WNAM REPORT: President Yoon Suk Yeol delivers an address marking Liberation Day at Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in Jongno District, Seoul, in this picture provided by his office, Aug. 15. Yonhap
President Yoon Suk Yeol unveiled a vision for unification with North Korea on Thursday, pledging to expand outside information in the reclusive nation and proposing an official dialogue channel that can “take up any issue.”
Yoon made the remark in an address marking Liberation Day, which celebrates the 1945 end of Japan’s colonial rule, saying, “Complete liberation remains an unfinished task” as the Korean Peninsula still remains divided.
“The freedom we enjoy must be extended to the frozen kingdom of the North, where people are deprived of freedom and suffer from poverty and starvation,” Yoon said. “Only when a unified free and democratic nation rightfully owned by the people is established across the entire Korean Peninsula will we finally have complete liberation.”
Yoon laid out three key tasks for unification: defending freedom in South Korea from fake news and other destabilizing elements, bringing about changes in North Korea through human rights improvements and outside information, and strengthening cooperation with the international community.
He also proposed “a working group” between the two Koreas to discuss ways to ease tension, resume economic cooperation and increase exchanges.
“This body could take up any issue, ranging from relieving tensions to economic cooperation, people-to-people and cultural exchanges, and disaster and climate-change responses,” he said. “We will also be able to discuss pending humanitarian issues, such as separated families and South Korean prisoners of war, abductees and detainees still kept in the North.”
Yoon urged the North to respond to the proposal, saying dialogue and cooperation can bring about substantive progress in inter-Korean relations.
Among the plans outlined was the expansion of North Koreans’ “right of access to information” to help awaken the outside world.
