups, and expand North Koreans' access to outside information.
"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.
Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean studies in Seoul, said the North could take Seoul's plans to promote human rights and outside information while offering aid and talks as contradictory and a threat to Kim's regime.
"Those plans look good on the surface, but from Pyongyang's perspective, they are nothing but programs that could contribute to overthrowing the regime," Yang said.
This year's speech marked a departure from Yoon's focus on Japan during past anniversaries, even as at least three Japanese cabinet ministers visited the controversial Yasukuni shrine which Seoul calls a symbol of the country's wartime aggression.
Seoul's foreign ministry expressed deep disappointment over the visit, urging Tokyo to "face history and demonstrate humble reflection and genuine introspection on the past."
The main opposition Democratic Party issued a statement denouncing Yoon's speech as a plot to consolidate his "pro-Japan, ultra-right forces" and instigate war with North Korea.
Yoon's office defended the speech, saying it showed Seoul's confidence by seeking cooperation with Tokyo while raising thorny historical issues, as well as laying groundwork for future North Korean unification even without Pyongyang's help.
"We cannot be optimistic about when and how they (the North Koreans) will respond," an official told reporters, while noting that a working-level consultative body would not suddenly require leaders to meet and shake hands without substantive progress.
