South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has proposed starting a dialogue with the North Korean regime with a view to addressing “any issue” and moving towards the unification of the peninsula, a horizon that is still distant for now between two countries that, technically, remain at war.
Yoon believes that the “liberation” achieved after the Japanese surrender in 1945 remains “incomplete” and has advocated that “the frozen kingdom of the North” should also enjoy the same freedom as the South and be able to catch up in terms of social development.
“Only when a free and democratic unified nation, legitimately owned by the people, is established throughout the Korean peninsula can complete liberation be achieved,” the South Korean president stressed at an event to commemorate the end of Japanese rule.
For Yoon, rapprochement requires a number of key requirements, including defending freedom in South Korea and stopping any potential destabilization. He has promised a massive aid program in exchange for Pyongyang’s steps toward denuclearization and has noted that even in the current context of tensions, Seoul continues to offer humanitarian aid, as it did in the recent floods.
He also proposed promoting changes in North Korea by means of information coming from abroad and improving human rights. In this sense, he appealed to the “right to information” so that citizens themselves can realise the real situation in which their country is immersed, something that according to Yoon happens to those who flee to South Korea when they begin to have access to a free press.
On the other side of the border, however, Kim Jong Un’s regime has not shown any recent signs of agreeing to even a dialogue that was raised as a possibility in 2018 and 2019, in an unprecedented attempt promoted from the White House by then-US President Donald Trump.
Kim Jong Un has this year removed the concept of peaceful unification from state policy guidelines and repealed laws facilitating economic cooperation with South Korea, while stirring up fears of a new arms and nuclear race with a view to even a conflict.
HISTORICAL LEGACY
August 15 is one of the few days that both Koreas commemorate at the same time, and which also coincide in criticizing the vision that Japan still maintains. This Thursday, several ministers of Fumio Kishida’s government visited the Yakusuni shrine to honor those who died in the conflict.
This is the fifth consecutive year that a minister has visited the controversial monument, while Kishida has opted to send an offering.
South Korea’s foreign minister was quick to express his “deep disappointment” at these actions, saying that Yasukuni “glorifies Japan’s past aggression.” “We urge responsible leaders in Japan to face history and demonstrate through actions humble reflection and genuine regret for what happened in the past,” he said in a statement.